ORIGINS

Having revised, expanded and updated the original Make Your Story a Movie blog post several times for various print and online publications (and of course the blog itself), I came to realize that it was never going to be all I wanted it to be. The reason was simple: what I wanted it to be was just too big for a single blog post. On top of that, doing it as a series of posts would—at one or two posts a month—take years, leaving the information stuck in my head and unavailable to readers. In short, the whole project had become unmanageable—as a blog post.

But not, I thought, as a book—which could deliver several hundred pages of information in one instantly-available package. Information gleaned from my own experience and the collective wisdom of the people I’ve learned so much from over the years—authors, playwrights, comic creators and publishers, screenwriters, directors, producers, entertainment attorneys and more. All told, their works have earned over $50 billion dollars (I’m still trying to calculate a total), and drawn dozens of Academy Award nominations. And so, with the generous help of friends and friends of friends, the book was born.

At the same time, there was a great deal of information that wouldn’t fit into the book because it dealt with finer points rather than basics, or with aspects of the publishing or filmmaking industries that are not directly related to adaptations (how people broke into the business, the difference between working in film and TV, industry trends, and so forth).

That information will continue to appear on the blog, through regular posts, long-form interviews (including chats with most if not all of the sources quoted in the book), etc. The same goes for new or updated information I may come across after the book is published, and the experienced voices of those I have yet to meet and learn from.

Looking at the Big Picture (so to speak), book and blog are meant to work and grow together. The book will give you a solid grounding in the basics, from evaluating potential source material, through adaptation, to credits and contracts. The blog will build on that, and update anything subject to change.

Onward…

MYSAM BOOK PREVIEW

INTRODUCTION: THE POWER OF HOLLYWOOD

“Looking back,” says Rex Pickett, author of the novel Sideways, “I wish I hadn’t taken the measly $5,000 advance from the publisher. Had I waited until the film was released, I’m told the book would have sold for $1,000,000.”

Rex divides his life into before-and-after episodes. “Before the movie, I was nobody. My life was complete shit. The day the movie went into production, I made $300,000.00. Suddenly everybody wanted something, and I had four agents working for me.”

The Sideways film cost $16 million, made $109 million at the box office, supercharged the California wine industry (with the notable exception of merlot, which it nearly destroyed), and drew five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay (winning the latter). Among Pickett’s follow-up projects: a sequel to the Sideways novel, called Vertical, and a play based on the first book.

Walter Kirn is a self-described eccentric author. “To be frank,” he says, “I’m not a guy who sold a lot of books, or even managed to project a coherent image of himself and his art. All of my books have weird little publishing histories, and each has been quite different from the others and often eccentric. It’s hard for a writer like me to keep doing the kinds of things he wants to do, in a world where the big question is, “Hey man, how many hundreds of thousands of units have you sold for me lately?” That I can go on doing this at all is probably a credit to the movie.

“Really quite specifically, I think it saved my ass. When the movie came along, not much was happening in Walter World. I felt like one of those disaster victims lying out on a football field somewhere, about to expire, and they’ve only got so many syringes filled with adrenaline. And someone just happened to stick one into me.”

The film based on Kirn’s book, Up in the Air, was made for $25 million, starred George Clooney, earned over $160 million at the box office, was nominated for six Academy Awards (Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay among them) and, in Kirn’s words, “sold a hell of a lot of books.” True to form, he’s has since published several more books—none of which bears much resemblance to any other.

Alan Glynn’s novel The Dark Fields had been out of print for years. Despite glowing reviews from The New York Times and Publishers Weekly, he found himself teaching English as a second language. “I was fairly miserable and losing hope of ever being published again,” he recalls. Then came the movie based on his novel: Limitless.

“It brought my book back from the dead. It was re-released under the film title. Suddenly I’m watching a TV spot for the Limitless movie, playing during the Super Bowl. And the movie definitely sends people out to bookstores.” Limitless earned over $150 million in theaters.

Alan now has two more books out—Bloodland and Winterland, with another—Graveland—slated for 2013. He writes full time, in a house with a paid-off mortgage.

Even writers whose works are already selling briskly benefit from movies. “A great example is Frank Miller,” says Dark Horse Comics founder Mike Richardson. “He’s probably the premier creator in comics, and his sales were already stellar. Every book he does is an event.

“But when a movie like 300 comes out and hits, it adds new heat. People see the movie and want the book, even those who may not have been comic or graphic novel readers before that. We put out a new hardcover edition priced at $35, which is certainly at the high end for a graphic novel, and sold hundreds of thousands of copies while the movie was playing.”

This in an industry where, says comic writer Steve Niles, “most comics are selling around 20-30,000 copies, independents are surviving on 5-10,000, and anything that sells 100,000 is a smash hit.”

When Slumdog Millionaire hit theaters, says author Vikas Swarup, “Q & A [the novel on which the film is based] had already been translated into 36 languages. But the film catapulted it to a different level altogether. It created a totally new following, composed of people who came to know about the book because of the movie. The American book sales zoomed up once the movie came out, and the book entered The New York Times Bestseller List.”

The film, made for $15 million, grossed nearly $400 million at the box office, winning eight of the ten Academy Awards for which it was nominated, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Hollywood can be very good to authors.

Still, the rewards awaiting those with screenplays to sell are even greater. “Though my earnings from the movie deal were high, and I’m not complaining for a second,” Glynn notes, “it’s still peanuts compared to what other major players involved in the movie get. There would be no movie without the book and yet, relatively speaking, they don’t have to pay that much to acquire the book—mainly because most writers are poor, and happy to accept the first offer that comes along.”

If you have a script (screenplay) to sell, the equation shifts in your favor. Ryan Condal, an advertising executive, adapted the Arthurian legend into a screenplay. Galahad was his first sale, fetching $500,000. Though the film has yet to be produced, he’s already been hired by studios to adapt several comic books for the screen—including Hercules: The Thracian Wars.

Evan Daugherty adapted the Snow White faery tale into a screenplay called Snow White and the Huntsman—which sold for $3.2 million in 2010, and should be in theaters by the time you read this. Bill Marsilii, who has since adapted comics, novels, children’s books and more, earlier teamed up with veteran screenwriter Terry Rossio (Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek, and Zorro adaptation franchises) to write Déjà Vu—which sold for $5 million. It was Bill’s first sale.

In the book world, you have to be a J.K. Rowling, a Stephen King or a John Grisham to pull advances like that. In Hollywood, today’s hot writer can be—and often is—yesterday’s nobody.

Clearly, these are best-case scenarios, and not every screenplay adaptation sells for $3 million. In fact, most screenplays—like most books—never sell at all. (“I take a Han Solo approach,” says Marsilii, “never tell me the odds. A more healthy outlook is to recognize what the odds are, and go do it anyway.”)

On the other hand, an average spec screenplay (one written “on speculation,” rather than on assignment) sells for $300-$600,000, whereas the average book advance is more like $10-$20,000, and film rights options (employed when there is no screenplay) can be as low as $1.

Even so, you’re better off with a book (or other source material) and a screenplay. Consider: you have two properties to sell instead of one; the sale of either will increase the price of the other; the success of either will bring you more money from both; the movie may take years to make (if it’s made at all); you control the content of your book or other story; and—despite the comparatively vast sums paid to most screenwriters—no pure screenwriter has ever been paid what a top-end author receives. Not even close.

Nevertheless, those top-end authors would not receive the gargantuan paydays they do—and often would not be household names—if not for the movies based on their books. So if you’re going for the gold, you really need both.

And while it’s true that there are very few writers capable of creating good books (or comic books, plays, short stories, blogs, magazine articles, games, musicals, etc.) and good screenplays—you don’t have to be one of them to make your mark in Hollywood. Because you can team up with a screenwriter who specializes in adaptations.

Whichever path you choose, this book will lay down the ground rules, explaining what Hollywood looks for in source material and in screenplays, what’s involved in creating a good—or great—adaptation, and how to find help, or strike out on your own. You’ll also find hard-won creative and business advice from authors, publishers, producers, screenwriters and others whose projects have become household names, won Academy Awards, and earned tens of billions of dollars from box office and DVD sales alone.

Creators, authors, screenwriters, producers, agents and managers interested in adaptations—this book is for you.

John Robert Marlow
Los Angeles

###

Next Excerpt: Chapter One —Why Adapt?
Coming in June

Book available for pre-order on amazon, Barnes & Noble, and IndieBound.

ADAPTATION SERVICES

]]> http://makeyourbookamovie.com/the-power-of-hollywood-mysam-book-excerpt/728/feed/ 0 http://makeyourbookamovie.com/blog-reloaded-may-2012/624/ http://makeyourbookamovie.com/blog-reloaded-may-2012/624/#comments Thu, 19 Apr 2012 07:57:43 +0000 John Robert Marlow http://makeyourbookamovie.com/?p=624

The Make Your Story a Movie blog will pick up again next month (May, 2012). Things have been busy on both coasts: there’s a new book coming (based on this blog), along with a ton of of new material (including scads of interviews)—and news of an adaptation deal where I wrote the action spec and will executive produce the movie. More soon.

Leslie Dixon is screenwriter and producer of Limitless, based on the novel The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn. (Click here for Alan Glynn interview.) Her other credits include: The Heartbreak Kid (STO)*; Hairspray (MUS / MOV); Freaky Friday (NOV / MOV); The Thomas Crown Affair (MOV); Mrs. Doubtfire (NOV); Outrageous Fortune and other films. Limitless earned over $150M at the box office. (Watch the Limitless trailer here.)

JRM: How did you come to be a screenwriter?

Leslie Dixon: I was just a narcissistic little fantasizing nobody that actually had the temerity to think that I could move to Los Angeles, totally on my own, and break into the entertainment business.

It was very difficult for me to leave San Francisco, because I was living with this really great guitar player. Not a rocker. This guy could finger pick ragtime. And any song off the top of his head with a moving bass line, and get it rolling.

But I did want to make a living and I did want to be involved with the movie business, which I loved. But I loved film probably more than I loved bluegrass, so I worked up the guts to leave. It was hard for any San Franciscan to leave and go to L.A. period, much less try to break into a notoriously tough business.

JRM: Did you know how tough it would be at the time?

Leslie Dixon: No. And if I had, I wouldn’t have tried. I had been on my own since I was 18, and couldn’t afford to go to college. And there was so little information. You have to realize this was pre-internet.

You couldn’t enter your script in a screenwriting contest. You couldn’t even learn how to write a script properly. There was nobody anywhere around me, and nothing I could even get from a bookstore that conveyed correct screenplay form.

So no one was going to teach me how to do it. But I felt that if I could get to Los Angeles, I could do things there, like get a library card from AFI and check out scripts and read them. That was the primitive nature of information gathering in those days.

I got a crappy job that paid me to read scripts, which is how I started reading screenplays, and very quickly got an idea of what was and wasn’t being bought, and of how you arrange the words on the page. That was the start of it.

JRM: How did you first get paid to write?

Leslie Dixon: I wrote a spec with a partner. I did the typing and he looked for an agent. He found a small, hungry agent, and the woman actually sold the thing to Columbia pictures for the vast sum of $30,000.00—split two ways, of course.

JRM: You’ve been involved with a number of adaptations, from novels, short stories, plays, other films—is that a result of people coming to you because of your previous adaptation work, is it because you prefer adaptations, or a bit of both?

Leslie Dixon: These days I absolutely do prefer adaptations, and wish I could do nothing but deep, rich, interesting novels where people have figured out and done half the work already. But in fact, it’s mostly been a crapshoot as to how I’ve come to be involved with each project. With one exception-and that’s Limitless.

JRM: Tell me about that.

Leslie Dixon: My first two scripts were original screenplays, but I was beginning my career. That’s where you try to develop a voice, and you don’t want people to be confused about what that is.

Limitless, though, was very much a deliberate attempt on my part to get my hands on a piece of material that was fun and visceral. I’ve always wanted to and felt I could write in that genre, and no one was going to offer me anything like that. They were going to offer me comedies, because Thomas Crown Affair to the contrary, that’s what I’m known for.

If I was going to write in the thriller genre, I was going to have to create the drama myself. So I got hold of the rights to The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn, a novel that I greatly admired, and loosely adapted it into a script of the same name.

Then I hung onto it through various near misses with directors and actors, until it finally came together in the way that it was meant to.

JRM: And how did that happen—how did you find the book itself?

Leslie Dixon: I was feeling really burned out on reading bad scripts and manuscripts that I was reading for work reasons. I wanted to read something for pleasure. So I walked into Green Apple Books, a used bookstore in San Francisco, and said, “I want something that’s really fun to read, but not trash.” And the sales clerk said, “Oh I know exactly what you want.”

