Selling Stories Short

I’ve always thought short stories were a vast untapped vein of material in Hollywood, despite nearly 50 important feature films based on them. I disagree with one point Paul Brownfield made in his article, however (“Short Story Rarely Fills the Screen,” Dec. 26)--that studios resist developing short stories because they’re too slight, or for other creative reasons. That’s not the case at all, in fact.

The reason short stories don’t get developed that often in Hollywood has more to do with New York literary agents than anything else. Essentially, literary agents can’t and don’t make any money selling publishing rights to short stories, so they don’t bother sending them to L.A. agents to submit as movie ideas.

When short stories do get turned into movies, it’s mostly serendipitously--a director or producer is an avid reader and discovers one while trolling through a used bookstore, or reads one that a friend recommended (like Todd Field finding the Andre Dubus story for “In the Bedroom”).

BENJAMIN SITZER

Los Angeles