Seven Sisters the book

Yes, I pounded out the screenplay of Seven Sisters in 18 months and found that it  was close to 300 pages long.  That's a minute per page, and if you do the math, you're talking a 5-hour movie.   So I cut and cut and cut until I had 240 pages.  Now I was down to a 4-hour movie.

Most Mormon filmmakers don't want to do an expensive, four-hour, historic epic/saga with an 1863  three-masted, sailing ship, that crosses the Atlantic Ocean with 800 extras in period costumes, has sets of the London  and New York Docks, and a rather nasty hurricane along the way. 

After getting the screenplay into the hands of LDS directors, producers, and several rich folk, I could see that it wasn't going to be made into a movie any time soon.

Then I started to get the impression that I ought to turn this screenplay into a book.  That way, I could write as many pages as I wanted to and could put the scenes back in that I hated taking out of the screenplay in the first place.

My only problem was that I seemed  to have a talent for writing dialogue,  but I was a little weak on writing description and narration., but, I finally decided to give it a try, and just jumped in with my size 9's. 

After writing sporadically for two years, whenever I had the time and the inclination, I am now very pleased to announce that I finally completed the last chapter of Seven Sisters the Book on January 24, 2007!   

Having done that, I am now editing, polishing, and perfecting it--hoping to have it ready to present to a publisher in the fall.

And when Seven Sisters the Book gets published, and some filmmaker reads it and says to him/herself--"You know, this book would make a dang good movie!" 

I'll just pull out my screenplay and say, "Hey, I've got a really great screenplay right here--already written!"

So Stay tuned, Friends.

Ta Pip,

Carolyn Hart Bennett

Rexburg, Idaho

P.S.  It is extremely easy to write a book from a screenplay.  Pull up a "copy" of your screenplay on your computer and start writing at the top of the page.  You have a built-in outline--and dialog.  You just read the script below where you are writing and type away.  Then you delete the lines you are through with, and read the next scene and turn it into your story.