Different artists all have their own methods. What works for one painter might be totally wrong for another. Stephen King writes eight hours a day, five days a week, no matter what. While that definitely makes for a prolific output, it's a work ethic that doesn't necessarily work for everyone. Some might be lucky to frantically scribble a few lines after waking from a dream. Others might have to labor for months for the same amount of verbiage. The key, though, is tapping into what works for each artist.

While Stephen King has written extensively about the procedural details in his writing, you might be curious to learn about one of his most accomplished collaborators. Frank Darabont has brought many a King story to life, adapting the horror writer's words for the big screen. However, it's not as easy as a copy-and-paste job. While King writes in a cinematic way, it takes a real expert to know what to cut, what to keep, and how to shift things for the movie screen.

Enter Darabont in 2007, adapting The Mist, and taking a relatively short story to feature length. How did he work with the material, and what does that say about the way he operated through other movies? The writer/director revealed all in an interview with SlashFilm:

"I don't believe that the writing [of the script] was a huge job. I think it was more of a pleasure than hauling a sack of bricks on my back, which some writing is. It never particularly came easy to me. My trick, my secret superpower is I could sit in my chair from dawn till dusk. I could write 12, 15 hours a day. I can't do that anymore. Even my knees won't take it, let alone my brain, and I have a life now!"

And, if at first you don't succeed, try and try again. Luckily, scriptwriting isn't a precise form you need to get right the first time. There's always the chance to edit and re-edit.

"I always had to hack at it for draft after draft. By the time I handed in a first draft of anything, I was ready to shoot the movie because I'd probably revised that page, any given page, 20, 30 times. Sometimes in big ways, sometimes in small ways. For me it was always the discipline. To capture the theme or capture characters or some nuance in the story, that just comes, honestly, as a result of sitting there."