I'd never had doubts about which way to tell a story until this year. I always knew from the start whether something was going to be a novel, a stageplay, screenplay, or short (both story and film). I know that other people sometimes have a dilemma in choosing which format to tell their story but it's never been a problem for me.
This changed a few months ago (August? September?) when I woke up at stupid o'clock and wrote a short film in an hour and a quarter. Just like that, as Tommy Cooper would've said. It started off with the image of a man in a crumpled suit sitting on a beach. Then it veered from the beach quickly and I ended up with a seven-scene screenplay.
Looking at it in the blurry-eyed light of day it dawned on me that, with a bit of jiggery-pokery, it might actually work better on stage. Or why not both? That's when I started to get this indecisiveness - why couldn't I just pick one?
I decided to leave it as a screenplay, one written in the throes of inspiration that I still couldn't give you a log-line for. What's it about? It's about three people...and their relationships...or lack thereof...or something else. For the first time in my writing life I think I've written something that isn't all about plot.
The question still remains: novel or script? My previous post on NaNoWriMo elaborates: two novel ideas pushed aside in favour of pursuing a script. Is one more attractive to a writer than an other? And is it best to carry on down the attractive route or maybe push on in the opposite direction?
For now I guess I'm working on a script, but one of the novels has to come right after that because the story might fall out of fashion pretty quickly.
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