Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted since January! There are two pieces of news to get you up to date on: 1) Gappy's journey to the big screen/Hollywood, and 2) Book 7.
You might know that all six of Gappy's Young Vampire Adventures have been optioned by a movie producer in L.A. She loves the Gappy series and is excited to be working on getting a movie deal for him. The first three books, A Surprise for Gappy, Gappy Disappears, and Gappy is Kidnapped, will comprise the first movie, and Books 4-6, Gappy and the Thieves, Gappy's Great Escape, and Gappy and the Witch's Curse, will make up one or two subsequent movies.
The producer sent me a spare copy of the screenwriting program she uses, called Final Draft. I'm not very computer literate so I asked my husband, who's a computer wiz, to figure it out and show me how to use it. It is easy to use and has some neat features. When you enter a discussion between two people, it automatically fills in that character's name because it assumes the person is going to be responding to the first character. It also has a really cool feature, in that it has a number of different audio voices you can assign to your characters, and then you can tell it to read the script out loud, using the voices you have assigned to the characters. I haven't done that yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it.
Anyway, around the beginning of this year, after the contract had finally been signed by all parties, I set to work on the screenplay. I had previously written the first 10 minutes in Word, up to the point in Book 1 where Gappy finds out that he is turning into a vampire, and once I had downloaded the proper screenwriting software and had a lesson from my husband, I converted what I had done thus far into the program. Then I spent a free day off in my favorite coffee shop downtown and listed all the scenes in A Surprise for Gappy and Gappy Disappears. I've spent so much time writing at The Daily Grind that I simply must acknowledge them at the end of Book 7 . . . but, back to the scenes: Each scene appears as a digital index card on the right side of the screen. You can decide how many you want to see at once, you can given them headings, make notes in them, describe the action, etc.
There's a format to use when you begin each scene. You have to put INT. or EXT. for interior or exterior, where the action takes place, i.e. Gappy's Kitchen, and whether it's morning, afternoon, evening, midnight, etc. The scene headings from the index cards appear on the left side of the screen, which is the actual screenplay. Below the screen heading, you type in a description of the action in that scene, and then you start your dialogue, which the program arranges in a column down the middle of the page. You can also add in parentheses below the character's name the way the character is speaking, e.g. chuckling, angry, sadly, sighing, etc.
I spent the weekend filling in all the scenes with the action descriptions and dialogue and quickly learned that less dialogue is better than too much. That's my main problem: I'm way too wordy and find it difficult to pare down. Keep in mind that one page of screenplay represents roughly one minute of movie time, and you only have a thin strip down the middle of the page to fit the dialogue into. You also can't say what a character is thinking, like you can in a book, unless you want the audience to hear his/her thoughts, which sometimes does happen in movies. In Gappy's case, I don't think that's the way it's going to go, so therefore I have to write in facial expressions, body language, and movement in order to impart what the characters are thinking or feeling at that moment.
Remember, one page is equal to one minute? Well, Books 1 and 2 took up 70 pages of screenplay and I still had to add Book 3, Gappy is Kidnapped, which is about three times the length of books 1 and 2 combined! A children's movie should ideally be about an hour and a half long - i.e. 90 minutes. That meant I only had 20 pages left. The producer told me not to worry about the length for now, just to get it all down, and we would cut it down afterwards.
I took a break from screenwriting to concentrate on finishing Book 7 (no title yet but probably something like Gappy in Disguise or Gappy Goes Under Cover). After a jaunt to the UK for my aunt and uncle's Golden Wedding Anniversary, the producer e-mailed me to ask if I had started writing the screenplay again because she has people to talk to and they don't really take you too seriously until there's actually a complete screenplay that's close to the final draft.
I received the e-mail on a Wednesday, which is Grandma Day in our household, so after I'd put my granddaughter down for her nap in the afternoon, I set to work putting Book 3 into the screenplay. I then worked on it all weekend and finished it Sunday night. The total length - about 175 pages! I also wrote a page of ideas about how to cut down the length and e-mailed the screenplay with my idea sheet to the producer. The first read-through and idea sheet were well received and I can't wait to get it back from her and see her editing suggestions, added directions, etc.
Book 7 is written and I've edited it a couple of times so far. I'm going to get back to it in a while so that I can look at it with fresh eyes and do another editing read-through. A friend of mine is helping me with some Spanish translation, and then it'll be done! All I can say for now is, Stay Tuned!