And there it was on the staff recommendation table. I probably paid $5.99 for it in hardcover, and somewhere around the halfway point, I just knew it was a movie.

I felt this unbelievable gut surge that I could kick this thing’s ass. I knew that I had to get that book and it would become a movie. I just knew it. I can’t explain.

“I knew that I had to get that book and it would become a movie. I just knew it… It was a novel I greatly admired, and I loosely adapted it into a script.”

I’ve only had that feeling a couple of times, about completely different pieces of material. I had it about Hairspray, too. I don’t get that very often. Usually you’re stumbling and feeling your way through things. But with this, I was certain.

JRM: And if you hadn’t felt burned out at work, and hadn’t walked into that store on that day, you likely never would have seen it, there would have been no gut surge, and therefore no movie—or certainly not this movie.

Leslie Dixon: It’s not all that improbable. Writers love to read. As I am entirely burned out at the moment, I hope to repeat this experience.

JRM: So once you had the book in your hands, how did you go about tracking down the rights?

Leslie Dixon: My agent was able to tell me that. CAA knows everything, they’re like Big Brother. It turned out that Harvey Weinstein at Miramax had optioned the rights. And that was really daunting because I knew that the company had become very unfocused and a little bit dysfunctional because it was starting to implode.

This was at the old Miramax, when it was owned by Disney and they were starting to not let them have much money anymore. So I could see that that incarnation of the Weinsteins’ company was coming to an end.

And I had a feeling that maybe I could get the project out of there before the company imploded completely. Because once that happens, every project they’ve got goes into some bin at Disney while people sift through it trying to decide what they want to do.

Years could have passed that way, so I had a real urgency to try to get it out of there before the company stopped. The drumbeats were on the street that Miramax, as it used to be, was going to be shuttered.

The sad part is, Limitless is a perfect Harvey Weinstein movie. I have this weird feeling that I probably would have gotten along with him great. I would have called him a cocksucker and he would have called me a whore, and we would have made a really good movie.

But alas, that incarnation of Miramax just wasn’t going to continue long enough for us to find out. So I had to get it out of there. And so I then became involved in sneaking the rights away from Harvey Weinstein and Miramax, which certainly could qualify as one of the labors of Hercules.

I was devious about it, but not dishonest. And in all fairness, they weren’t doing anything with it, and the company really was about to disappear. So the project was just lying around, and I basically said I’ll write this script for Writers Guild minimum, but if you don’t start production in a short period of time, I get the rights.

They were a little bit arrogant in those days, and not getting back to people quickly about material. I knew this, and turned the script in during the Cannes Film Festival when everyone was away, praying heavily that it would slip through the cracks and no one would read it. And no one did. So the rights came to me, and I produced it myself.

There were a few angry phone calls mixed in with that, but I did also make off with the rights to the novel, and there were periods where I carried it myself with my money as it was going from place to place.

It almost got made at Universal, but in redoing their deal with Relativity, Relativity was able to perk that project out of there, which made Universal sad.

So it went over and became a Relativity project. They were a financing entity at the time, and this became one of their debut projects as a movie studio.

JRM: I assume you had a hand in this as well?

Leslie Dixon: I had no part in the decision to hand it to Relativity. But I did discover that the option Universal had was assignable.

Before Universal, it had been at Mandeville, and there was an offer to make it at Paramount at one point, but I didn’t believe it would be the same movie. I’m not sure the edginess would have survived intact.

I was frankly nervous about making it at a major studio, because anyone looking at the logline and not actually reading the script would just say, “Oh this is a drug movie, this is going to be like Requiem for a Dream.”

“I was frankly nervous about making it at a major studio, because anyone looking at the logline and not actually reading the script would just say, “Oh this is a drug movie,” and studios are very squeamish about those.”

It was always my intention to make an enjoyable film ride, and studios are very squeamish about films where the protagonist takes drugs for the entire thing and suffers no lasting consequences of any sort.

JRM: Well I thought it was brilliant.

Leslie Dixon: Well, it was always, always, always my intention to have him get away with it. I just seemed like that was true to the nature of the drug.

Whenever I wrote something that wasn’t true to the nature of the drug, it didn’t work and I’d have to redo it. And to be true to that nature, he’s going to win. Because that drug is invincible.

I definitely never wanted to end this movie with him sitting around in a 12-step program saying, “It’s because I had some issues with my father.” That is the last thing anybody would want to see, and I was really afraid that with a major studio, some ending of that sort would be proposed or forced. A moralistic comeuppance, that’s the phrase I’m looking for. And I always wanted this to be gleefully amoral.

“I always wanted this to be gleefully amoral.”

JRM: I love that phrase. One thing I’m often disappointed with in Hollywood: they’ll take you to the edge of the cliff with some new technology or what-have-you, and they’ll let you look over the edge-and then they’ll pull you back. I think they should jump off, and take you with them.

Leslie Dixon: Yeah, exactly. And you know, on a lesser level, look at a picture like The Social Network—which, had it not had such a powerful director, could easily have been forced down people’s throats with an ending like Marc Zuckerberg suddenly going, “I really haven’t been connecting with people in a deep way. I have to work on my interpersonal skills” and, you know, having a revelation that starting this social network needs to make him more humane and more connected to others. Can you imagine what a vile ending that would have been?

That’s the kind of ending that a studio could propose. Not every studio, I should add. There are some very hip people at some of the majors, but it depends on who’s in charge that week.

To get back to the whole adaptations-versus-originals thing, I would say that I, personally, prefer adaptations, for various reasons. You’re starting with something that you’ve already experienced in a version that you like. So then it definitely falls into my category of “Would I buy a ticket to this?” Which is the best jumping off point for writing something.

But that said, the studios don’t always option things that you want to see on film, and they don’t necessarily have a big stack of fantastic projects waiting to be adapted. I mean some of the things they buy are fantastic, like Silence of the Lambs, and some of them are hoary-and I mean that with an h and not a w. And you wouldn’t want to see that movie. So for every 100 novels that are written, there’s maybe only one that has a movie screaming to get out.

JRM: What says to you that a novel has a movie screaming to get out? What do you look for in an adaptable property?

Leslie Dixon: I look for a premise and a story that’s not too internalized. For example, if it’s in the first person, and the hero talks to absolutely no one and only keeps you the reader in his confidence for the entire thing, that’s going to be a difficult adaptation because—how do you do that?

And Limitless had that challenge. At no point in the novel was Eddie able to tell anyone what he was doing. Therefore, when translated to the screen—which relies on images and dialogue—you’d have no idea what he was thinking or feeling about what he was going through.

I remember finishing the novel and thinking, oh shit, I am actually going to have to use voiceover for the first and hopefully last time in my entire career. And then I thought, okay, it didn’t hurt Goodfellas. It can be done.

The worst is when they slap voiceover on a movie in post—production to make things clearer, and some great directors have done that. Scorsese did it with Age of Innocence, and Coppola did it with Apocalypse Now.

I happen to find the narration in Apocalypse Now corny, and I would almost rather have the movie be a big, beautiful, incoherent dream than hear lines like, “Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger.” That’s one of the lines in there, and it sounds like an old Warner Brothers B movie.

So I was rigid with terror about confronting voiceover. But if I was going to adapt The Dark Fields, I was going to have to be inside Eddie’s head, because he confesses to virtually no one. It was the only way. So I just decided to make it fun.

All told, the movie’s setup is identical and the character of Eddie is Alan’s character. That character and Alan’s voice are what made me fall in love with the book. I felt a simpatico with him as a writer. He wrote the kind of prose that I would like to write if I wrote prose, and I knew that I could pick up Alan’s voice where he left off.

I felt, if I wrote a novel I’d want it to be like this, and so there was that sort of tingle of empathy that I felt for him creatively. But thought-wise, I knew this movie—unlike the book—was probably going to have to have some major action in it, or it would never be made.

JRM: Speaking of all this—why did you add Lindy to the story, when Eddie has no real love interest in the novel?

Leslie Dixon: I added Lindy because, throughout the novel, which is narrated in the first person, Eddie has no confidante. No one finds out he is on the drug, he can’t talk about it to anyone, and its existence remains locked in his head, a secret.

As it was, I knew I was going to be stuck with potentially hazardous voiceover—which I wanted to use as little of as possible; less, actually, than what was in the finished film. With the creation of Lindy, I would need less voiceover.

Also, that someone near and dear to him could be threatened by those who wanted the drug. This upped the stakes for Eddie—it wasn’t just his selfish butt on the line.

“I added Lindy because, throughout the novel, which is narrated in the first person, Eddie has no confidante, he can’t talk about it to anyone. Also, it meant that someone near and dear to him could be threatened by those who want the drug. This upped the stakes for Eddie.”

It would be easy to say that she is the moral center of the movie, as no one else in the film exhibits the slightest moral conflict, but too much of that could have made her a prig, so I can’t say that was my major motivation.

JRM: How happy are you with the final film—what we see on the screen?

Leslie Dixon: Well, I was in control of the script. I had it in my contract that they couldn’t hire another writer because I controlled the underlying rights at the time the deal was set up.

JRM: Nice—and extremely uncommon.

Leslie Dixon: There were some pressures to do a couple of things that I didn’t agree with and which I had to succumb to, and I won’t say at the moment what those were, but at least I was the one who made the changes.

Overall I would say that 100% of the movie is verbatim from my final script, and 98% of it is what I wanted. The voiceover was changing all through post-production, but what’s on the screen is the last draft.

“I was in control of the script. I had it in my contract that they couldn’t hire another writer, so 100% of the movie is verbatim from my final script, and 98% of it is what I wanted. That’s not often true.”

JRM: Quite an accomplishment for a writer—or in this case, writer-producer, which seems to have made the difference.

Leslie Dixon: That’s really it. I know that’s not often true. In the end, other writers come in and polish things and shit. And even here, there’s a really bad ending that I was forced to write, and which got discarded. And they said oh, we’re going to reshoot this, and we did, so the ending that’s in the movie now is closer to what I prefer.

JRM: What’s your 100% preferred ending?

Leslie Dixon: I’m not answering that! There have been so many.

JRM: And of course there’s an alternate ending on the DVD.

Leslie Dixon: I don’t know why the director included it. I think it sucks. That was a bad day. And that alternate ending is a perfect example of what happens when the studio has some ideas, I know what I want but a lot of other people are chiming in, the actors have ideas—and it ends up being the way no one wants.

It’s like a bunch of lions fighting for scraps of meat and in the end you just get kind of a bloody pulp. But that was really the only area of the movie where anything like that happened, and fortunately we had the chance to fix it.

JRM: How long did the whole process take, from the time you first set your sights on the rights to the premiere?

Leslie Dixon: Oh, it was about seven years, but it was in fits and starts because there were periods where it would be under the awning of the studio trying to get it made, and then I’d write something else while we were waiting.

So I have something like three other credits during that period, and I got entire films made. I did Hairspray and worked on Heartbreak Kid, all sorts of things.

And I just didn’t sit around twiddling my thumbs on this project, hoping it would go; I was at the same time trying to nudge it forward. And in all truth, I think the reason it took so long was because it’s not an easy role to cast.

In a universe where you’re making a picture that’s in the $30 million budget range and you’re never going to get Matt Damon or someone like that, you need someone who’s in the process of breaking big, rather than someone who’s already huge. And you need it to be the right person.

There are certain roles that could be played by ten different actors and they’d all bring something good to it. For the role of Eddie, I don’t know anybody now at the same career stage where Bradley was then, who would be anywhere near as good.

It’s almost as if this project was waiting for Bradley, like he was the right guy and when he finally got big enough to have the studio take a shot at putting his name above the title, it was just the exact thing at the exact right moment in his career. It was just a marriage that was meant to happen.

“We all knew the minute Bradley Cooper wanted to do it that he was the right guy. He’s a really committed, smart, deeply professional, inspired, excited actor. And he just happens to look like that, which isn’t his fault.”

We all knew the minute we heard he wanted to do it that he was the right guy. I had no qualms about him being a schlub. I knew he could it. He’s a smart guy, and this required a smart actor, a literate actor, which he is also.

Secretly, many people don’t know this, he’s a trained actor, he’s been through the actor’s studio. He’s really not a face man that just drifted from modeling into acting. He’s a really committed, deeply professional, inspired, excited actor. And he just happens to look like that, which isn’t his fault.

JRM: Limitless also has one of the best trailers I’ve ever seen. I saw that and I thought, can the movie actually live up to this trailer? I have to see it.

