Contents ( 64)
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- INTERLUDE
- THREE
- FOUR
- INTERLUDE
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- INTERLUDE
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- INTERLUDE
- TWELVE
- PART TWO
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- INTERLUDE
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-ONE
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-TWO
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-THREE
- PART THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- INTERLUDE
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-ONE
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-TWO
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-THREE
- INTERLUDE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- INTERLUDE
- FORTY-ONE
- About the Author
- Acknowledgments
- CHUCK WENDIG in conversation with Adam Christopher
Some books demand chapter-by-chapter outlines. Some ask for beat sheets or synopses. Every story is different and hungers for different preparation. Same as how the preparation of different meals demands a different mise en place.
What else did the scriptwriting workshop teach you? Something I find fascinating about scripts (whether they are for films, or television, or even comic books) is tha they're almost entirely dialogue. Do you think it is beneficial for writers of prose to at least make a small study of other forms of writing, such as scripts?
The best screenwriting workshop I attended was when I got accepted into the Sundance Screenwriting Lab with my writing partner, Lance. For several days we hunkered down with a number of top shelf screenwriters and incubated the very concept of story and character and what it all means. Very potent experience.
And what it taught me is that story is story. Whether we're talking games, novels, films, comics, whatever – story is story. It's still beholden to narrative ideas and rules and tradition. Sure, each format brings its own challenges and advantages, but at the end of the day a good story is a good story no matter the format.
It is beneficial, then, for writers to become more versatile and try other forms – from short stories to comic scripts to game material and back to novels. If anything, it teaches you to identify those things that work across the board, those things that speak to the heart of the reader and, even better, from the heart of the writer.
Consequently, what impact has the scriptwriting tangent had on your subsequent work after Blackbirds?
That's the funny thing – I kind of snuck into screenwriting through the back door hoping only to workshop a then-failed novel, and what happens? I end up a bonafide screenwriter, it seems. Had a short film go to Sundance (Pandemic in 2011), have a larger film from that transmedia storyworld in development (HiM or Hope Is Missing), took an original idea to pilot with my writing partner for TNT, had a transmedia project (Collapsus) nominated for a international digital Emmy award. Been a crazy ride. And all of it, really, thanks to stalling out with Blackbirds!
Each writer's journey is ever the crazy one. We all dig our own tunnels in and detonate the path behind us.
Chuck, thank you very much! Um… did you want me to detach the electrodes, or are you okay for a while?
No, no, I'm good here. The puddle of my own urine is somehow comforting. Like an old friend.
Adam Christopher is the author of EMPIRE STATE and the forthcoming SEVEN WONDERS, both from Angry Robot books. You can find him online at adamchristopher.co.uk and on Twitter as @ghostfinder.
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The death of me
An Angry Robot paperback original 2012
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Copyright © Chuck Wendig 2012
Chuck Wendig asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.