Evil Gnomes Opting Books

Ever wonder how unpublished books get film opts? A snarky literary agent has a plausible explanation: evil gnomes in Hollywood with little elfish spies who open the mail and answer the phone and get extra booty for securing a scoop.

Time after time I'm told by screenwriters who were once in the spotlight but now relegated to an obligatory courtesy email, that I should convert my screenplays into novels. Waaah. I don't wanna.

"Your agent will thank you," says the most obnoxious of these bitter at the world writers who always prefaces our screenwriting discussion with "what are you wearing?" After I tell him I'm wearing a .357 Magnum, we move on to how I come from a writing arena where prose is non existent.

I'm guilty of throwing bits of prose into my screenplays and while I don't mind reading two pages that describe an antique castle in the highlands, I can't possibly write two pages describing a castle in the highlands. I can't even write two pages of a treatment describing my screenplay! But hey, next time you need to confront a press corp over judicial misconduct, I'll punch out a speech for you that makes the Gettysburg Address sound like... well, like my prose.

Example of my prose:

This is Dick. This is Jane. See Dick? See Jane? This is Spot. See Spot chase the ball? Spot has rabies. Dick runs away. Jane runs, too. See spot chase Dick and Jane? Run, Dick! Run, Jane! Jane runs faster. Dick falls down. Spot bites Dick. Jane bites Spot. Spot dies. Dick dies. Jane wins the Boston Marathon. The End.

No, my agent wouldn't thank me for it.

UPDATE: Here's what The Thinking Writer has to say on the matter. If you don't want to read the whole thing, the crux is this: "it is no harder to sell a well-told unpublished short story or novel to Hollywood than to sell a screenplay."