Leslie Dixon: You know, it wasn’t easy because we had to gussy things up, and up the interest with action and glamour because there are a lot of scenes in boardrooms, and often those kinds of scenes can get really very boring.

Luckily, a little money was loosened up right before we started shooting. And not a lot; nobody did this movie for a lot of money, including me. You’re making a drug movie; you’re not going to get the payday of your life.

But some money was loosened up because of Robert De Niro, who elevated the supporting part to something much more interesting. And I also did a lot of last-minute work on the script to expand that part and give him a bigger voice and more power, and be a more interesting adversarial sort of character.

I Actually lost myself in a hotel for about four days and wrote all of his good moments and those speeches, because by that time we knew he was the one we wanted, and the character was a piece of bait to tempt him. And luckily it worked.

“Robert De Niro elevated the supporting part to something much more interesting. I did a lot of last-minute work on the script to expand that part.”

JRM: I like the way you tied it together with him being the guy who bought the company.

Leslie Dixon: That was something that was not in the original ending, or the book. Again, I had to bring him back to make it all one piece, and that’s why the ending was so difficult to nail: it was a contortion, like turning a script that has had a very logical but cynical ending into a Cirque du Soleil contortionist to try to get De Niro back into it.

It was very difficult, and there’s still a loose end that people on message boards complain about, which is the woman who died. And all I’ll say is that in the ending that I sold the script with, that was all fully explained, but it ended up having to be a dropped plot thread as to whether he’d killed that woman or not.

JRM: Well, we did see Tan Coat in the hall.

Leslie Dixon: Right, but that was a reshoot that was stuck in later because the studios were really worried that people would think Eddie had killed the woman. And I, of course, wanted them to worry about it. It was even explained—but sometimes when you make a major plot change and you’re rushing into production, something gets left dangling, little pieces of connective tissue, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

JRM: So how did you explain it?

Leslie Dixon: Let’s just say the implication in the draft that I originally sold was extremely strong that he had killed her. There is a point where a very mysterious character says, do you really want to know?

JRM: I remember that in an earlier draft.

Leslie Dixon: And he goes, uh…no. And it’s very much up in the air that he might have, or did. But that’s even something he’s willing to pay the price for if he can continue on this ride.

JRM: I thought the finished film was pretty close to flawless. The only thing that I can get a little bit of twinge about after seeing it the second time was the attorney. I mean, to represent Eddie in that situation, he would have to be a criminal defense attorney—but to be Atwood’s attorney, he’d be in corporate law.

Leslie Dixon: Right, it’s ridiculous. But it’s also a parking lot question; if you don’t ask it while you’re watching the movie, it’s okay. Because it’s not ‘til they’re driving home that people go, wait a minute, what about that? That’s my rule for movie logic.

I do try to be as logical as I possibly can, but occasionally you have to slip something in there. I learned this while working with [director] John McTiernan. He’d say, oh that’s a parking lot question. They won’t ask it while they’re watching the film.

JRM: That’s true; I didn’t.

Leslie Dixon: I know.

JRM: Same situation with Batman Begins, which I think is a magnificent movie. The weapon they’re after, the microwave emitter, vaporizes water inside pipes under the street. That’s what it was designed for, to vaporize water at a distance.

But of course it would also vaporize Batman, Ducard, and every other human anywhere near it, because we’re mostly water. I didn’t think of that until maybe the fourth time I saw it. Parking lot question.

Leslie Dixon: Right. I’m sure there are message boards with people screaming about it, who don’t have anything better to do. But you are creating a piece of fiction after all. You know it’s a movie. Too much logic can be the death of a fun time at the movies. Then again, you don’t want to be a sloppy asshole either. You have to walk kind of a thin line between fun and fact.

JRM: When working with adaptations, to what extent do you generally rely on source materials and creators, versus striking out into new territory?

Leslie Dixon: It completely depends on the material. There might be something that has a great idea in it, but not a single scene that would translate to a cinematic experience.

At the other extreme, there are things like The Silence of the Lambs, which is a movie waiting to happen. I didn’t get that job, but you almost just have to type it in screenplay format and there it is. You’ve got the characters, the story, the scenes are really dramatic, it’s got action.

I think there’s a lot of great stuff, also a lot of horror but a lot of great stuff in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series. The third of those novels has a climax that, if you just wrote it out as a cinema shot, it would be fantastic. It’s like the author did the work for you in figuring out the action sequence.

But again, there are other books where either the story doesn’t go where a movie audience would feel fulfilled and so you have to change it, or a character behaves in a way that is just too reprehensible—they kill a child or something—that would throw you right out of the movie.

There are some things that modern audiences for studio pictures— is what I’ve done for most of my career, as opposed to art house pictures—won’t accept. You can’t kill a little kid. You just can’t.

JRM: What are some other absolute no-no’s?

Leslie Dixon: Don’t make an IRA movie. Don’t make an IRS movie. I could say some really bitchy things and I’m not going to, about certain people who shouldn’t make movies starring or directed by.

Do make inspirational sports and teacher movies. They always work. Every few years they seem to do some business. Always make comedies, always make thrillers, always make science fiction movies.

And watch out, don’t make too many more superhero movies or people will get sick of them. That’s what I would say.

JRM: A common concern for those looking to see their material adapted is that Hollywood will screw it up, it won’t be what they want it to be or what it should have been or, in the case of true stories, it won’t bear any relationship to the real thing. Any thoughts on this?

Leslie Dixon: Well, welcome to my world, okay? I can write a screenplay, but the minute I sell it, I no longer own it. It’s like getting upset that someone remodeled the house you sold them. You don’t own it anymore.

Writers of books and other non-film formats always have the option of pulling a Salinger and just not selling the rights, so that a shitty movie won’t be made.

Or if they really have the clout because it’s a massive, massive bestseller, they can pull a J.K. Rowling and have a certain amount of control over what happens to their work. That is an almost unprecedented deal for a book writer to get, but she did have the clout to get it.

And I managed to specify that there would be no other writers on Limitless. It can sometimes be done if you care enough, and sometimes you have to trade off money to do it. But the better advice is to sell it and bend over, or not sell it at all because you will not have control.

In the case of Limitless, just out of respect and liking for the author, I kept him updated through the entire process. I always told him when I was changing something, I always told him why. He told me that in the end there were a thousand emails between us.

JRM: What was the biggest change you made?

Leslie Dixon: Much as I respect his work, I didn’t think the audience wanted to see the movie end with the hero in a motel room, waiting for him to come down for his last pill and die. I just didn’t think that was going to work.

Ultimately it worked out for [Dark Fields author] Alan. He was a teacher of English as a Second Language for a long time, and wrote at night. Now he’s a full-time novelist with a big paperback resurgence and a paid-off mortgage, enjoying his brush with personal publicity. Believe me, he came out of this very nicely and I’m really happy for him. He’s a great guy.

“Ultimately it worked out for Alan. He’s now a full-time novelist with a big paperback resurgence and a paid-off mortgage. He came out of this very nicely.”

JRM: Great writer, too

Leslie Dixon: Yeah, no shit, huh?

JRM: You know I went looking for one of his original hardcovers, and found the asking price was $148.

Leslie Dixon: Oh, that’s funny. I have a couple of them.

JRM: A year from now that’ll probably be different. I went with the retitled movie tie-in; nine bucks on amazon.

Leslie Dixon: Yep. It was so front and center in my mind for so long, and that movie ate up so much of my hard drive for so long, that I have to move forward and start thinking about other things.

JRM: So did you not get your typical fee for writing this?

Leslie Dixon: No, no, uh-uh. They only spent the money to make this because some of it was deferred. They owe us the money, my producing partner and me, and we’re going to get it all, eventually. But it still won’t be the same money I would have gotten working on a major studio picture.

Relativity is what you would call a mini-major. Needless to say that they have money to make films, but in general and as a matter of course, they’re not going to be making $150 million negative cost movies like a major studio can. They’re experienced film financiers and a fledging studio.

So when you make a picture there, it’s a given that everyone will be ground down on the money. Neither Bradley nor De Niro took big fees to make this movie, and I didn’t either. We were making a movie about drugs. Bradley would often turn to me on the set and say, “I can’t believe they’re letting us make this.”

JRM: Bradley’s gone from booze and roofies in The Hangover to NZT in Limitless.

Leslie Dixon: It’s true. But you know, he’s so likable, people don’t seem to mind.

JRM: So tell me, this picture made $150 million, which means that with DVD, it’s probably $450, over $500 million—and you’re still not going to get your regular fee?

Leslie Dixon: I will eventually. There will probably be letters from lawyers saying, okay pay up. It’s going to be a disgusting process, but it will dribble in. It’s not the way it is at Warner Brothers, where they cut you a check and do what they’re supposed to do.

It’s a creatively structured deal, which means after a lot of arguing, they will pay us our deferred back ends.

JRM: But you can point to a great movie.

Leslie Dixon: I’ve always thought it was a commercial no-brainer as a film. I had no intention of making an art house downer.

“I’ve always thought it was a commercial no-brainer as a film. I had no intention of making an art house downer. But it took everyone involved to make it come off.”

JRM: It’s like a personal fantasy—where can I get that?

Leslie Dixon: Well, yes. Of course. But it took everyone involved to make it come off, so it was a risk. Less of a risk with Bradley, and that’s another reason why casting was so incredibly crucial: you had to have an actor that people liked even if he was behaving badly. You had to.

And he had to be appealing to women, but not so appealing to women that men didn’t like him. He had to have a huge range, and be really smart. And we got so lucky with that language thing. Bradley does speak fluent French in real life, and he just has a great ear. I thought his Italian was wonderful, and so did my Italian friends.

JRM: Not to mention his Chinese.

Leslie Dixon: Yes. There are a lot of things that a number of actors just wouldn’t be able to do.

JRM: A lot of people, particularly those unfamiliar with Hollywood, are curious about how things work with multiple writers and writing teams on the same project. What’s been your experience, working alone versus contributing with others?

Leslie Dixon: I’ve written with a couple of people as a team. I wrote the first draft of The Thomas Crown Affair with Kurt Wimmer, and then later the director elected to proceed with me alone.

I’ve written some stuff with my husband Tom Ropelewski, and my very first project—which never got produced—was written with a partner. So I certainly know how to do it both ways, and it’s a lot lonelier when you do it on your own.

But that’s a two-sided question because the one question I see you’re asking is about various writers working on the same project, and also about writing as part of a partnership, which is a whole other thing. So those are two different issues.

I think I would have really enjoyed working in TV, where there’s a room full of writers and they’re all coffeed up and laughing. I think that really sounds like fun.

That said, there is a rabbit hole down in the bottom of my mind, some well or spring down there that I seem to only be able to reach when I’m locked in a room by myself. Particularly when it comes to the darker, visceral stuff, the kind of thing that a guy would normally write.

I don’t think I’d be batting ideas around with others and then come up with the blood drinking or the ice skate things. None of that stuff is from the book.

I remember lying in bed with my husband, trying to figure out how to get Eddie out of that room at the end. And he said give him a pill, and I said no that’s too easy. So I wrote myself into a corner.

And then I thought, okay he needs the NZT but the pill’s too easy but it’s in the bloodstream and, oh, shit, oh, shit. And it hit me and I turned to my husband and I said, can I do that? Can I have him drink blood and, you know…

And my husband said, sure, Scorsese would do it. I thought it might be too much but that was true, Scorsese would do it.

JRM: Was it from that thought that you went to having Gennady inject it directly?

Leslie Dixon: Yeah, that came a little later because I realized we had to remind people it was in his bloodstream. I mean, they wouldn’t forget that he had the drug but just the whole blood thing. I needed to hit that.

And it also led to that kind of fun thing of him realizing that, now that I’m smarter, I can torture you better. I keep you alive longer, I can do a much more thorough job of torturing. I just thought, what would he as a sort of lowlife use NZT for, and the first thing I thought was: how to be a better thug. I mean obviously he would have eventually evolved past that, but these things go by increments.

“I thought, what would Gennady as a sort of lowlife use NZT for, and the first thing I thought was: how to be a better thug. Now that I’m smarter, I can torture you better, keep you alive longer.”

JRM: Show the dark side. I thought that actor—Andrew Howard—did a hell of a job too.

Leslie Dixon: Yeah, I thought he was great.

JRM: I don’t know about the character eventually evolving past that point, though.

Leslie Dixon: Well the drug does tend to build upon itself. You go through phases.

JRM: What does it feel like to watch your grosses head north of $100 million?

