Writers Tricks of the Trade Issue 2 Volume 8 | Page 16

to write prose, what it was like to go
deeper, to delve into those moments be-
fore a character decides to act, when she's
still ruminating about the consequences
and rooting through her thoughts and
emotions. Those pulpy, meaningful mo-
ments of decision are what’s missing in
movies. If written well, the audience
knows how to fill them in, but it’s never
quite the same as being able to seamlessly
float in and out of a characters’ con-
sciousness for the reader. And it doesn’t
require the screenwriter to know her
characters as intimately as an author
must.
In 2015, I’d finished the Missing at 17
manuscript and pitched it to an agent I’d
met at a writers conference the previous
year. He loved the manuscript, even
though I suspect he loved the film’s con-
sistently good ratings just as much, and
teamed up with a New York-based lit
agent to rep the project. Less than a year
later, the producers and I signed a deal
with Harper Teen, an imprint of Harper-
Collins, for three books: Missing at 17,
Pregnant at 17, and Murdered at 17. Alt-
hough Missing and Pregnant had repeat-
edly done well on Lifetime, the screenplay
for Murdered at 17 hadn’t even been writ-
ten yet. And so I went about novelizing
Pregnant and writing the manuscript and
the screenplay for Murdered at 17 at the
same time.
By the third book, I no longer strug-
gled with chipping away the mantle to
reach the core. I found myself fluidly mov-
ing from ‘show, don’t tell’ to ‘tell it all—
W RITERS ’ T RICKS OF THE T RADE
every last bit!’ I began reading and enjoy-
ing fiction again after years of reading
nothing but nonfiction and screenplays.
But most importantly, I found that start-
ing with the tightest possible version of
your story is surprisingly fulfilling. It’s
like the day you step off your favorite hik-
ing path to explore what’s behind this
tree or that rock. When you’re in a hurry
and just want to get the benefits of the
hike, hurrying down the trail is perfectly
fine. But taking time to step off the path
every once in a while to pay special atten-
tion to the bird’s nest you never realized
was there, or to peer down into the ravine
and discover it’s full of wildflowers, is an
entirely different
<<<>>>
You can order Missing at 17, Preg-
nant at 17, and Murdered at 17 at Barnes
& Noble, Amazon, and other national re-
tailers ($9.99 paperback, $8.99 kindle).
Each book follows a different 17-year-old
girl as she enters into a dangerous ro-
mance with an alluring stranger.
Follow Christine at
www.christineconradt.com,
on Twitter @CConradt, and Face-
book/ScreenwriterChristineConradt.
P AGE 11
S UMMER 2018