Thursday, December 28, 2017

Hailey's Novel Diary – 12/28/17

I'm really trying to keep this book under 100,000 words. It's not easy. I am somewhere around 120,000 right now. That might sound like I'm far above my own self-imposed limit, but at this stage in editing, a paragraph can easily turn into a sentence. There is always more subtracting than adding in the final drafts.

Does this book need to be under 100,000 words? No. I'm not contractually obligated to deliver a lower word count, and the movie thing is not really a consideration at this point. But I know how this game is played. The longer it is, the more likely someone somewhere will demand that I shorten it. The last thing I want to do when I think I'm finished is to go back and finish it even more, especially weeks or months after I have stopped thinking about the story and moved on to something else. I realize that is part of the job, but it is my least favorite part. It's much easier to make those changes during the editing phase.

Selling the film rights does not really make any difference to how I'm writing. If there were already actors and a director attached, they would probably all have opinions about everything. Can this character do that instead. This character needs to be more like Actress A. But at this stage, there is only a minor production company involved, and they have nothing to do with the story. The final draft will be finished before anyone can tell me everything they hate about it.

If I bring it in under 100,000 words, which is anyone's guess at this point, and if I sell the film rights, which could still fall through, and if a movie actually gets made, which is unlikely no matter who owns the rights, the book will be on shelves long before anyone tells me how I should have rewritten the story. I can see the appeal, from the filmmakers' point of view, to having a say in how the original source material is written. But if they want to do that, they should call me while I'm writing the first few drafts.

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