I was seven years old when I took
my first stab at writing, penning a sequel to
with Crayolas and construction paper.
I eventually traded it to a friend for three
packs of Batman cards, but the fire had been lit.
Three days ago, on April 8, that
fire was stoked by the publication of my first novel,
.
my book combines fantasy and reality as well as joyous experiences
and sobering losses.
It tells the story
of Angie Costianes, a woman from Queens who ditches her wedding because she’s
not feeling the love and travels to an uncharted island where the gods of
Olympus are plotting their return to power.
In the course of her adventures, she tangles with all the bigwigs, from
Zeus to Hades; battles monsters both reptilian and lipsticked; and romances Milos,
a descendant of the Olympians who, as it happens, has been crushing on her for
years even though they’ve never met.
The
book has been categorized as both a mystery and a romance, but I consider it a
hybrid—a romantic action-adventure, if you will.
Although my writing career has
spanned more than thirty years, it took me until last week to achieve this particular
milestone. I’ve worked as a newspaper reporter,
a small-town movie critic and a public relations specialist. But I’ve spent the bulk of my years writing
and producing half-hour television. It’s
been a great ride, with stints on shows like Newhart, Night Court, Living Single and Hope & Faith. These
days, I’m consulting on an animated kids’ show for Disney Junior Channel called
Puppy Dog Tales. I often joke with friends that as I
get older, the TV audience I’m writing for gets younger.
Even though I’ve enjoyed the heck out
of working in television, I’ve never lost the desire to write a novel.
So a few years ago, I decided to put that
passion to the test by turning one of my
unsold screenplays into a novel.
I figured, how hard could it be?
I was already a writer.
It just meant shifting gears a little, right?
Boy, was I in for a wakeup call.
The experience of transitioning
from scripts to novels has been both humbling and enriching.
And while I still have a ways to go, I think
I’m finally on the verge of being able to call myself a novelist.
With that in mind, I thought I’d blog about two
of the differences I’ve experienced between the two mediums—one in the writing
and the other in the process itself.
 |
| Me (top row, second from left) and my writing/executive-producing partner, Jim Pond, (second row, far left), along with the cast of the long-running Fox series, Living Single. |
First off, when you’re writing half-hour television,
virtually everything is expressed through dialogue.
Sure, there are the occasional nods and sighs
and furtive glances, but just about every element of the story happens as a
result of characters speaking with one another, usually within a handful of
locations for reasons of practicality and budget.
That’s because your soundstage is only so big,
and even though it costs upwards of a million dollars to produce a half-hour episode
of television, a lot of that money gets eaten up in cast salaries.
In a novel, dialogue is still important, but equally
important is internal monologue—what’s going on inside the heads of
characters.
That never occurred to me
when I lifted big chunks of dialogue out of my screenplay and plopped them onto
the page.
Other than occasional breaks
for action, there was little to the manuscript other than talk, and virtually
no insight into what was going on in my characters’ minds.
What was my college football hero thinking as
he flirted with the young bookkeeper he met at a school dance in 1919?
Was he as cocky as he came off, or was he so awed
by her beauty and wit that he was surprised he was getting the words out?
And what was
she thinking when she boldly matched him word for word?
Was she intrigued about where this might lead
or scared half to death?
Description is also much
more important in novels than in TV scripts.
A living room that might be described in a sentence in a half-hour script
might take several pages to describe in a novel.
That’s partly because your so-called standing
sets in television (the bar on
Cheers,
the coffee shop in
Friends) already
exist, and everyone involved in the process knows what they look like.
And your occasional one-time-only sets (called swing sets), can be described to your set designer in person rather than
by increasing the page count of a script that’s often required to be no more
than a certain length.
In any case, neither of those things was obvious to me when
I set out to write my first novel.
But thanks
to the help of a friend who’s a seasoned novelist, I learned how to expand my
sequences so there was often as much going on internally as externally.
It was hard at first.
I felt like I was forcing it, when in
reality, I wasn’t going deep enough into my characters’ heads.
In regard to description, being an impatient
person I often thought, “Let’s just get to it,” rushing through description to
get to the heart of the scene.
But over time,
I learned that getting there is often as interesting as being there.
And it certainly paints a more vivid picture.
The other difference I’ve experienced is in how the two
products are put together.
When you’re a
writer in Hollywood, the process is very collaborative.
While you still come up with jokes and story
ideas on your own, you’re working on a staff with ten or more writers, so the
final product is usually the result of a group-think process.
Somebody comes in with an idea that everyone
agrees would make a good story, and you work as a group to “break” it, fleshing
it out scene by scene, before sending a writer off to do an outline, followed
by two drafts of a script.
At each
stage, the group, led by the executive producer, gives the writer feedback or “notes”
on the script.
Then, when the script is
handed in for good, the executive producer leads the group in taking a pass at
it, known as “tabling.”
During this
process, jokes often change and whole scenes can be replaced.
I’ve occasionally been in situations where no
more than a couple of my original lines have remained.
Not the most secure feeling in the world, but
a reality of the business.
When you’re writing a novel, you’re on your own.
You’re coming up with your story and dialogue
while sitting in front of your computer, running on a treadmill, sipping coffee
or walking your dog.
It’s all you.
That might seem like a huge amount of
freedom, but for me it was intimidating.
After twenty-some years of working on a writing staff, I was suddenly
all alone, staring at a blank screen.
Some days, I’d start writing with no particular plan, just to assure
myself I was still a writer.
But because
most of those days went nowhere, I learned to brainstorm on my own.
Not that I haven’t leaned on my friends and
fellow novelists for ideas, but by and large I’ve learned to do it alone,
without the safety net of another creative mind.
But there are benefits.
When you’re writing a novel, you have the freedom to create an infinite universe,
one that’s not limited by budget restraints or an actor’s abilities.
And there’s something to be said for the
feeling you get at the end of the day when you can sit back and acknowledge you
did it all yourself.
In spite of the differences between the two mediums, there
are some basic similarities.
Both are
essentially about setting up a good story, then telling it compellingly and
passionately.
And whether I’m writing a
script or a novel, I love creating something original. That doesn’t mean it comes easily.
There have been days in comedy writing when
the jokes didn’t flow and many, many days as a novelist when I couldn’t get a
plot point right or make a passage read as anything other than hopelessly
awkward.
But when it does come, when you
finally make a piece of writing sing, it’s an amazing feeling of joy and
accomplishment.
I hope all that shows in
A
Girls Guide to Landing a Greek God. It certainly was a kick to take my little
nugget of an idea all the way to publication.
Thanks for joining us, Bill! Readers, what surprises or interests you about Bill's journey? Which would be more challenging for you--writing collaboratively or writing solo?
Bill Fuller is a novelist as well
as a television writer and producer. As a producer, his credits include Hope
& Faith, For Your Love and Living Single. Before becoming a producer, he was an
executive story editor on the long-running series Night Court and story
editor for Newhart, as well as a writer for numerous other television
series for Paramount, USA, NBC Universal, HBO, Disney, and others.
His first novel, A Girl’s Guide to Landing a Greek God, was published this month by
Llewellyn Worldwide, and is the first of a trilogy. He’ll follow it up with a standalone novel, The Forever Year, in July. He lives in Redondo Beach, California, but
still holds his hometown of Warren, Ohio, close to his heart. Read more about his books at http://www.billfullerbooks.com.
You can find A Girl’s Guide to Landing a Greek God online through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
