My first serious completed project is a television adaptation of a comic book. A few people have read it, including someone who used to read scripts for a living, and the reactions have been overwhelmingly positive. None of the readers have seen the original material it was adapted from(it's slightly obscure) and still are interested.

The trouble is, I have no rights whatsoever to this work, so obviously I can't do a lot with it. I was planning to just send off a copy to the original author and thank him for his work and say that it inspired me to produce this script. I don't necessarily want to get into discussion of getting things made or selling it, etc.

I am relatively confident of the marketability of the concept, I think the nature of the material leads to a near limitless story potential and the characterizations have broad appeal.

I know I went about this the wrong way, and really it was mostly meant as an educational exercise for my own amusement and growth. Should I just let it go at that? Is there a known methodology of pursuing things at this point?

(Also don't bother the original creator with it. Mostly the plagiarism issue.)

Second, you have to remain true to the author's vision of the story and its backstory, and where the story might go if there are follow-on works such as sequels, prequels and spinoffs. Without access to what's in the author's head, you can't do it.

For these reasons, doing adaptations of other people's work is technically more difficult than creating your own.

On what you do now, I don't know. Certainly, if it were my work you had adapted, I would reject it out of hand because I strongly believe in copyright, and would protect my worlds fiercely from fanfic. Even if it were good I would still reject it in order to set a precedent. And, I'd either want to do the TV adaptation myself, or have a proven TV scriptwriter do it.

I would encourage you to try your hand at being creative, because you'll learn far more and you'll see how the technical and creative aspects are intimately linked. When I started I thought too I couldn't design a plot, but it turns out that I can. Often, at Hatrack, we see writers develop ability and confidence and, as Deb says, if you can finish a script you must have some talent somewhere. Here's a challenge: if you were creative, what would your first story be about? (In answering the question I hope you might find a story ...)

Hope this helps,
Pat

When it comes to building plots and such from scratch, I don't know, it just doesn't come easily. Or even with a lot of difficulty, for that matter. If I am working on taking something out of text and adapting it for a more visual medium, that's easier. I can visualize precisely what I want out of each shot and frame. I can definitely feel out the flow and style of TV and film a lot easier than a novel. I would be perfectly content at this point adapting optioned properties for studios for a living.

This might just all be very cheesy excuse-making for preferring to write with giant training wheels. I am not sure I could call myself a WRITER in good company without having some amount of original material, no matter what degree of financial success I might attain.

I'll pass this along as planned to the Right People, if anything worthwhile comes of it, I will let you know. Either way it's onto project Next. Have a few things I would like to do, they'll have to Thunderdome it out for brain-time.

I'd be very interested to know who/what the adaptation is from. If it's someone who's already been optioned and even had work filmed (as you suggest), then I'd basically treat what you've done as fanfic, but a valuable learning exercise, because it's your take on someone else's work (and since it's a comic - is it even the creator's work? A lot of comics are work-for-hire on corporate-owned properties).

If you are particularly interested in making the show you have already written, then contacting the creator is the way.

Hope that helps,