1 post tagged max allan collins

Max Allan Collins writes movies, graphic novels (Road to Perdition) and mysteries (Lady, Go Die, released earlier this month).

In this exclusive guest post, Collins talks about the challenges of writing for the screen vs. novels (and graphic novels), and how lessons of independent filmmaking help him make the transition.

I’m a storyteller. 

That’s how I think of myself, and describe myself.  Everything else is a compartment: mystery writer; screenwriter; comics writer; non-fiction writer; songwriter; and so on … almost always with “writer” part of the description, but “storyteller” at the heart of the beast.

Those various compartments grow out of two things: enthusiasm and necessity.  Enthusiasm is what drives me — I get an idea for a story, and I want to pursue it.  Necessity is the need to keep the writing projects flowing, because this is my profession and I need to make a living.  You know, to keep the lights on in the joint.

That means I need to be flexible and versatile.  Starting out, I thought of myself as a mystery writer, and writing mystery novels was the goal.  But I was always a big fan of movies and comics, so when I’ve been given the chance to work in those fields, I’ve grabbed it. 

On the other hand, a lot of writers can’t make the transition into another form.  The list of novelists who are miserable screenwriters is a long one; and the list of screenwriters who become successful novelists is a short one.

The ability to write both novels and screenplays well requires developing an appreciation and an understanding of each form.  The novelist who wanders blithely into screenwriting will inevitably write scenes that would work fine in a novel but are inappropriate for a film.  A novelist will typically write a dialogue scene that is either too long, too short, or not necessary.   Novelists have no budgetary restrictions in fashioning a novel, a freedom that is death on a screenplay, where every dollar — like every second — counts.

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