Leslie Dixon: You know, sometimes you’ve been so bruised and bloodied and damaged by the process that you feel numb, and you almost wish you could have gone back in time and not done it at all.

And other times, you’re doing a victory dance, and laughing and popping champagne corks. Every project is completely different. Every set of collaborators you have is totally different.

You can be on a lovely set with kind, delightful people and have a bomb of a movie. And you can have the most contentious pack of pit bulls tearing at each other for the entire shoot and have the movie turn out to be a hit. There is no one way that things happen.

With an adaptation, you can have one writer who perfectly nails it. I think though, interestingly enough and particularly with dramatic adaptations, that the studios have a tendency to throw fewer writers at a project than usual.

It’s typically not more than one or two writers working on dramatic adaptations, say on a novel. Whereas the bigger the budget, it seems, the more writers they’ll throw at something. I saw something like five credited writers on Cowboys and Aliens, which means there are probably at least nine more.

JRM: I’ve heard of one movie with something like 30 writers on it.

Leslie Dixon: There’s something wrong with the process when you do that. There’s no way that 30 writers make something better than two or three would. There’s just no way. There’s no way to keep track of the shape of the story when you have that many writers. I think somebody who wants to make good movies, as opposed to merely commercially successful ones, would avoid that.

I was just part of a long chain of writers on Tower Heist [forthcoming]. In my opinion the final shooting script could have been shot from any of the last three to four people to work on it. Their work was of about equal quality. The script didn’t really get better, it just got different. But that’s my opinion.

JRM: To what extent do you see good and commercial coinciding in the marketplace?

Leslie Dixon: Highly. The audience knows when they’ve seen a good movie, even a good popcorn movie. I think it’s true sometimes that bad movies make a lot of money, but when you look at the highest grossing pictures of all time, they all have something going for them.

I would not say that E.T. is anything but a wonderful movie. It’s like The Wizard of Oz of that generation. You can pick a good movie. The ones that Spielberg has in the top grossers of all time are all incredibly enjoyable or moving or exciting films. Cameron has made good films that have made tons of money.

There’s no conflict: you can make a good movie that’s a commercial smash. And shouldn’t that be the goal? I believe it will be a bigger commercial smash if it’s a good movie. As opposed to something where you got people in from the trailer and just had a big weekend with.

JRM: And 8 of the top 10 biggest worldwide hits are now adaptations, as are 17 of the top 20.

Leslie Dixon: Yes. With comics and graphic novels in particular, I think too there’s a tendency to put multiple writers on the projects, because they aren’t as fleshed out as books and so you need a lot of invention to turn a graphic novel into a movie.

And that’s where, maybe, different writers’ ideas may actually help, if the first or second writer just can’t bring it all the way. There’s a tremendous amount of invention that goes into making a graphic novel into a film.

JRM: Have you been involved with adapting comics yourself?

Leslie Dixon: I haven’t. I’ve had many, many opportunities and in fact one of them was Cowboys and Aliens. And I’m kind of sorry I didn’t do that one, because I saw the film and I really got a kick out of it. If I had been able to play the trailer in my mind when I was reading the graphic novel, I would have done it. I didn’t get that it could work.

But in general, I stay away from those because I think there are so many fanboys out there who love and live for those works, and those are the kinds of people who should be doing those adaptations: the people who want to see superhero movies.

Personally, I’m now tired of them, and unless I’ve heard from my friends that one of them is really fun—like Iron Man or Captain America—or someone I know or love has worked on it, I don’t see them anymore.

JRM: I remember when I first started sending scripts out, one of the comments I got back was “too comic-bookish.” And now that’s all the rage.

Leslie Dixon: True. But you know, times will change again and there’s going to be one superhero movie too many. It was a bold and gutsy move, but I’m absolutely shocked by how quickly they’re reinventing the Spider-Man franchise, and I’m curious to see if they’re going to be able to make it pay off. It’s a gamble, I think.

JRM: I would have liked to have seen Cameron’s version.

Leslie Dixon: Me too.

JRM: They did make several too many Batman movies, but then they came up with Batman Begins, which I thought was brilliant marketing because the title alone tells you they’re trashing it all and starting over. And wow did Nolan and Goyer get it right.

Leslie Dixon: Right. But there was a Spider-Man origins story nine years ago, so I’m just fascinated to see if they can do it again this quickly. I mean, that again, is a long time after the Batman series started. But overall, I think graphic novels are an art form, I really do. And I respect them. But for whatever reason, the right one hasn’t hit me the right way to take on as a project.

And then there’s another thing that happens with me, which is occasionally I’ll get calls about projects that I wouldn’t have originated. Somebody says, oh please come and help me out with Freaky Friday.

That was not a job that I would have gone chasing because I didn’t want to be offered teenage girl movies for the next 30 years, which is one unfortunate outgrowth of the success of that picture.

JRM: Did you approach that as a remake of the earlier movie, or did you go to back to the original, young adult novel?

Leslie Dixon: None of the above; I just made it all up, because I didn’t find anything useful. They both seemed dated in a way that you just couldn’t work with. It had to be re-imagined.

I knew they wanted Jamie Lee Curtis, and that helped me a lot because I had someone in my mind for the mother, someone I knew was really clever and funny. I thought she gave one of the purest comic performances of any woman in True Lies, and I knew she was going to kill this and that was going to elevate the concept.

I did not know that Lindsay Lohan was going to turn out to be the shit, you know, after that. I mean, I thought she was a talented, cute, beautiful, healthy girl.

So sometimes they come to you and say, help us with this. And there are some projects where you’ll see me as a second name in the credits because I rewrote the script based on my relationship with studio executives or a producer I like or an actor I’ve always wanted to write for.

And then for whatever reason it turns out to be successful, but it wasn’t necessarily something I ran into with my heart and soul. I just pulled up my professional bootstraps and went at it. I have several things like that on my resume. We all do.

I really wanted to do The Thomas Crown Affair. I really wanted to do Hairspray, and I really wanted to do Limitless. Those are three where I was really excited, where I thought, if you give me this, I’m going to kick its ass.

JRM: What do you really want to do now, or what are you involved with that you really wanted to do?

Leslie Dixon: I want to make sure that I can do more pictures like Limitless, and that I am thought of as a chic who can write like a guy and that you would hire for a job that you normally might not hire a woman to do.

Completely conversely, I’d also like to do a Broadway musical. I have a lot of interest and excitement about that world and I know people who are in it. So that’s hopefully something that will happen at some point. I’ve had flirtations with it already, and I’ve adapted a script based on a broadway musical, so I’m in that world.

Lastly, I’ll never stop writing comedy. I just don’t want to do it exclusively. I find it’s better if I can shake things up a bit and then come back to comedy. I need to be fresh and in a good mood.

It’s also better for me to do R rated comedy, to do edgy comedy. I really have always felt sad to be forced into a PG or PG-13 box. Except for Hairspray, which somehow was able to be wholesome but still kind of have its origins in John Waters.

Somehow you could do a joke where pregnant, smoking women were drinking martinis in 1962, and that’s still a PG joke. But it’s kind of out there, and my natural sense of humor just isn’t safe. That, to me, is funny.

JRM: A little humor can be a dangerous thing.

Leslie Dixon: Yeah. I love it, but if I write it exclusively, I get drained.

JRM: By the way, when you say you want to make more pictures like Limitless, what do you mean? Because my first thought is that there are no pictures like Limitless.

Leslie Dixon: Oh, I mean nasty, visceral thrillers that are fun but have some intelligence in them.

“I want to make sure that I can do more pictures like Limitless, and that I am thought of as a chic who can write like a guy and that you would hire for a job that you normally might not hire a woman to do. Nasty, visceral thrillers that are fun but have some intelligence in them.”

JRM: Among those with properties or true life stories to adapt, there are a couple of basic approaches to pitching Hollywood. Pitching an adapted script that’s already written, pitching an unwritten adaptation with treatment, outlines and so forth, and pitching source material itself with something like, “Hey this would make a great movie.” Obviously every project is unique, but can you speak to the likely success or relative merits of each of those approaches?

For more of John Marlow’s in-depth chat with Leslie Dixon, see Part 2 (coming in October).

ADAPTATION SERVICES

*  ADAPTATION CODES used on this website indicate the type of source material on which the films were based: ART (article in magazine, newspaper, etc.); BLG (blog); COM (comic book / graphic novel); HIS (historic event); MLF (myth / legend / faery tale); MOV (movie remake / spinoff); MOVs (movie short); NFB (nonfiction book); NOV (novel); SNG (song); STO (short story); GAM (game / toy); THM (theme park / theme park ride); TRU (true-life story); TVS (television series).

Alan Glynn is author of the novel The Dark Fields, which was adapted and republished as Limitless. The film adaptation, written and produced by Leslie Dixon, earned over $150M at the box office. (Click here for Leslie Dixon interview. Watch the Limitless trailer here.)

Alan is also the author of the novels Winterland (2009) and Bloodland (early 2012). Married with two children, he makes his home in Dublin, Ireland.

JRM: How and why did you come to be a writer—and how did you come to write The Dark Fields?

Alan Glynn: I’ve been a writer in my head since I was a small kid. I never made any contingency plans or trained for anything else, but I’m still constantly amazed that I’ve actually ended up doing it for a living. I think it was literally the feel of a pen in my hand that kicked it all off.

Fast forward a huge chunk of time to about 1999. Up to that point I’d written two novels and about fifteen short stories, all unpublished. Because there was no contingency plan, I just steamed ahead with the next novel, which became The Dark Fields.

The book started as a sort of what-if proposal. Thinking of the performance-enhancing drugs in sports, I thought, what if there were a performance-enhancing drug for businessmen, lawyers, politicians even?

And I worked it out from there. I also liked the idea of exploring a sort of latter-day Jay Gatsby, where the great re-invention of the self was reduced to a pill, a commodity.

“Thinking of the performance-enhancing drugs in sports, I thought, what if there were a performance-enhancing drug for businessmen, lawyers, politicians even? I also liked the idea of a sort of latter-day Jay Gatsby, where the great re-invention of the self was reduced to a pill, a commodity.”

JRM: Your agent sold the novel—but how did you get an agent in the first place?

Alan Glynn: It was through a referral by a friend, another writer, who was with him. The agent read the first novel I’d written, liked it and took me on in 1997. He’d had no success placing either of my first two novels. Then he sold The Dark Fields at the very end of 1999.

JRM: What rights did you retain at that time—meaning which rights had you reserved to yourself when doing the book deal with the publisher?

Alan Glynn: I’m afraid my answer to this and to other questions regarding contracts will not be very informative, and may even be shocking to some. That’s because I trust my agent and don’t ask many questions.

Contracts give me a headache, even to look at. I was so happy to get that first deal with a publisher that I would have accepted any terms at all. But it was a fairly standard contract.

JRM: Wow. You know of course, that a great many writers end up in a great deal of trouble by doing precisely those things—signing the first contract put in front of them, and having their agent handle the contract instead of a lawyer.

Though the mere fact of having a reputable agent may well mean that the first contract you saw was already quite a bit better than what they would have sent if you’d had no agent.

Alan Glynn: I suppose I have been very lucky. My agent, Antony Harwood, was with a very well-established agency at the time, Gillon Aitken Associates in London. He negotiated the contract with the publisher, they went back and forth on the details, and then when he was satisfied he presented it to me as a good contract. So technically, I guess it wasn’t the first contract they sent out, but it was the first one I saw.

I did read it and understand what I was signing, but I didn’t have anything to compare it with and was in no real position to question any of the details. As I say, I trust Antony, who now runs his own agency, Antony Harwood Ltd. I’ve been with him for nearly fifteen years, and have never once had a problem or disagreement with him.

JRM: How did the “Limitless” adaptation of The Dark Fields come about?

Alan Glynn: My agent sent it out to various film companies before the book had even been published.

JRM: That’s impressive. Most book agents aren’t very effective at that because they lack the necessary film industry contacts.

Alan Glynn: Antony was very experienced; soon after the book sale, he outlined a strategy to me for submitting it to film companies.

JRM: Can you say how that went?

Alan Glynn: Oh dear, it’s all so long ago, and I don’t really remember much of it. It was spring of 2001. My agent sent it out to quite a few places, and pretty quickly we got expressions of interest from Tribeca and from Scott Rudin. And then from Miramax.

There was a bit of back and forth with each of them, though I don’t remember the details of what went on, but I do remember that Miramax was the only one that eventually made an option offer. It was the first step on a long journey.

JRM: Did you write the book with a movie in mind?

Alan Glynn: No, and I don’t think that’s ever a good strategy. As it turned out, the book was very Hollywood-friendly, and could be pitched in four words: “Viagra for the brain.”

