We don’t yet know how much impact turning the second draft into a screenplay will have.

If you have ever tried to turn a novel into a script you’ll know there isn’t much room to move. You cut out most of the sub-plots, and rely on internal characterisation being carried by the actors, rather than your story. Screenplays are often better when they’re made from a novella, or sometimes even a short story, because then the film can do them justice.

What happens when you turn it back the other way?

Movie novelisations generally take a film and transpose it pretty much direct to the page. There is little of the true character building that you get in a full-blown novel, and almost none of sub-stories that make the novel so intriguing. Without the actors to carry the story they’re often unsatisfying. They’re also usually very short.

There is really only room for the major plot and one sub-plot in a movie. In Barrain the major plot is Caid getting back to Barrain and righting the wrong he perpetrated, the sub-plot is Mathers’ chasing the supposed murder of Caid. They both come together in the end (as all good sub-plots do) but there is little room for other stories, such as Elna’s relationship with both men, or Scott’s relationship with Storm.

We started off with 80,000 words in draft 1, and cut it down to under 20,000 in draft 2. That’s major surgery. All we are left with is the bare bones of the main story—pretty much just the outline.

Where do we go from here?

We need to undo some of the undoing we have already done.

Getting in some sub-plots, for a start, and they won’t necessarily be the ones we had in draft 1. Elna will obviously come back into the story more. She likes Caid, believes he would make a good partner. How will Caid cope with that? He doesn’t want the responsibility. What about Scott, who is prepared to take the responsibility, for Storm’s sake, if not for Elna?

The ranger made a passing visit in draft 2. I suspect she will feature more in draft 3, but don’t really know until we get there.

And Taliah (formerly known as Tull). Taliah has been there right from the start, but she’s sneaking her way in, more and more with each draft.

Then there’s the crystal. We don’t know much about the crystal at all. That crystal, or others like it, is going to feature a whole lot more in draft three.