by Jule Selbo
My
screenwriting career jumped off from my playwriting efforts. My short plays were
performed in high school, college and when I moved to New York City, I had a
few produced off-off Broadway. One of the plays got some attention and opened
doors in tv and film.
My years
as a screenwriter set a ‘style’ in my writing because the craft is often about
using as few words as possible. The term ‘white space’ refers to the look of a
script page. A tired executive whose job it is to read 20-30 scripts a week
picks the ‘next’ script off her desk and flips through it. She either smiles or
curses, depending on the amount of ‘white space’ on the page. More white space,
in most cases, equals a ‘faster read’, that the writer hasn’t gotten verbose
and doesn’t use over-explicit descriptions of locations, characters,
motivations, or dialogue. ‘Less is usually more’ in a screenplay because the
camera/visuals will fill in details.
How often
was I with actors on sets, in their dressing rooms, or at social gatherings who
lamented having to handle dialogue that carried exposition? Or dialogue that
explained their emotions? Or doing scenes that didn’t have a strong story
purpose? The answer? A lot. Why? It
comes back to the camera again. Actors feel like they can emote with their
eyes/their faces/their bodies. They don’t like to have to do ‘explain’ scenes,
they like the ‘actions’ of their characters to fill in their personalities and
intentions.
I wrote in
various story genres (action, adventure, coming of age, bio-pic, romance , sci
fi and comedy) during my Hollywood years and learned about the need to fulfill
‘genre promises’ so that the audience would be satisfied. TV and movie scripts often
use a few ‘supporting’ genres to fill out characters’ lives (such as romantic
relationships, friendships, family, fears, silliness). I still enjoy thinking
how different story genres will illuminate my characters while keeping the
crime/mystery genre in its primary place.
Budgets
were always talked about in the film/tv industry; the producers want to keep
the cast costs low by only including characters who were absolutely needed for
the story. Locations should be kept to a minimum because the getting of
permits, the moving and re-setting up of crew and equipment was time-consuming
and expensive. I hear from readers of crime/mysteries that too many characters
can get confusing – and yes – we build stories with red herrings and various
suspects, but I try to keep the ‘cast list’ low.
The above
are just a few things where I feel my screenwriting experiences have influenced
the Dee Rommel series. Who’s Dee Rommel? Her childhood dream was to be a top
police detective in Portland, Maine.
‘Bad guys’ changed all that when, as a young cop, she was going after
perps of a hit-and-run (a child died) on a wintry-icy night and tracked them to
the top of a building under construction. Dee was the first on her team to the
roof, where she was sideswiped by the villains. Sliding off the roof into a
dumpster filled with insulation and drywall, she sustained a serious injury
that was going to sideline her (after rehab) to a desk job at the Police
Department. She needs to come to a decision: should she stay with the police
force or join her godfather’s PI firm?
The Dee
Rommel series is a 10-parter. 6 DAYS was released this summer (2026) and
follows 10 DAYS, 9 DAYS, 8 DAYS, 7 DAYS (you see the pattern). She has
10 days to solve the first case; the next case needs to be solved in 9 days
(again, you see the pattern). It’s countdown to 1 DAY.
As a screenwriter, I worked on a few television series that were serialized (Melrose Place, Life Goes On, Space Above and Beyond and more). Of course, the ‘long’ character stories had to stretch 10 to 22 episodes, but each week we had a ‘short’ story that needed a beginning, middle and end. The Dee Rommel series has a 10-book character arc for Dee and some of the other ‘core’ characters, but I wanted to make sure that people could read them out of order too. I didn’t want Dee (or any character) to have to do the heavy backstory ‘exposition’, so the challenge of finding new ways to catch-the-reader-up has been fun.
6 DAYS has a bit extra in it too,
genre-wise. I wanted to add a bit of thriller/horror to the crime/mystery genre,
a sense that ghosts haunted a private island that was home to a family with
deep, dark secrets.
An ethereal beauty, heiress Freya Cummings hasn’t left her private
island in Maine for over twenty years, not since she was thirteen. Her
reclusive lifestyle is infamous. When a teenager files a maternity suit against
her, and mysterious evidence seems damning, former policewoman and now private
investigator, Dee Rommel, is hired. She travels up the coast from Portland to
flesh out the truth, and as avenues of investigation are shut down, and New
England’s blood banks are hacked, and bodies are found, Dee discovers dark
secrets can create dangerous chaos for the families and for her own
relationships.
