Richard Price is an accomplished novelist and screenwriter, writing his first novel The Wanderers while a student at Columbia University. After this impressive debut, he wrote several more novels in rapid succession, including Bloodbrothers, Ladies' Man and The Breaks. The Breaks, written in 1983, was a novel loosely based on his experience at Cornell University. He stated that The Breaks was "[t]he most difficult book for me to write and the least satisfying" ("The Art of Fiction"). After writing this novel, he struggled as a novelist and turned to writing screenplays for films and television series. While continuing to be a screenwriter, Price returned to writing novels with his famous work, The Clockers. Price admits that the reason he turned to screenwriting after writing The Breaks was due to his inability to come up with new material. This novel was an influential moment in Price's career because it led him to explore a different path in his writing and helped him create new material later in his life. Although Price admits that The Breaks was his least satisfying novel, it shows his talent as a novelist because it helped shape his writing later in life and influenced him to change his technique. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Richard Price's first three novels contained autobiographical connections to the main character. For example, Peter Keller, the main character of The Breaks, studied law in college and chose a completely different path after graduating; he began teaching but continued to pursue his dream of becoming an actor. Price had a similar story, intending to go to Cornell to become a lawyer, he instead chose to become a writer. His experience while attending Cornell provided him with the material to write The Breaks, intertwining his own story with that of Peter Keller. Price's style of including autobiographical elements in his first four novels left him little else to write. This novel led Price to exclude his personal history from his writings. In an interview with Robert Birnbaum, Price said, "I stopped writing about myself with my first batch of novels because it got boring...it smacked of panic" ("Richard Price"). He has since left himself out of his novels, showing that his experience writing The Breaks made him realize that he needs to experience new things to become a better writer. Price's difficulties and dissatisfaction with The Breaks stemmed from several factors. One of Price's problems was that he was reading another book while writing his own. He read Sophie's Choice while trying to finish his novel, which he said "was like trying to sing while someone else sings another song in the background" ("The Art of fiction "). Price said this caused him to stray from the path and lose focus. Another reason Price had problems with this novel is that he wrote The Breaks to make sure his name was known. After publishing two novels almost a year, he felt obliged to produce another so as not to be forgotten. He said that “if you have enough talent, you will produce readable page after readable page after readable page” (“The Art of Fiction”). Price showed this talent with his novel, although he believes it has no value because it was simply a piece intended to lock his career into a downward spiral. After havingAfter finishing The Breaks, Richard Price began his career as a screenwriter, using his past experience as a novelist to help him succeed. In Price's interview with James Linville, he states that the reason he accepted his first screenwriting assignment was his "feeling of having cannibalized his own life as a subject" ("The Art of Fiction" ). Price felt this way because of the content of his first four novels, particularly The Breaks, with its limited success. Price's career as a screenwriter is impressive, writing for Martin Scorsese and helping to create films such as Sea of ​​Love, Kiss of Death, Mad Dog, Glory and Ransom. Although Price enjoyed success as a screenwriter, he was still a novelist at heart. Robert Birnbaum asked Price in his 2003 interview if he could stop writing books since he was an established screenwriter. Price responded, “No, that’s what I do. I mean, I’d like to think I could stop writing screenplays” (“Richard Price”). Price can't just stop writing screenplays because he has to support his wife and two children. However, this did not stop him from writing novels. Price ended his ten-year drought by writing his hit, The Clockers. Price's turn to screenwriting after completing The Breaks was necessary for him to continue his career as a novelist. It was because of his success in the film industry that made him turn to novel writing. Asked about his return to novel writing with The Clockers, he said: "I regained a lot of confidence in myself as a writer because my scripts were so popular" ("The Art of Fiction" ). This statement shows that Price lacked confidence in his writing after The Breaks and needed to regain his confidence to continue writing. Price has also learned from her past novels that it is not always necessary to include autobiographical details in the story. The Clockers was his first novel that he did not write about himself, but rather the environment he intended to write about to better understand. He explains his philosophy on the subject in his interview with Robert Birnbaum, saying: “Go out and learn something. Go out and see how good a writer you really are. See if you can imagine lives that aren’t yours” (“Richard Price”). This experience was crucial to his career because it taught him a different perspective on his writing, one that he would not have been able to gain if he had not written The Breaks. Price's development as a writer is directly related to the path he chose in his career. His experience as a screenwriter influenced his writing of novels such as The Clockers, Freedomland and Samaritan. Through this professional journey, he learned this valuable lesson: “I don’t need to write about myself all the time. I had a number of assignments where I had to write about people who were completely outside of my sphere, but I learned that if I just hung out and soaked up a little bit of their world, I was able to create characters that are convincing and somewhat faithful to their world. their sources” (“The Art of Fiction”). He did not learn this as a novelist and was discouraged by his writing after The Breaks. This novel turned Price toward the film industry and caused him to reevaluate his technique. The fact that Price was only able to learn this when he became a screenwriter shows that The Breaks was an important piece of his career. If this were an immature or flawed novel, Price would not have let it influence his decision to change careers. He could have left.;.