James Woods: How can it be the same movie if they’ve changed my character from a tightly-wound convenience store clerk to a jittery Eskimo firefighter? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Well, actually that’s a pretty good explanation.

That’s how I feel about most of my synopsises…synopsisi…synopsiseseses? Why doesn’t synopsis have a plural? Whatever. Whatever story idea I pitch, I turn in something completely different. I’m sure it’s frustrating for everybody. I once turned in a two page outline of the story and then changed everything about it, up to and including the characters names.

I was at a workshop once, and the leader said that the first idea you have is never the right idea. But the second idea is, because it’s had time to twist and turn. This has been true with everything I have done except for the vampire novels, which basically sprang from my skull fully formed like Athena.

So this new thing, yeah, twists and bumps and changes, including changing the main characters name, role, purpose and origins. Not quite a jittery Eskimo/Inuit firefighter, but close.