I have finished the first draft of my treatment, which has involved merging my two written novels together to form the very beginnings of a screenplay.
It has been a really interesting process and kind of like cutting all of the best bits together. Obviously all of your threads still need to nicely merge together to build the picture so although I have cut 150,000 words down to 12,000 the story still needs to build. I have had to let go of a few sub-characters but perhaps they will re-emerge in another draft.
It has been such an education, all of my characters talk in first person so I have had to re-write all of the scenes in third. It is obvious I need to work on third person writing which doesn’t come naturally and makes me wonder how good I am at stepping outside of the situation.
The process has given me a greater perspective on situations in the manuscript that I have drawn from my own experience which has made the story stronger.
I would highly recommend writing a treatment of your novel to anyone struggling as the editing process really makes you realise what is vital to you the writer but more importantly what is crucial to the story.
Once I have had some feedback I will be sure to post an excerpt!
My first novel is available below