Dear Geist,

Should I rewrite my novel as a screenplay? Whenever colleagues in school workshops or writers’ groups comment, they say it feels like a film. Who am I to say no to my audience?

—Rocky, Cyberspace

Dear Rocky,

We’re guessing that your colleagues are finding your characters laconic, and that your story includes familiar waystations such as plot point, catalyst, crisis and so on. But a good written story can have these qualities too, and any work-in-progress will benefit from referring to classic story points. We suggest you read your whole text out loud, all by yourself, no music, and listen. If you’re more drawn to the work as a film, go ahead and write it. Then leave it alone for a few weeks. (A friend of ours sums up the writing of a film as “Just write a great story with no dialogue.”) Then read it again to see what you’ve got. Also, we pat you on the back for hanging around with writers, but they are not necessarily your audience

—The Editors