But that wasn’t anything I thought about at the time. My subsequent two books, although similar in style and pacing, are much harder to pitch—at least in shorthand movie terms.

Like a lot of fiction writers these days, I’m hugely influenced by a lifetime of watching movies and TV, and I think the visual grammar of film has worked its way into the DNA of modern prose.

Still, it’s an organic process. If you set out writing a book consciously thinking, this will make a great movie, then I think you’re going about it the wrong way and it probably won’t work.

JRM: So if you do want your book to be a movie—better in your opinion to prepare a book and a screenplay, rather than trying to make the book fit into some kind of Hollywood mold?

Alan Glynn: Maybe I’m wrong, and I can only speak for myself, but if you’re thinking of the movie before you’ve even written the book, you’ve got it ass-backwards. It means you’re allowing market considerations to shape what you’ll write, and that can only end in tears.

Novel writing is a massively complex, organic process that has to be allowed to breathe and transform itself as it goes along. You can’t rein it in as you write it, with the a priori requirements of its own screen adaptation.

If you want to write a movie, write a movie. Having said that, there could be a new synergistic paradigm out there, where book and movie are developed in tandem. I’ve heard people talk about that.

JRM: That paradigm is where I live and breathe. By the way—who came up with “Viagra for the brain?”

Alan Glynn: I’d like to say I did, but I actually think it was someone else. Can’t remember who, though. But I did come up with an even shorter pitch, three words: “a pharmaceutical Faust”.

JRM: I like them both—but of course more people know “Viagra” than “Faust.” For whatever that says about our time. Can you say what the option was like—was it one of those legendary one-dollar options, or was it something that actually paid some bills?

Alan Glynn: Bearing in mind that these things are always relative, and that I hadn’t yet been published or ever earned a penny from writing, and was forty years old, it paid some serious bills. And with option renewals every eighteen months or so for the following few years, it went on paying bills. Smaller ones, but bills are bills.

JRM: Can you say what the original book deal was like?

Alan Glynn: It was a one-book deal, worth about ten thousand pounds ($27,000) in 1999. Today, that would actually be pretty good for a first novel. But back then big advances were more common, and I had higher expectations.

But big advances can also be very dangerous, so it worked out well for me. With that deal and the movie option and some good translation-rights deals for The Dark Fields, I was able to give up my TESL day job.

JRM: TESL—teaching English as a second language?

Alan Glynn: Yes, which I did in Italy for five years and then back in my home town of Dublin for another seven.

JRM: You say that big advances can be dangerous. Most writers hope for those—so what are the dangers?

Alan Glynn: Well, a big advance is obviously great, and if I’d gotten one back in 2001 I’d have been very happy indeed. But they can bring enormous pressures, too.

If you don’t earn out your advance in sales, which can be extremely hard to do, then that can be the end. It can mean no one will go near your next book. And if the advance is for two books, the second book can suffer from the poor performance of the first, in terms of how much the publisher gets behind it.

A modest advance gives you some cover. The ideal, I suppose, is to make money on royalties rather than on an advance. If you do earn out your advance, and exceed it, then that’s a whole different ball game. But there are many examples out there of big advances being the last the world ever hears of certain writers.

JRM: How was the book doing before the Limitless movie came out, and what effect did the film have on book sales, your career, and your life in general? Can you paint before-and-after pictures?

Alan Glynn: Up until early 2008, I was fairly miserable and losing hope of ever being published again. The Dark Fields was very well reviewed when it first came out, but it didn’t sell particularly well.

After that I wrote a novel called The Paloma Stripe, but couldn’t find a publisher for it. Then I wrote another novel called Winterland, and initially we couldn’t find a publisher for that either.

The Dark Fields had gone out of print around 2006, and the possibility of a movie being made of it was the one hope I was clinging to, but even that seemed to be receding.

I even had negative thoughts about what might happen if it did get made, first worrying that the movie wouldn’t be any good, and second thinking that, even if it was good, what kind of a personal success would it be, given that it would be based on work I’d written a decade before?

And what about The Paloma Stripe and Winterland, the two novels I’d written since? So my worldview at the time was quite negative and bleak.

“I was fairly miserable and losing hope of ever being published again. The book had gone out of print around 2006, and the possibility of a movie being made of it was the one hope I was clinging to, but even that seemed to be receding. So my worldview at the time was quite negative and bleak.”

Then early in 2008, an editor in New York, John Schoenfelder, bought the US rights to Winterland, and soon after that Faber in London bought the UK and Commonwealth rights. Those developments immediately changed my circumstances and my frame of mind.

And then Bradley Cooper signed on to do the movie, and the future began to look very bright indeed.

Also, as a consequence of the movie going ahead with Bradley, I signed new book deals with Faber and Picador, to republish The Dark Fields—which ultimately appeared under the title “Limitless” to match the film title.

In November 2009, Winterland was published to great reviews, so even before the movie came out I was a happy, well-adjusted and, most important of all, published author again.

The publicity surrounding the movie raised my profile considerably. That and sales of the re-issued Limitless novel as a film tie-in have helped tremendously with promoting my other books.

Unless you’re in the major leagues, your books generally don’t get advertised in a mainstream way. And suddenly I was watching a tv spot for the Limitless movie, playing during the Super Bowl. It was sort of a collateral ad for the book, but it was pretty extraordinary.

JRM: And then of course everyone who sees the movie sees “based on your novel” up on the screen.

Alan Glynn: Yes and that, for me, was the best frame in the whole movie. Big thrill. And it definitely sends people out to bookstores.

JRM: What was your level of involvement, if any, in the adaptation itself—the process of turning the book into a screenplay?

Alan Glynn: I had no direct involvement. [Screenwriter/producer] Leslie Dixon asked me a few questions at the beginning, to clarify certain points, but that was it. I knew she “got” the book and wasn’t going to turn it into a musical or a romantic comedy, so I wasn’t worried in the slightest.

JRM: Movies seldom wind up what the original author envisioned. How satisfied were you with the completed film?

Alan Glynn: I was very satisfied indeed. In some respects it’s very faithful to the book, and in other respects it goes its own way. Which is fine.

The thing is, if you think you’re saying something or making a point in a book you’ve written, you’d be foolish to expect a movie version to say exactly the same thing or make exactly the same point.

There are some things in the movie I’d like to change, but that’s hardly a surprise. When I first saw it, sitting at the premiere in New York, I absolutely loved it, and found the whole experience exhilarating. My attitude has always been that it’s my book, their movie.

JRM: I understand the premiere had a rather unusual guest, who also did a promotional spot for the film, in which he attributes his success to the same drug used in the movie: NZT.

Alan Glynn: Yes, I turned around at one point and saw this aging, Christ-like figure a few rows behind me, with a blonde beard and flowing locks. At first I thought, who is that? And then the penny dropped, and I realized it was billionaire Richard Branson, whose company Virgin Produced helped finance the film. That was pretty wild.

JRM: What did you think of the new title, Limitless?

Alan Glynn: At first, I was very unhappy with it. I love the original title, The Dark Fields. It’s taken from the last page of The Great Gatsby, and speaks to certain themes in the book. But I got used to Limitless pretty quickly, and given the changes they made, in a way it actually makes more sense as a title for the film.

My main problem with the title change was that it meant the publishers were going to re-issue the book under the new title. That’s really a pity, as far as I’m concerned, because for book itself, “Limitless” doesn’t make as much sense as “The Dark Fields” at all. I’m also now saddled with the slight practical confusion that arises from having a book with two titles.

JRM: Well, the way Vikas Swarup explained it to me, when I asked about the title of his novel Q & A being changed to Slumdog Millionaire for the movie tie-in book, he said he was ready to call a lawyer.

Until it was explained to him that people who’ve never heard of his book will see the movie, see that it was based on a book, and then walk into bookstores asking for the Slumdog Millionaire book. And the bookstore clerks would say, “I’m sorry, but there is no book called Slumdog Millionaire.”

So he could stick with the original title and lose all of those sales, or he could live with the new title and make a pile of money. After careful reflection, he decided he could live with it.

Alan Glynn: Yes. I was never going to lawyer up over it. First, because it was in the contract that they could change the title, and second, the logic you outlined above was clear.

It’s just a pity they had to change it in the first place. The marketing folks like to think of the testing they do as an exact science, but I think it’s more like William Goldman territory—no one knows anything.

JRM: Many authors find that because there are caps on earnings—maximum amounts on the film side—a successful adaptation brings them more money through increased book sales than they make from the movie deal. Would you say that’s true of your situation?

“Given that I sold the rights as a total unknown, I’ve done very well out of the film.”

Alan Glynn: Not so far. Given that I sold the rights ten years ago, and as a total unknown, I’ve done very well out of the film. Increased book sales have been significant, but they haven’t been spectacular. These things are hard to quantify, though, and it may prove different over the long haul.

JRM: Regarding increased book sales—as it was out of print for five or six years, one might say the movie brought the book back from the dead.

Alan Glynn: Yes, absolutely. Lazarus-like. I always felt that it should have done better the first time round. The central idea really appeals to people, and everyone I’ve spoken to who’s read the book seems to love it.

What a movie does, is bring more people to the book, make them aware of it and give them a chance to read it, and then hopefully my other books as well. I’m very glad that the book has had a second chance. It doesn’t often happen, and I realize I’m quite lucky in that regard.

JRM: Here’s another effect of the movie: when I searched your original hardcover on amazon and ebay, it was going for $148. I decided to go with the movie tie-in. But if you’ve got a box of those things, now might be a good time to divest. After all—yours will be signed…

Alan Glynn: I’ve given quite a few away, but what I’ve got left I’m keeping for my sons. Though who knows . . . one day, when I’m down on my luck. I’ve just checked on Amazon and one seller is asking $498.52

JRM: How do your film-side earnings compare with your book-side earnings, generally speaking if you don’t care to get into specifics?

Alan Glynn: No, I’d rather not get into specifics. I can say that the original movie rights option, the various option renewals and then the eventual buy-out on the first day of principal photography, all added together, exceed anything I’ve ever earned on the book side.

But then, unless you’re in the big leagues, there’s very little money in books. And though my earnings from the movie deal were great and I’m not complaining for a second, it’s still peanuts compared to what other major players involved in the movie get.

There would be no movie without the book and yet, relatively speaking, they don’t have to pay that much to acquire the book—mainly because most writers are poor and happy to accept the first offer that comes along.

JRM: What was the whole, first-time Hollywood experience like?

Alan Glynn: Generally, it was great. For the nearly ten years that the film was in development, everything was filtered through Leslie Dixon. My only direct contact with the whole process was visiting the set, attending the premiere, and meeting [star] Bradley Cooper and [director] Neil Burger, all of which was wonderful and stress-free.

The whole protracted, stop-start, ten-year thing, though, was a bit of a bummer, even from the remove I was at. I don’t know how people can work in the movie industry and stay sane. And the answer to that, of course, is that they probably don’t.

Having said that, everyone I met was very nice and friendly. But that’s possibly because I posed no threat to anyone. I have heard some horror stories, stuff that would be nightmarish to be involved in but was extremely entertaining to hear about.

JRM: And Leslie Dixon?

Alan Glynn: I was very lucky with Leslie, lucky to have hooked up with someone who was so tenacious and committed to the project. And also someone who, being a writer herself, was so sympathetic to the needs and anxieties of a fellow writer.

She kept me informed of everything that was going on all through the process, which I believe is pretty unusual. She was very sensitive to what I’d think about everything—script decisions she’d made, casting choices, who’d direct and so on.

Also, I knew from the beginning that she understood the book and wanted to be as faithful to it as possible. I trusted her and we became friends, and even if it’s the only thing we ever work on together, we’ll always be friends.

It was a long, often painful process, but we came out intact, never had a cross word, and ended up with a movie we’re both proud of.

JRM: Had you ever thought of writing the screenplay yourself?

Alan Glynn: No. When you write a novel you live with it so intimately and for so long that the idea of going back to it, deconstructing it and putting it back together again in another form just seems nightmarish-to me at least. When I finish a book, I want to move on.

JRM: Many of the people reading this will be book authors who intend to sell film rights, or adapt the book themselves or with the help of someone else and then sell the screenplay. Do you have any thoughts on the best route to pursue in getting your book or other story adapted for the screen?

Alan Glynn: I don’t really know. My experience is so limited that I would hesitate to offer advice. But I think it’s generally accepted that writing a screenplay, original or adapted, and then trying to sell it on spec is a pretty tough road to go down.

