SCRIPT TO BOOK CONVERSION

The project currently in the works is the conversion of a spec screenplay into a novella, to be published on KDP.

The screenplay ran 117 pages, which is a good length for a drama. It's about New Year's Eve 1999, and takes place in a police station. The two principals are detectives locked in a competition for Salesman of the Year, to be awarded to the one who can get the most confessions.

The conversion process began mechanically, by dumping the Final Draft version of the script (first saved as rtf) into Word. Macros from the original program were still active, apparently, so I had to save the document as text and reopen it. I then resaved it as rtf.

In the first pass through the manuscript I worked at changing the descriptions from present tense to past tense. I also stripped out character names, which in the script appeared in caps centered above lines of dialogue.

I wrangled the text into pre-Kindle mode: single-spaced block paragraphs with extra paragraph marks between them. I turned my dashes into two hyphens, with no spacing around them. Ellipses were changed to three periods, again with no spacing around (or between) them.

With all that done, I checked the length—about 20,000 words.

Long enough for my purposes, but I knew it would grow a bit, if only by fleshing out the descriptions of action. When I write in screenplay mode, I keep descriptions short and telegraphic, often using just one word in place of whole sentences. Fragments. Lots of 'em.

My second pass began the expansion process and corrected residual bits of present tense verbs. I find I have trouble making the transition. I was THINKING in present tense when I wrote it, and recasting a sentence into past tense is oddly difficult. I found chunks of present tense persisting into the third and forth proofing session.

Modern screenplays tend to have a lot of short scenes. And everything in the story stands right there out in the open. All actions are visual, and nearly every thought is expressed in dialogue. Character is revealed through action and dialogue alone, without interior monologue or anything like stream of consciousness. (Though sometimes there is voice-over narration—usually a hang-over from a well-known novel that's adapted to film.)

At least, this is true for most "Hollywood"-type productions.

Independent films tend to have longer, slower scenes, where character is more subtly hinted at. Maybe even some attempt is made to simulate interior landscapes.

Converting an "indy" script might call for a very free adaptation, a kind of re-imagining of the original concept. It would involve a process more like the conversion of a subjective, feelings-based novel to film, where the new writer would be more loyal to the spirit of the thing than to the original words.

SALESMAN OF THE YEAR is pretty Hollywood in concept. It's a mostly "surface" project. Action and dialogue. But there's still room to expand on character thoughts and attitudes, trading interior monologue for overt dialogue and bouts of physical twitching (sighs, shrugs, etc).

One of the biggest challenges is assigning point of view in the scenes. In a movie, POV is largely confined to camera tricks—literally having the camera track toward the object a particular character is approaching.

In suspense films, an action taking place inside a house might suddenly be seen from OUTSIDE the house, the camera in restless movement, ducking behind bushes, and whatnot. That's supposed to tell you someone is out there, watching. A lurker. Probably a bad guy.

Generally, though, an action taking place in a room is "covered" by various shots: singles and two shots and over the shoulder shots. Close ups might clue you to a particular character's mood, based on facial expression or body language. A grimace or a smile.

In a film, dramatic confrontation might well play out by jumping from one close up to another, featuring various major characters. With a large cast in play, a great many folks might get a moment of screen time in that one big scene. Plus, you have to be careful to document the everyone present, lest a sudden shot of some guy surprise the audience (where'd HE come from?).

But in narrative fiction, scenes are almost always "owned" by one particular character. That one person sees and hears everything that gets described, with perhaps a running mental commentary that tells the reader how the character feels about what he's experiencing.

If another character is in the same scene—and you want to get inside their head, too—you're supposed to skip a line and start a new scene.

In a movie, there is a lot more doubt over who exactly might be a viewpoint character. Multiple close-ups may imply multiple VPs. The exception is usually an experiment in POV (e.g., LADY IN THE LAKE, starring and directed by Robert Montgomery, which uses a "subjective" camera that "plays" the lead character).

Furthermore, a great many scenes might unspool with NONE of the main characters in evidence.

In a novel, this is handled by an adjustment of narrative distance. Main characters think a lot about the scenes they're in, while the interior furniture of minor characters is only hinted at.

When the novel calls for a lot of extraneous scenes, one thing you generally can't do is write the book in the first person.

In a strict first-person novel, the reader shouldn't be shown anything the main character doesn't personally witness. This can be frustratingly limited.

But there are exceptions and work-arounds. First person characters can NARRATE events that take place outside his or her presence, as long as it's plausible for the character to learn about those events from other sources or (less convincing) circumstantial evidence. It's distracting to wonder how the first person narrator could have found out what he's talking about.

Movies are relentlessly third person affairs. Narrative fiction designed to cover the same material will concentrate on certain main characters, using third-person interior monologue. Other necessary scenes, without main characters, will be kept short and operate as close to the surface as possible.

Fortunately, modern "Hollywood" movies tend to be about one character in trouble. Everything else is secondary. That simplifies the process of adaptation somewhat.

In this project, the very large number of short scenes (around 50), presents another challenge. Not POV, but formatting.

I decided to treat those scenes (which often jump around from place to place during a sustained action) in the simplest manner: automatically.

I had already added a # sign to separate scenes when I massaged the script into Word shape. Now (with the Mobipocket-created HTML safely in Notepad++) I just changed the style of each of the initial paragraphs to "start." That gave me a space between scenes (via the margin-top setting) and no indent (text-indent:0em). At the moment, I'm planning no further treatment.

