Mirrormask: The Illustrated Film Script isn’t likely to become as beloved a work as Gaiman’s other fiction offerings because, well, it’s a film script. Scripts, by their very nature, don’t lend themselves to casual reading as does other prose. Film is, after all, a collaborative nature. Directors, actors, producers and all manner of studio executives influence the final product, and the truth of the matter is that the writer is often regarded as a bottom-feeder in the circle of cinematic life. Whereas novels are lush with scene-setting and character background that flesh out a central plot to the tune of 300-plus pages, a solid movie script will generally clock in somewhere under 120 pages total--one script page equals one minute of screen time is the general rule. So when it comes to scripts, the writing is invariably stark and bare, leaving room for the director to tell much of the story visually. More importantly, however, the writer has to imply much of the needed character background and relationships, not to mention history and pertinent sub-plot details in the characters’ words. To say that the scriptwriter has to choose his or her words very carefully is a vast understatement, particularly when one takes into account that words that read well on the printed page do not necessarily sound at all natural when actually spoken aloud.
What I'm most proud of is the end-all, be-all of cover blurbs that I somehow managed to peck out before I could think better of it. It turns up toward the end, third graf from the bottom. I know there's no way the publisher will use it for any of the various MirrorMask books forthcoming, but golly, would I love to have something like that on one of my books!
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