The one thing that I would recommend to anybody, even though it’s quite a specific recommendation, is the screenplay for Michael Clayton, which to me is one of the greatest screenplays of this new century. The writer, Tony Gilroy, is great about how every word that you put in the script must count in a very different way than in a novel. You’re directing the reading experience in a much more specific way. You need to find a way to do the things you can do in a novel.

MEGAN ABBOTT