The Language of Secrets

When I began work on The Language of Secrets, I assumed that making the switch from television writer to novelist would be pretty simple. After all, screenplays and novels share basic building blocks: interesting plot, believable characters, and a story reflecting some aspect of our common human experience. But to my surprise, I found that crafting a novel was something very different from crafting a screenplay. A screenplay is a blueprint. It achieves full form only after hundreds of people have brought their creativity and vision to the process. For example, the beginning of a scene in a screenplay might be:

INT. HOTEL LOBBY--DAY

Posh. Upscale. Caroline enters. She’s nervous.

Here’s the opening of that same scene in a novel:

The air in the hotel lobby was cold and smelled of rose-scented perfume. Somewhere, a harp was being played. Everywhere, there were well-dressed men and beautiful women and extravagant arrangements of expensive flowers. Being in this opulent, sybaritic place was stirring excitement, and guilt, in Caroline.

In a screenplay, scenes are brought to life by set designers, lighting technicians, actors, musicians, costumers, and cinematographers. In a novel, the scenes must come to life--fully drawn for the reader--through the imagery provided by only one person: the novelist.

When I first realized I was out there alone--trying to create an entire world out of nothing but paper and ink--I was rattled. But making the transition from screenplay to novel became an unforgettable experience that gave me a new appreciation for both forms of writing.

I loved doing screenplays, and now I’m also in love with the process of structuring a novel. In The Language of Secrets I discovered fresh, exciting ways to assemble the building blocks of storytelling. And for a writer, that is pure joy. --Dianne Dixon

(Photo © Bill Youngblood)