Doing it this way, you also tend to become very attached to your work, and precious about it, so that when—if you’re lucky—a studio or producer comes in and starts tearing it apart and making changes, you may find it all that more difficult to stomach.

I’d imagine working from the position of a deal or agreement/understanding with a producer first is a better, more practical place to start.

JRM: Ah, but do you think there’s a danger there—particularly if you’ve made no effort to render the book deliberately cinematic, or if the book doesn’t just happen to be fairly cinematic on its own terms—as Dark Fields was—that the producer or whomever won’t “see” the movie in the book? Whereas they might well see the movie in the screenplay.

Alan Glynn: Sure, a script is a big step closer to a movie, assuming you or someone you’re working with has a clear idea of what’s possible and practical and it has a real chance of being made. Otherwise you’re working in a vacuum.

“A script is a big step closer to a movie, assuming you or someone you’re working with has a clear idea of what’s possible and practical. Otherwise you’re working in a vacuum.”

The other route is to pitch the book or idea to a producer before you write the whole screenplay, though I’m not sure how practical that is these days.

JRM: It’s tough. I spoke with [Limitless screenwriter/producer] Leslie just the other day, and one of the things she pointed out was that, because of the economy and the high cost of turning pitches into screenplays, there’s not a whole lot of interest in “development” anymore.

Unless you’ve already got a bestselling property or some kind of name brand on your hands, they want to see the finished product, meaning the screenplay. It’s gotten to the point where Sony recently announced that they wouldn’t even look at pitches for a time, only complete screenplays. Basically, the studios are cutting their development budgets and shifting the time and cost burden of development onto the seller.

Alan Glynn: That’s interesting, and Leslie would certainly know a lot more about this than I would. As I writer, I actually prefer the idea of finishing a screenplay in splendid isolation and then sending it out.

It’s just that, if you sell it, unlike with novels, you’re almost certainly guaranteed the heartache of seeing your work twisted and changed out of all recognition, and multiple times. I’m not sure I’d have the stomach for that.

JRM: As Leslie says, “Welcome to my world.” She likens it to selling a house that someone else remodels. At least you get a fabulous price for the house. I guess a rights sale is more like selling the lot: nice view, good neighborhood—but someone’s still got to build the house.

At least you still have the book, which reflects your own vision, regardless of script changes.

Alan Glynn: Yes, and I think it was Robert Harris who used that house selling analogy as well, about selling the movie rights to your book, and how if you sell your house you can’t very well come back in six months and complain to the new owners about how they’ve rearranged the furniture or decorated the bathroom.

The difference, as you point out, is that the original book remains intact and available, whereas the original script often remains in a drawer, which maybe goes some way to explaining the “fabulous price” Leslie refers to.

From what you and Leslie have said I actually find it quite encouraging that the quickest route into the movie business right now seems to be via a strong, completed and fully realized script.

Regardless of what may happen later, I think from a creative point of view that’s a healthy environment for writers to be working in.

JRM: Do you have another book in the works and, if so, how has the Limitless adaptation affected your next book deal—assuming you know at this point?

Alan Glynn: I have a new novel out in September 2011 with Faber and in early 2012 with Picador USA. It’s called Bloodland, and is a sort of sequel to Winterland. I am also contracted for a third book, Graveland —the last in what will be a loose trilogy.

These deals were made well before the Limitless movie was released, so the selling price wasn’t really affected—but they were certainly informed by and helped by the whole movie and book tie-in situation. It’s difficult to quantify, but it’s clear there was some degree of synergy going on between the two areas.

My next deal, theoretically, in a year or so, will most likely be based on how well Bloodland and Graveland do, and I reckon that by that stage Limitless will be ancient history, at least as far as its heat-seeking powers are concerned.

JRM: Do you also reckon that the sales of those books will be higher because the film has made more readers aware of your works?

Alan Glynn: Sure. Generally speaking, I can say that getting the adaptation made, from a practical business point of view and over the long term, has been the most significant and lucrative event in my career as a writer.

“Getting the adaptation made, from a practical business point of view and over the long term, has been the most significant and lucrative event in my career as a writer.”

But it’s also true to say that if the book wasn’t any good, and if the film had turned out to be a turkey, then the deal, all along, simply wouldn’t have been anywhere near as significant and lucrative as it has proved to be. If that makes sense.

In other words, an option doesn’t automatically mean success. And other essential but hard-to-pin-down factors need to be in play as well.

JRM: I can see where it makes sense on the book side, if that’s what you mean; a bad book wouldn’t have been optioned, and a bad movie isn’t going to sell a lot of books, even good ones.

But on the film side, where you’ve so far made far more than you have on the book side, the typical deal is to pay you most if not all of that money no later than the first day of principal photography. So it seems you’d have made the same amount of money–on the film side–even if the movie had been a complete disaster, instead of the brilliant film it is. Because you’re paid before it ever comes out.

Alan Glynn: I see what you mean, and I suppose it’s true. What I really mean is that if the book wasn’t any good in the first place, I doubt that it would have been pursued as tenaciously as it was, over such a long period of time.

The option might not have been renewed so many times, and there might not have been so many other producers waiting in the wings to pick up the rights if they became available.

And there were; I had many lunches where I was courted and pitched to within an inch of my life. There’s a motor in the book, and in Leslie’s script, that I think kept the project alive. And that went a long distance towards ensuring that it was going to get made into a movie one way or another.

I can imagine a situation where a less dynamic book gets optioned, but then sinks into the quicksand of development, never to be heard from again.

JRM: Do you have any particular work habits or environments that you
adhere to or find helpful?

Alan Glynn: Frank O’Connor’s advice to writers was, ‘Glue your arse to the seat’, and that’s about it, really. I have two small children and live in a small house, so helpful environments conducive to writing are hard to come by.

Just get it done however you can. I listen to instrumental music, jazz, soundtracks, modern classical. I get up early. Drink coffee. Nap frequently. Who wants to hear any of this?

JRM: Writers looking to learn how pros find their groove.

Alan Glynn: Okay, and I’m actually always fascinated to hear how other writers answer these questions. Working as a writer requires enormous self-discipline, because it is so easy to get distracted, or to get caught up in displacement activities.

And unless you are a naturally self-disciplined type of person—which I am not—this can lead to a lot of self-recrimination, and even self-loathing.

But I think one important thing to remember—even if this sounds like a rationalization for loafing—is that your subconscious does a lot of the work for you, and sometimes it has to be given space.

Writing a novel or screenplay is a 24/7 job. You’re never off, so you sometimes have to allow for some latitude in defining what your official so-called “working hours” are.

JRM: For those new to this whole thing, as far as adaptation or the film
world, what are your perceptions on the difference between the book
and film worlds?

Alan Glynn: Again my experience is limited, but I’d say very different. My experiences with book publishers so far have been uniformly positive.

The editors and publishers I’ve met have all been smart and passionate about books, respectful of writers and generally a sane bunch. Sales and marketing people in publishing do what sales and marketing people do, okay, but nothing too extreme.

My personal experiences with film people have actually been fine, too, but that’s because I’ve never been on the front lines. What I understand from war stories I’ve heard, however, is that it’s a pretty brutal and insane world to work in, especially if you’re a writer, a schmuck with an Underwood.

There is simply no respect for writers. So don’t expect any. I think it has to do with the budgets movies require. With that kind of money at stake, hard-nosed producers and studio honchos aren’t going to listen to some lousy writer.

Plus, there are so many other people involved, alpha personality types, the director, the DP, the actors. In publishing it’s really just you and your editor, so they can’t very well ignore you, and it makes more sense anyway if you get on well.

JRM: When first-time authors signs a standard publisher’s contract, they sometimes fail to realize they’re signing away rights to or income from film, multimedia, merchandising sales—things that might be important down the road if Hollywood takes an interest, because studios want those rights. Was this any kind of an issue for you?

Alan Glynn: No, and that’s because, as I said before, I have a very good, attentive agent who I trust completely. He was familiar with all of these aspects and wouldn’t have let me needlessly sign anything away.

JRM: Were there any surprises for you in the specifics of the film deal?

Alan Glynn: Not really. Though at one point I naively believed that my back-end net points actually meant something. Then I read David Mamet’s famous declaration, ‘There is no net’ and I wised up.

JRM: Having been through the adaptation process now, what would you say are the most important things for a book author or other creator or rights-holder to know going into the situation, or pursuing a film adaptation or responding to someone pursuing their property for an adaptation?

Alan Glynn: It’s a complex area, and the only advice I can give, based on my experience, is to get a good agent who knows what they’re doing, who can explain stuff to you and answer your questions. Of course you have to find an agent you can really trust, and I realize that’s probably easier said than done.

JRM: Given what you know now, if faced with the same situation today—an option offer—is there anything you’d do differently?

Alan Glynn: No.

JRM: If you could go back to a time before the big doors opened, before the success of the book and the movie, and talk to yourself, what advice would you give?

Alan Glynn: I’d tell myself not to get too excited, and not to expect anything to happen in a hurry, and not to waste time waiting around for stuff to happen, for phone calls or emails, but to get on with other work.

JRM: I do have one gripe about the book [huge book spoiler coming in next two questions]: in the end, you kill Eddie.

Alan Glynn: Yeah, Eddie dies. The movie is sort of post-Empire, in the current Brett Easton Ellis sense of the phrase—a just-say-yes, consequence-free rollercoaster ride—whereas the book is maybe more traditionally Empire; a morality tale, a Faustian pact where Eddie ultimately has to pay.

JRM: And yet we don’t actually see him die. Which begs the question…

Alan Glynn: Yes, I have thought of doing a sequel.

JRM: Where can I score some NZT—or MDT, as it’s called in the book?

Alan Glynn: At a reading I did at Partners & Crime in New York when the book first came out someone asked me this question and I said that I would be filling out prescriptions after the Q&A. Which got a laugh. But I do get the question a lot, and I wish I had a satisfactory answer.

On the imdb discussion board for the movie there are endless debates about what NZT might really be, Adderall, Ritalin, Provigil, ecstasy, caffeine, whatever. I chose the name MDT-48 quite carefully, to reflect or subtly suggest MDA, MDMA, DMT and LSD-25.

I chose the 48 because of Bach’s well-tempered Clavier, the 48, to suggest complexity, structure and beauty. But it’s obviously made-up shit. Custom made for the story.

I did do a lot of research—a great book I read was Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream by Jay Stevens—but when it came to it the drug was purely a product of my imagination.

So where can you score some? I’ll be selling vials of my blood after the interview…

ADAPTATION SERVICES

]]> http://makeyourbookamovie.com/author-interview-alan-glynn-limitless/495/feed/ 0 http://makeyourbookamovie.com/logline-workshop-jurassic-park/449/ http://makeyourbookamovie.com/logline-workshop-jurassic-park/449/#comments Sun, 05 Jun 2011 05:18:58 +0000 John Robert Marlow http://makeyourbookamovie.com/?p=449 Jurassic Park was a hugely successful novel that went on to become one of Hollywood’s biggest hits. Keeping that logline mantra in mind—Who, Goal, Obstacle (see Building the Perfect Logline for Your Book, Screenplay, or Other Story for more on this)—how do we build a logline for this story? WHO (or perhaps What) is this story about? Most of those new to loglines begin by saying something about dinosaurs. Many of those who don’t, start with the park itself. Still others kick things off with “An experiment” or “A scientist.” Let’s take those roads and see where they lead. DINOSAURS. Okay, what do they do—what’s their goal? Run rampant, search for food, that kind of thing. What’s their obstacle? An absence of food-bearing park personnel caused, basically, by a hurricane coupled with a power failure. So: Dinosaurs run rampant on an island resort, trying to feed themselves during a power outage caused by a hurricane. What’s wrong with this? It is, after all, an accurate description of what happens. But replace “dinosaurs” with “tigers” and you’ve got a documentary. Besides, running rampant and eating each other is what dinosaurs do. There are no real stakes involved here, unless you’re a dinosaur. What’s their obstacle—high winds and rain? That doesn’t quite cut it. And what the hell are dinosaurs doing on an island resort? Read more...]]>

LOGLINING JURASSIC PARK

Let’s walk through the process from start to finish, working up a logline for a story that most people already know. Jurassic Park was a hugely successful novel that went on to become one of Hollywood’s biggest hits. Keeping that logline mantra in mind—Who, Goal, Obstacle (see Building the Perfect Logline for Your Book, Screenplay, or Other Story for more on this)—how do we build a logline for this story?

WHO (or perhaps What) is this story about?

Most of those new to loglines begin by saying something about dinosaurs. Many of those who don’t, start with the park itself. Still others kick things off with “An experiment” or “A scientist.” Let’s take those roads and see where they lead.