Star
You might know that all six of Gappy's Young Vampire Adventures have been optioned by a movie producer in L.A. She loves the Gappy series and is excited to be working on getting a movie deal for him. The first three books, A Surprise for Gappy, Gappy Disappears, and Gappy is Kidnapped, will comprise the first movie, and Books 4-6, Gappy and the Thieves, Gappy's Great Escape, and Gappy and the Witch's Curse, will make up one or two subsequent movies.
The producer sent me a spare copy of the screenwriting program she uses, called Final Draft. I'm not very computer literate so I asked my husband, who's a computer wiz, to figure it out and show me how to use it. It is easy to use and has some neat features. When you enter a discussion between two people, it automatically fills in that character's name because it assumes the person is going to be responding to the first character. It also has a really cool feature, in that it has a number of different audio voices you can assign to your characters, and then you can tell it to read the script out loud, using the voices you have assigned to the characters. I haven't done that yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it.
Anyway, around the beginning of this year, after the contract had finally been signed by all parties, I set to work on the screenplay. I had previously written the first 10 minutes in Word, up to the point in Book 1 where Gappy finds out that he is turning into a vampire, and once I had downloaded the proper screenwriting software and had a lesson from my husband, I converted what I had done thus far into the program. Then I spent a free day off in my favorite coffee shop downtown and listed all the scenes in A Surprise for Gappy and Gappy Disappears. I've spent so much time writing at The Daily Grind that I simply must acknowledge them at the end of Book 7 . . . but, back to the scenes: Each scene appears as a digital index card on the right side of the screen. You can decide how many you want to see at once, you can given them headings, make notes in them, describe the action, etc.
There's a format to use when you begin each scene. You have to put INT. or EXT. for interior or exterior, where the action takes place, i.e. Gappy's Kitchen, and whether it's morning, afternoon, evening, midnight, etc. The scene headings from the index cards appear on the left side of the screen, which is the actual screenplay. Below the screen heading, you type in a description of the action in that scene, and then you start your dialogue, which the program arranges in a column down the middle of the page. You can also add in parentheses below the character's name the way the character is speaking, e.g. chuckling, angry, sadly, sighing, etc.
I spent the weekend filling in all the scenes with the action descriptions and dialogue and quickly learned that less dialogue is better than too much. That's my main problem: I'm way too wordy and find it difficult to pare down. Keep in mind that one page of screenplay represents roughly one minute of movie time, and you only have a thin strip down the middle of the page to fit the dialogue into. You also can't say what a character is thinking, like you can in a book, unless you want the audience to hear his/her thoughts, which sometimes does happen in movies. In Gappy's case, I don't think that's the way it's going to go, so therefore I have to write in facial expressions, body language, and movement in order to impart what the characters are thinking or feeling at that moment.
Remember, one page is equal to one minute? Well, Books 1 and 2 took up 70 pages of screenplay and I still had to add Book 3, Gappy is Kidnapped, which is about three times the length of books 1 and 2 combined! A children's movie should ideally be about an hour and a half long - i.e. 90 minutes. That meant I only had 20 pages left. The producer told me not to worry about the length for now, just to get it all down, and we would cut it down afterwards.
I took a break from screenwriting to concentrate on finishing Book 7 (no title yet but probably something like Gappy in Disguise or Gappy Goes Under Cover). After a jaunt to the UK for my aunt and uncle's Golden Wedding Anniversary, the producer e-mailed me to ask if I had started writing the screenplay again because she has people to talk to and they don't really take you too seriously until there's actually a complete screenplay that's close to the final draft.
I received the e-mail on a Wednesday, which is Grandma Day in our household, so after I'd put my granddaughter down for her nap in the afternoon, I set to work putting Book 3 into the screenplay. I then worked on it all weekend and finished it Sunday night. The total length - about 175 pages! I also wrote a page of ideas about how to cut down the length and e-mailed the screenplay with my idea sheet to the producer. The first read-through and idea sheet were well received and I can't wait to get it back from her and see her editing suggestions, added directions, etc.
Book 7 is written and I've edited it a couple of times so far. I'm going to get back to it in a while so that I can look at it with fresh eyes and do another editing read-through. A friend of mine is helping me with some Spanish translation, and then it'll be done! All I can say for now is, Stay Tuned!
Star
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