Defined Playgrounds:

There are mystery stories and there are action adventures. In the action adventure, lots of stuff happens – many times the same action as a mystery – only you see it all unfold, perhaps from both sides of a conflict. In a mystery, something happens – a death, abduction, theft – but you have to find out the ‘how’, ‘why’ and ‘who’ through the progressive revelations of clues and unearthed facts that must be pieced together. The answers are presented in the denouement, the dramatic revelation(s) that tie up all the uncertainties the author has created.

I have written 20 action adventures but only two mysteries. Perhaps that’s because mysteries must be diabolically constructed with false clues (‘red herrings’) to divert and misdirect. More work for the lazy writer.

Another definitive difference is that between a novel and a script. Although they can be, and often are, about the same subject, there is a paramount difference; the novel allows interior dialog and the script requires that the story be told in dialog only. If you write a novel, as I have, then decide to present it in script form, it is immediately evident, sometimes from the first paragraph, that any thought must be verbalized. Daunting, but achievable. Oh, there is opportunity to provide stage direction but an author is wise to keep this to a minimum as it encroaches on the movie or play director’s purview. Creative fiefdoms must be respected.