DINOSAURS. Okay, what do they do—what’s their goal? Run rampant, search for food, that kind of thing. What’s their obstacle? An absence of food-bearing park personnel caused, basically, by a hurricane coupled with a power failure. So:

Dinosaurs run rampant on an island resort, trying to feed themselves during a power outage caused by a hurricane.

What’s wrong with this? It is, after all, an accurate description of what happens. But replace “dinosaurs” with “tigers” and you’ve got a documentary. Besides, running rampant and eating each other is what dinosaurs do. There are no real stakes involved here, unless you’re a dinosaur. What’s their obstacle—high winds and rain? That doesn’t quite cut it. And what the hell are dinosaurs doing on an island resort?

Lastly, for all the hype, Jurassic Park is not, at its core, a story about dinosaurs. And even if it were, they are (in this tale) more than a little hard to relate to. So let’s try…

A PARK. There’s no denying that the park is a central element of this story. So we might be tempted to try something like this:

A park featuring dinosaurs descends into chaos when the power fails.

Also accurate, as far as it goes—which isn’t very. First problem: a “park” cannot have a goal. Which means it can’t be our protagonist or hero. Second problem: we can’t have an obstacle in the way of a nonexistent protagonist with no definable goal. There are three basic elements to a proper logline, and we’ve just struck out on all of them.

Even setting that aside, there are other issues here. A park descends into chaos. So what? Again, where are the stakes? Why do we care? “Park” is not something an audience can relate to, identify with, or root for. Why? Because there is no emotion associated with “park.” It’s a thing, not a character. Building your logline around a park isn’t much better than casting a brick as your lead. If we replace “dinosaurs” with “moose” in this park-centric logline, we’ve got another documentary. And, again—what’s with the dinosaurs?

A SCIENTIST. Which scientist? There are four: John, Alan, Ellie, and Ian. Immediate confusion. But let’s go with John, who set the whole thing in motion by creating the park. What does he do? Well, he tries to restore order, mostly. Get things back the way they were before everything went to hell. What’s in his way? Dinosaurs, basically. Thus:

A kindly scientist tries to restore order when a park full of dinosaurs descends into chaos during a power outage.

Also accurate. But again: so what? Who cares? What are the stakes? Replace “dinosaurs” with “otters” and it’s a National Geographic Special. And then there’s that brachiosaur in the room: the dinosaurs.

AN EXPERIMENT. The whole thing is sort of an experiment, in terms of both science and profitable entertainment. Which might lead us to something like:

An experimental park featuring dinosaurs descends into chaos during a power outage.

Already the old problems crop up: our protagonist cannot be “an experiment.” “Experiment” has no will, and therefore no Goal. No Goal means no Obstacle—and again our logline winds up in loserville. Along with those unexplained dinosaurs.

Let’s start over by stripping this story down to the bone. At its marrow—or, more to the point, at its heart—who (or what) is this story about? Dinosaurs? No. A park? No again. An experiment? Not at all. A scientist? Closer, but not really—making this, at best, a partial yes.

Following up on that—why is “scientist” closer than “dinosaurs,” “park,” or “experiment?” Well, “scientist” is a Who, not a What. People exercise will, pursue goals, tackle obstacles. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Who-Goal-Obstacle. Still, “scientist” is not our protagonist here.

Here’s a shortcut to figuring out who is. Ask yourself this question: Who are we rooting for? In this case, just about everyone but Nedry, making this a rather broad answer. So let’s narrow it down: who are we most rooting for? Who have we bonded with, emotionally? If we were to play god (which, let’s face it, we do)—who is not expendable?

Let’s run down the list. No one’s going to miss the “bloodsucking attorney” (who is, in fact, the first to go) or the lazy, thieving Nedry. Ray is cool and has his uses, but he’s not essential. Same goes for Muldoon.

John is likable but, all things considered, he’s lived a long, full life and this whole mess is more or less his fault. Ian Malcolm is both likable and entertaining—but when you come right down to it, he’s comic relief, hovering just outside the core group of characters. To be brutally honest, we can still have a relatively happy ending if all of these folks die (which, in the novel, they do).

But what about that core group? Who are they? Alan and Ellie (two romantically involved scientists who are considering children; in this respect, also, Ian is an outsider), Tim and Lex (John’s young grandchildren). This, really, is who our story is about.

Unfortunately, this also makes for an awkward logline: “Two scientists and the two grandchildren of another scientist…” is already a mess. How can we smooth that out and make it flow, while at the same time conveying the essence of Who the story revolves around? We need a single word that summarizes what is actually a multiple or ensemble protagonist. (Which, it should be noted, is an unusual complication; most commercially successful fiction revolves around one or two characters.)

So what do these people have in common? Not much. In fact, they meet for the first time during the course of our story. But is there some brief term we might apply to them as a group—preferably one that will strike an emotional chord with readers?

Two adults, two children. More specifically: a man, a woman, and two young children (brother and sister). If we didn’t know any better (which the readers of our logline will not), we’d probably call this A FAMILY. They may not qualify genetically, but they do fit the archetype: man and woman, protecting children. Technically incorrect or not—this is (for our purposes) a family.

How many members of this family can we afford to lose to hungry dinosaurs? Zero. We want them all to come out okay. Making them—together—our main character. And so our logline begins:

A family…

Short, reasonably accurate, rich in emotional content. In a word: perfect. That’s our Who.

GOAL

Now—what is our family doing? STRUGGLING to stay alive, obviously—but also something more.

Because they’re not looking to find a nice cave, build fires and whittle spears for the next forty years. That would be “staying alive.” There’s a larger Goal here: they’re looking to get the hell out of Dodge. In short (which loglines must be), their goal is TO ESCAPE. So:

A family struggles to escape…

“Struggles,” by the way, is a great word because it implies conflict, which all great tales must have.

Still, struggling to escape is only half of the Goal. To get the other half, we need to figure out what it is they’re struggling to escape from. Dinosaurs? Well, yes—but also no. We wouldn’t say “A family struggles to escape dinosaurs.” That’s confusing. What are these, cave-people? Even that doesn’t hold up, really, because dinosaurs were long gone when the first cave folk came down the pike.

Remember the basics: Who-Goal-Obstacle. Who’s your protagonist, what does he want, and what’s in his way? If we say A family struggles to escape dinosaurs—there’s nowhere left to go, because…what’s in their way?

We could try the hurricane: A family struggles to escape dinosaurs while battered by a hurricane. But this is also confusing, and raises difficult questions: Where the hell did the dinosaurs come from? What are people and dinosaurs doing together? Is this a comedy? A time-travel tale? Is the setting prehistoric, or modern-day?

That’s way too much to think about at this stage, where clarity is vital. Back to the goal: what is the family struggling to escape from? Well, where are they trapped? In the PARK, of course. They’re struggling to escape from the park.

Still, it’s not that simple. Why don’t they just walk (or drive) out the front gate? Call the cops, the army, order an airstrike? Because…what? Because the park is located on an ISLAND, of course. And not Manhattan; this is a REMOTE ISLAND.

This is where things start coming together:

A family struggles to escape a remote island park…

So far, so good. Now for the final element:

OBSTACLE

What’s in the way of the family as it struggles to escape the remote island park? DINOSAURS! But we can’t just drop “dinosaurs” into a logline and expect it to work. Plague, pirates, armed revolutionaries, sure. But—dinosaurs? That is, to say the least, a stretch.

True, it makes perfect sense when you’re reading the story. But no one’s going to get that far if they don’t buy the premise. Our challenge is to get that premise across; to make “dinosaurs” work—quickly, efficiently, believably—within the confines of a logline. (This explanation or SETUP is a second unusual complication, which most loglines do not require because we’re already familiar with the everyday world in which their stories take place. For more on this, See the Minority Report logline in Building the Perfect Logline.)

So what do we have in the story itself? A program to recreate dinosaurs using genetic engineering and the dna of—well, that’s too long already. While we do need explanation, it must be concise. So how about this: a remote island park WHOSE MAIN ATTRACTIONS—GENETICALLY RESTORED DINOSAURS—?

Quick, reasonably accurate, explanatory without being kludgy. How can there be dinosaurs and people? The dinosaurs were recreated through genetic engineering. Okay; possible, maybe. There’s the science. But why would anyone do that? To make money. That’s why the park: charge admission, make a mint.

This tells the reader we’re talking present-day, rules out time travel (or there’d be no need to recreate the dinosaurs), and gives us motive—which adds believability to the mix. Now we’re cooking:

A family struggles to escape a remote island park whose main attractions—genetically restored dinosaurs—

The rest almost writes itself. Naturally, the critters must be confined within the park. And so something must have gone wrong, or we’d have no story. The main attractions HAVE BEEN SET LOOSE. All right-but how? A POWER FAILURE. No need to mention Nedry or the hurricane; they’re the warm-up; the power failure is the main event triggering the chaos.

LOGLINE

And so we arrive at this:

A family struggles to escape a remote island park whose main attractions—genetically restored dinosaurs—have been set loose by a power failure.

Even with the added complexity of an ensemble protagonist and the necessary “dinosaur” explanation, this comes to 23 words. Read aloud, it’s a mere ten seconds of someone’s time. More than that—it’s something they’ll want to read.

That’s a logline: WHO the story’s about; what their GOAL is; and the OBSTACLE that stands in their way. No subplots, names, deep characterization or cast of thousands. Instead: bare-bones concept. Complete, concise, intriguing. Certainly enough to keep you focused while writing the story—or keep the attention of someone reading or listening to your 10-second pitch.

If the bones are good enough—and you’ve managed to convey them effectively—your audience will want to see how you’ve fleshed them out with your story.

And that’s what the logline is all about: getting someone to want more.

Of course, you must also target your audience: a company that adapts romance novels for the direct-to-dvd market is unlikely to bite on Jurassic Park, no matter how intriguing the logline.

If all goes well, you’ll be asked to submit your manuscript or screenplay for consideration. And your story had better live up to the promise of your logline.

BUT I CAN’T LOGLINE THIS STORY…

If you find yourself utterly unable to come up with a proper logline for your story concept, or for a story you’ve already written, that means one of two things: your story is inherently nonclassically structured (does not fall into three acts, and cannot by its very nature be revised into three acts)—or there’s something wrong with the current version of your story or concept.

In the vast majority of cases (and very nearly every one I’ve ever edited, developed, or consulted on), the impossible-to-logline concept/story is either missing or unclear on one or more of the three crucial elements: the Who, the Goal, the Obstacle.

Put another way: logline problems almost invariably result from problems present in the story or concept itself. Because if everything lined up in the concept/story, coming up with a snappy logline wouldn’t be such a problem.

And don’t think you can get away with a substandard logline, even if your tale is brilliant. Here’s why: agents, editors, producers and the people who read for them can evaluate roughly 1,700 loglines in the time it takes to read a single screenplay—and close to 3,500 loglines in the time it takes to read a book manuscript. And most of the material they receive is (at best) mediocre.

If you were in their position, would you rather find that out by spending hours reading the works themselves—or seconds reading the loglines?

Great loglines do not guarantee great stories—but they do offer hope. Flawed loglines, on the other hand, suggest flawed tales, posing the same question as a bad movie trailer: This is the best they can come up with?

Don’t let that happen to you—or your story. If you’re not happy with your logline, reread Building the Perfect Logline for Your Book, Screenplay, or Other Story.

Then rewrite the logline until it accurately reflects what your story should be (even if the story itself isn’t quite there yet)—then use that as a guide when writing or revising your tale. (For those seeking professional help with logline, structure, or story development, see the author’s contact link below.)

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]]> http://makeyourbookamovie.com/logline-workshop-jurassic-park/449/feed/ 0 http://makeyourbookamovie.com/building-the-perfect-logline-for-your-book-screenplay-or-other-story/441/ http://makeyourbookamovie.com/building-the-perfect-logline-for-your-book-screenplay-or-other-story/441/#comments Fri, 27 May 2011 23:51:31 +0000 John Robert Marlow http://makeyourbookamovie.com/?p=441 What’s your story about? Ticktickticktick. Did your answer require more than 10 seconds? Did you hesitate or fumble? If so, you need a logline. Did you explain who your main character is, what he or she wants, and what keeps them from getting whatever-it-is they want? If not, you need a logline. In fact—you need a logline, period. Everyone does. Because if you blow the answer to that question, nothing else matters: few (if any) industry professionals will read your story. This is so for several reasons. Read more... ]]>

THE ONLY QUESTION THAT MATTERS

When you’re selling a story (or trying to), there’s one thing everyone wants to know. To find out, they will ask you a simple question. And they will pre-judge your tale not on its merits, but on the answer you provide.

