Duane’s Comments (group member since Jul 10, 2012)

Duane’s comments from the Q&A with Eric Red group.

Do you think that Y/A novels of the horror genre tend to follow a softer approach that 80's slasher films started?

Myself, being someone who only broke into screenwriting (and is staying) at the indie-level...Sir, you hit the nail on the head why I keep scripts simpler and my books get expansive. I never feel that sense that I can guarantee an audience will "see" my huge prose stories on a screen anywhere, but the few location/few characters stories of my scripts, I think have the better chance. Even with your level of success, Sir, do you still feel the same? Especially in the horror field, which has gotten very congested..?

I'm a fan and influenced by comic book style along with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's style. Are you familiar with those, and do you use them, too?

I prefer writing books (prose) when I know I want to have that 4th dimension of the characters - I want you to know their thoughts and not just their dialogue and actions. I also seem to be able to get more expansive with books. I can go on longer journeys and increase the scope of locations quite a bit without having to whittle down the details of "the ride."

Per screenwriting, I fit that niche of "low-cost/high-concept" for the most part. All of my scripts really focus on a handful of characters in tense and claustrophobic scenarios. I think it's the matter-of-fact detailing and how dialogue being 99% of what fleshes your character out in a script that keeps me writing in this niche. Of course, I'm big on suspense, too, and also favoring slow burn means of ratcheting intensity, again it is easier to streamline the story for me per a script.

I tried to cross the paths recently by taking a script idea (same, usual niche style) and write it in prose. The result was a short novella - not quite my initial goal. The sci-fi prose idea I then tried to script didn't work at all because of too much needed exposition that I just didn't want to budge on after all.

The best script/prose combinations I've had fun and success with are per writing the film noire concepts I have. Noire is notorious for having voice over narrative, so that 4th dimension was cracked wide open for me and really shined on those works. At least that's what the current option holders say. I'll judge them more fully when they aren't on the "shelf" anymore...haha.

I am writer Duane P. Craig, and thank you, Sir for the invite.