It's different for the first paragraph of a chapter. (And that was another sub-project in the conversion, breaking the screenplay into chapters.) There I've gone with small caps for the first three or four words (type out in caps, surround the text with <small> and </small> tags).

The initial letter is set in what I call "bigcaps." These are 200% sized caps originally designed for drop caps, but raised by top and bottom margin specs to ride on (or just below) the first line. In other words, no "drop".

Here's the code I use in the <style> section of the HTML:

span.bigcaps
{font-weight:bold;
font-size:200%;
float:left;
padding-right:0.02em;
margin-top:-0.47em;
margin-bottom:-0.65em;}

These specs work perfectly in Firefox, but I'll probably have to make adjustments for Kindle Previewer.

Note that this code only works in kf8 apps: Kindle Fire, HD, and Paperwhite. I don't add additional code for Kindle Classic and DX, but the initial letter in those apps comes out as a 2 em capital, apparently the biggest you can get in a default font.

Using bigcaps gets me a dramatically large letter up front without having to worry about the spacing issue in Kindle Fire, where first letters larger than about 1.5 em cause the gap between lines one and two to be larger than the gaps between other lines in the paragraph.

Anyway, all this is mechanical. I still have a way to go in the adaptation, mostly slowing down some of the scenes and creating more material for internal character development.

As it stands, the thing has grown to 22,500 words, despite the fact I cut out a few short scenes.

A work in progress, then. I'll let you know when it goes on the air.

For the moment I turn my attention to matters external to my real life. Come Monday, I may be on my way to jury duty.

I can hardly wait....

HTML IN KDP BOOK DESCRIPTIONS

When you publish your book on KDP it's now permissible to use a little HTML to jazz up your Product Description.

I believe this works best for non-fiction books, where special items like bulleted lists make more sense. Still, in the case of a novel I don’t think it would be out of line to use italics or bold text to emphasize a plot point or two.

FYI, the approved tags are: b, br, em, font, h1 through h6, hr, i, li, ol, p, pre, s, strike, strong, sub, sup, u, and ul. You’re probably familiar with many of these guys, but here’s some info on some of them: ol and ul are ordered and unordered lists, respectively, where li identifies each list item. (Ordered lists get numbers, unordered lists get black bullets.)

Both s and strike run horizontal lines through text, while u underlines it. You get italics with either i or em. Similarly, b and strong both come out bold. If you find yourself using subscript (sub) or superscript (sup), you might be writing a book about water (H₂O) or the spicy world of Triple X (X³).

(This list of tags was adapted from KDP’s reply to an email query sent by author/publisher Tom Corson-Knowles and reproduced on his Webpage, TCK Publishing.)

Some words of advice about using HTML tags in the Product Description window: What you’re submitting is not a page of text, nor a page of HTML code—it’s a bastard hybrid that takes special handling. Send those guys no unintended line breaks. Make your book description one solid hunk of text, with the occasional set of HTML tags inserted where called for.

If, for instance, you have an unordered list, understand that the end tag for each item (</li>) contains within it a line break. If your description were to show each entry on a separate line, KDP will insert an additional line break at the end of every list item. On the sell page, that comes out as double-spaced text, which is probably not what you were going for.

Similarly, don’t add a line break (<br />) after header code end tags (e.g., </h2>). There’s a built-in break that varies in height depending on the size of header used. And by the way, because of pre-existing style code on their Web site, h2 headers come out in a custom-designed color called Amazon orange.

Always review your book description after your book goes live. Be prepared to come back to the page and make changes. I know it’s a hassle, but you’re in public now. Act accordingly.

If you have a lot of header code in your description, and a big fat typo in the first line, you have a decision to make.

Changing book items from the KDP window can take over twelve hours. And I believe the book will just sit there on the sell page, mistakes and all, the whole time.

Turns out you CAN fix the problem fast—in about ten minutes, in fact—but you have to go about it a different way.

If you have a bio up on Amazon's Author Central (and why don't you?), you can go there to fix your defective product description. Log onto your account, click Books at the top of the page, then select the book in question from the list.

The item will come up with the Editorial Reviews tab live, and that's where you want to be. (Note: You won't find this tab at Author Central UK; you have to use the American version.) If you have reviews on this page, scroll down to the last item: the Product Description. Click Edit.

You can now view your description in one of two windows, Compose or Edit HTML. You may notice your carefully sculpted headers are no longer so special. The thing is, the selection of HTML available on Author Central is rather limited. You can't use header code here, just italics, bold, line breaks, and lists (ordered or unordered).

But you CAN correct your typo, that's the good news.

The bad news? If you enter any changes on this page you will lose your ability to make changes on the KDP page forever. That means, in lieu of headers you'll have to type the text out in bold caps.

Since most descriptions of novels can do without header text, this is probably a good compromise.

By the way: After you preview your changes and click Save at the bottom of the page, you'll get a message saying the new stuff will be on the Web page in three to five business days. Not true, fortunately. Ten minutes or so will usually do the job.

Back in Editorial Reviews after the save, you'll notice the Compose window is now blank. But exit this book and return later, both windows will be populated again.

Tantalizingly, if you put header tags in the Edit HTML window, they show up in the Compose window. It's an illusion. Click Preview to see what's really headed to your sell page. The Preview window is accurate.

Keep in mind, the rules for HTML use are the same at Author Central as they are on the KDP page. The Edit HTML window shows you the text in one big block paragraph. If you break it up for easier viewing, the system will insert page break codes everywhere, converting your book description into erratic, double-spaced text. Next thing you know, you're back at Author Central going over the whole thing again. It can start to get tedious...