I made that word up. Novel writing just doesn’t have the same impact, at least not to the extent that the creation of fiction deserves. So, I go with “noveling.” As a new author and recent escapee from the writer torture chamber that is Hollywood, I’ve been asked at bookstore events and in podcast interviews to comment on my transition from screen to books mediums. What made me decide to leave screenwriting? Was it difficult learning how to write fiction after more than three decades of exclusively making screenplays? Are you now a novelist or a screenwriter? No, I am not the first screenwriter to make the transition. Gobs of novelists make a living in Hollywood today. I think, perhaps, what makes my situation a tad unique is the unbridled joy with which I have found a home in the publishing world. In answer to that last question, then, that I consider myself a novelist first and a screenwriter of my own novels a distant second.

And the first two questions? Allow me to be blunt. A screenwriter (especially in film but mostly to the same extent in television) has ZERO say-so in what ends up on the screen. You are a cog in a vast machine required to create the finished “product.” It’s a cliché to say so, but entirely true that all the other hands in the mix hate you (the writer) and hold you in contempt. Once hired for your services, you are essentially a highly paid and extremely expendable slave. All decision-making flows in one direction: you accommodate them. And “them” includes a small army of insecure lunatics who reign over your fate for the life of the project. Sound fun? You are paid extremely well for your suffering, fellow scribe. Suck it up. That’s what I did. Bought a house. Raised a family. Sent the kids to college. And, in that time, movies changed. They stopped being about human beings. (Why? Fall of home video and rise of global market.) So I decided to stay light on the balls of my feet, just like always. I considered filling the page from margin-to-margin. Total lark. Had no idea what I was doing except for having developed some very particular writing muscles. Which muscles? So glad you asked!

Here’s a pro tip about Hollywood. Everyone hates to read. And I mean everyone. Please don’t send me your spec script. I hate it already. Tough place to be a writer, right? How do you get people to read your million-dollar baby? You compel these word-hating recalcitrant readers by writing like your life depends on it. By learning to cut all of the fat. By treating words and language like they’re foreplay. By toying with your reader, teasing him or her and being flirty. You learn to write in the most entertaining fashion you possibly can. Tarantino is the master of this showmanship. Shane Black is an early innovator, too. They’ve been imitated (in screenwriting) to death. So you develop your own game. Punch up, not down. Give ‘em something they’ve never seen before. Surprise them. That’s how you endure thirty-five years in the screenwriting game. Or, at least, that’s how I survived.

And so I endeavored to bring those same writing chops to my noveling. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. But I am down with everything there is to know about capturing a reader’s eyeballs and clenching them in my greedy, little hands. The rest is just writing margin-to-margin, right? (Not really, but you get my point, don’t you?) Which brings me to the very most salient point of this six-hundred-and-sixty-three word screed. All of you noveling badasses out there must take this one lesson to heart: please, please, please, you must write the screenplay or pilot adaptation of your lovely novel. Don’t let anyone tell you haven’t the “skill.” Say no until they agree to give you at least that first shot. Because, fellow scribes and fans of scribes, any writer can write anything.