Watching Aaron Sorkin on Masterclass, starting to think about the screenwriting class I’ve signed up to start in a week. I’m supposed to have a pitch ready for critique soon. I’d like to do two different screenplays this summer — one of them, the pilot for a TV show, the other, a full-length feature film.
I need to write to the teacher and ask if he has a preference for which one we bring to this class. But I think I know what the material is for each — Liminal Space I’m going to try to write as a feature film. The Jump Space stories, I’m going to try to write as a TV show.
Sorkin says if you’re attracted to a place — a newsroom, or the White House, for example, you’re writing a TV show, a series. I suppose the place I’m attracted to for the short stories is the Jump Space universe, on the verge of war.
He says if the characters, metaphorically speaking, die at the end of the story, if there’s no more story after that, then it’s a feature. Maya’s story does come to an ending at the end of Liminal Space — but I’m hoping to have another story from her, a few years later, in book two. But I think that just means I’d be hoping to write a series of films, in theory, rather than a TV show. Maybe. We’ll see.