It’s Easy to Find Inviting Paths

As I said in my last post, writers find it easy to either get sidetracked by unproductive projects, or refuse to try anything new because they’re tired of not seeing results for their efforts. I offered several questions to ask yourself in deciding whether or not to bother. The one I didn’t discuss is: How did this project come to my attention?

If someone called you up and asked you to do it, if someone recommended you for the job, or if you seemingly have no hurdles to overcome to get it, then go for it. Maybe it won’t ultimately work out, but if the opportunity came to you rather than you having to search it out (the more typical route), it’s probably worth trying.

Unfortunately, there’s still room for failure. That’s what happened to me when a producer asked me to write a screenplay based on my book, Vanished in Hiawatha: The Untold Story of the Canton Asylum for Insane Indians. I was intrigued by the possibility, but had never written a screenplay before. The man convinced me that with screenwriting software, I could manage, so I gave it a shot.

He was right, in a way. The software made some of the most frustrating aspects of just getting the story down much easier. However, no one should expect their first effort at a new genre to be wonderful, and mine wasn’t. The screenplay was given to a director who very kindly gave me a fairly detailed critique, and I realized I could be going through umpteen iterations before I got the story down in a way that would satisfy any underwriters. I wanted to pursue it, but because I’d already given quite a bit of time to it and didn’t have any kind of guarantee, I decided to let it go.

My takeaway? I took advantage of an exciting opportunity, I learned a new skill, and I looked at my story in a whole new way. I’m better off for having tried screenwriting, I think, even if nothing came of it. And who knows, letting my story percolate in a different way may pay off yet. We’ll see.