Before we get to the question itself, find a stopwatch. If you don’t have a “real” one (or a cool cell phone) handy, bring up a virtual stopwatch online. Either way, hit START the second you’ve finished reading the question below. Do not hit STOP until you’ve answered the question—out loud—to the best of your ability. (For a more accurate evaluation, have someone else ask the question and time your answer.) And here…we…go.

What’s your story about?

Ticktickticktick. Did your answer require more than 10 seconds? Did you hesitate or fumble? If so, you need a logline. Did you explain who your main character is, what he or she wants, and what keeps them from getting whatever-it-is they want? If not, you need a logline.

In fact—you need a logline, period. Everyone does. Because if you blow the answer to that question, nothing else matters: few (if any) industry professionals will read your story. This is so for several reasons.

First and foremost, the people who represent and purchase books and screenplays are incredibly busy. They need a way to decide which stories are worth a closer look, and which are not—without actually taking the time to read those stories.

They also need a way to get stories across to other busy people—quickly. And, finally, they have to market the stories they buy to a public besieged by the marketing machines of a thousand competitors.

This is where the logline comes into play.

And so it follows that few things are more useful than a good logline. It will keep you focused as you write (or revise) your story, and it will persuade complete strangers—agents, managers, editors and production executives—to read your book, screenplay, or whatever it is you’ve got. A bad logline, on the other hand, will make you and your tale less welcome than a circus clown at a graveside eulogy.

A great logline can get a terrible story read (or partially read), and a terrible (or average) logline can get the best story in the world round-filed before a single page has been turned. It’s that important. It’s also expected—so you don’t really have the option to ignore this.

LOGLINE BASICS

The logline has but a single purpose: to convey the most essential elements of your story concisely, imaginatively, and smoothly.

To be effective, the logline must convey three things: WHO the story is about, what they want (their GOAL), and what stands in their way (the OBSTACLE). That’s it. No long-winded explanations, no secondary characters, no subplots, no character names (which would mean nothing at this point, unless they’re historical figures). Your story, reduced to its most basic elements: character (WHO) and conflict (which results from the character’s efforts to overcome the OBSTACLE and reach their GOAL).

For example:

A doctor wrongly convicted of killing his wife escapes custody and struggles to prove his innocence while being pursued by a relentless US Marshall.

This, of course, is The Fugitive—in 24 words. WHO: A doctor wrongly convicted of killing his wife. GOAL: Prove his innocence. OBSTACLE: A relentless US Marshall. Short, sweet, simple. Still, it could be better:

A fugitive doctor wrongly convicted of killing his wife struggles to prove his innocence while pursued by a relentless US Marshall.

Smoother. Faster. And down to 21 words. Notice that what we dropped—“escapes custody and”—is not WHO, GOAL, or OBSTACLE. That makes it nonessential. Adding the word “fugitive” tells us he’s on the loose, and helps describe our WHO (because escaping after the conviction must have required some ingenuity).

Now let’s dig a little deeper. The fact that he’s been convicted of killing his wife, rather than a stranger, ups the emotional content (always good) and makes things harder on our hero (also good), because now he’s dealing with the loss of his wife as well as the conviction.

The relentless pursuer focuses and (like the dead wife) personalizes the conflict; it’s not just cops in general, but a specific and (again making things harder) “relentless” opponent he must elude.

Using the word “doctor” tells the reader this is not some lowlife criminal who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; this is an intelligent man with a real life that’s been shattered by these events.

Such seemingly small tweaks—doctor, wife, relentless pursuer—help this logline stand out from similar, more generic falsely-accused-man (or woman)-on-the-run pitches. This is the best logline I can write for The Fugitive.

ADDITIONAL ELEMENTS

Occasionally, the WHO will be more than one person: a husband and wife, a cop and his partner, a wrecked ship’s crew members. When this happens, state the WHO as briefly as possible, while still conveying (only) the most essential details.

For example: could “husband and wife” be condensed to “couple?” Or “A cop and his partner” to “Two cops?” And how about cutting “A wrecked ship’s crew” back to “A shipwrecked crew?” You get the idea.

Sometimes, the WHO will be a WHAT—as in Toy Story (a toy), WALL-E (a robot), Cars (a race car) and Ratatouille (a rat). In such cases, the WHAT is almost invariably imbued with distinct human personality traits, in order to get the audience relating to the WHAT as if it were a WHO. Which, for all practical purposes, it is.

Once in a great while (unless you’re writing science fiction, in which case this happens more often), a logline will require a SETUP line to explain the unfamiliar world in which the story takes place. Most tales don’t need this, because they take place in the everyday world we all know and live in.

Minority Report is a classic example of a tale that does need a setup. A normal, everyday logline might read like this:

A cop convicted of murder goes on the run to prove his innocence.

Not bad—though not terribly original either. From this, we know WHO our main character is (a cop); we know what he wants, his GOAL (to prove his innocence); and we know what stands in his way, the OBSTACLE (the murder conviction and, by implication (on the run), the criminal justice system.

We do not have the kind of personalized antagonist/obstacle present in the (quite similar) Fugitive logline. While there is such an antagonist here (Lamar), explaining his role would introduce needless complexity to a logline that (as we’ll see) is already more complicated than most.

But, back to the cop convicted of murder going on the run to prove his innocence. Not a bad logline, as far as it goes. But it’s not the whole story, either. In fact, it completely misses this tale’s unique hook—because the murder he’s been convicted of has not yet happened. So let’s drop that into our logline:

A cop convicted of a murder he has not yet committed goes on the run to prove his innocence.

Perfectly accurate—but you see the problem. It’s massively confusing. Because this doesn’t just say he was wrongly convicted; that, at least, would be easy to comprehend. This logline says the offense has not yet been committed. How can anyone, let alone a cop, be convicted of something that hasn’t happened? And how can anyone know it will happen?

The whole thing makes no sense. The reader, knowing only what we tell him, must assume this story takes place in the everyday world. That same reader will then swiftly conclude that we cannot write a coherent sentence, let alone an entire story.

Unless we include a setup line to, well, set up the fictional world of the story: a future society in which captive, drugged psychics foresee crimes (and the people who commit them) before those crimes take place.

Still, that’s a bit too much information for a logline, so let’s reduce it to essentials: a future society where criminals are arrested before their crimes are committed. That’s the concept, without the clutter of supporting details. So let’s saddle up with that and see where it takes us:

In a future where criminals are arrested before their crimes are committed, a cop convicted of a murder he has yet to commit goes on the run to prove his innocence.

Better, but “he has yet to commit” makes this both awkwardly long and repetitive. A quick fix might be:

In a future where criminals are arrested before their crimes are committed, a cop convicted of a future murder goes on the run to prove his innocence.

Better, shorter, smoother—but now “future” repeats. So let’s go back and change the first “future”—giving us:

In a society where criminals are arrested before their crimes are committed, a cop convicted of a future murder goes on the run to prove his innocence.

Wow. That’s a mind-bending logline. The not-bad logline, which then became confusing, now smoothly conveys a radically original concept.

It also raises fascinating questions: how can anyone know what crimes will be committed—and by who—before they happen? And with enough certainty to arrest and convict? And if that vision and that certainty do exist—how can someone (a cop, of all people; talk about irony) be innocent? And if he is innocent, how can he possibly prove it when the crime hasn’t even happened?

That’s a story that begs to be read. Conveyed in a scant 27 words, setup and all.

SEQUENCE

Probably 95% of the time, the logline should present its three basic elements in this order: WHO-GOAL-OBSTACLE. When a setup line is needed, it should—again 95% of the time—come first. Yielding SETUP-WHO-GOAL-OBSTACLE. As with Minority Report.

ACTIVE NOT PASSIVE

Note the use of words and phrases like struggles, pursued, relentless, and goes on the run. These high-energy choices signify action and drama, propelling the reader forward with a sense of excitement. Contrast these with tries, followed, persistent, and walks around. These are passive, low-energy yawners.

Strive to make your logline active, rather than passive. And don’t be mislead by these action genre examples; this rule holds for all genres, across the board. For example—which of these loglines is more dynamic? This…

A financial executive employs a sex worker during a business trip, finds himself becoming quite fond of her, and explores the possibility of a lasting and meaningful relationship.

Or this…

An emotionally shuttered Wall Street tycoon hires a vivacious hooker for the week, falls in love, and struggles to forge his first meaningful relationship.

The first is a passively-phrased snoozer, pitching a story that borders on ridiculous. The second is snappier (more active/dynamic: Wall Street tycoon; hooker; falls in love; struggles; forge), plays up the contrast (emotionally shuttered vs. vivacious), and closes with a hint of pathos but also hope for the future (his first meaningful relationship). Not only does it read better—it’s also shorter.

GENRE-SPECIFIC

This particular logline brings up another point: many stories and concepts lend themselves to multiple interpretations. One author writes about a Nazi prison camp and pens Schindler’s List. Another writes Hogan’s Heroes. A tale about two people switching identities could wind up Face/Off—or Freaky Friday.

Likewise, the tycoon-and-hooker logline (above) could be drama, or comedy. It can be read either way—and that’s dangerous. Because if you’re pitching A Beautiful Mind, and your target’s hearing The Man With Two Brains—you’re in trouble.

And so if there is any imaginable way for someone to mistake the genre of your logline, tell them what it is, right up front. Not in the logline, but just below the title, like so:

Pretty Woman
(romantic comedy)

Then go into your logline. In fact, it’s not a bad idea to do this anyway, with every logline you write.

Before getting into the actual construction of a logline, let’s take a moment to explore just what this tool can do for you—aside from helping to market your story.

LOGLINE AS WRITING GUIDE…

As an editor and consultant, I see an endless stream of writers—some of them quite good at the actual writing—whose stories are severely flawed simply because they started writing before they knew what their story was about.

As a result, the story winds up rambling aimlessly. Or being about nothing (or no one) in particular. Or about far too many things (or people) with no clear connection to one another. Invariably, when I ask these writers what their story is about, they have trouble explaining. What I tell them is this:

If you want to keep your story on track during the writing process, work up a logline that accurately reflects the story you want to tell—before you begin writing. Keep this logline in front of you, always.

Each time you think of a new character, event, or other story element, ask yourself: Does this serve my logline, or conflict with it? If the new element doesn’t fit your logline, it doesn’t belong in your story. Period.

When there’s a logline, you can make these cuts yourself, before you’ve gone to the considerable trouble of writing scenes that don’t belong.

Without a logline, you can only make them later, when you’ve got a story that’s not working because half the material you spent hundreds of hours writing shouldn’t be there. That’s assuming someone takes the time to tell you what the problem is, instead of (as usually happens) rejecting the story out of hand.

…AND DIAGNOSTIC TOOL

Of course, if you’ve already written a tale without a clear premise in mind, you’ll have to apply the foregoing advice to your next story. But you can still use the loglining process to diagnose problems with your existing story—and chart a course out of troubled waters.

Do that by using this article to build a logline for the story you already have. (The section below will guide you, step by step.) If you find that, no matter how hard you try, you cannot boil your story down to a brief WHO-GOAL-OBSTACLE statement—a logline—there’s a problem. Which could be that…

Your story lacks a clear focus. You can’t figure out the WHO-GOAL-OBSTACLE pattern because one or more of these elements simply isn’t there. Probably 99.9% of the time, this is the problem.

Your tale could also be logline-resistant. You can’t drag the WHO-GOAL-OBSTACLE pattern out of your tale because what you’ve written is not classically structured (meaning it has three major acts). That’s a post for a later time.

Suffice to say that upward of 90% of all commercially successful fiction is classically structured, and that the few nonclassically structured tales that do find success are nearly always written by established writers who made their reputations with classically structured writing, and then branched out.

Make no mistake: brilliant and heartbreaking works can and have been written using nonclassical structures—but try loglining something like Hurt Locker, Sideways, or Juno. Harder still: try selling something that can’t be loglined. Obviously, it can be done—but it’s a hundred times harder to get past that first step, and convince someone to read your work.

Which means, basically, that if you plan to make a living by writing, you should (for now) be writing things that can be loglined. Because established writers can pick up a phone and get a meeting, and they can get their material read by saying, “This is my latest work.”

Everyone else has 10 seconds. And the writers with the best loglines get read. Because, really, if you can’t get someone’s attention with one or two sentences you’ve had a year to prepare—what motivation do they have to read the whole story?

So, following the above logic—99.9% of the time, this is what you should do when you can’t come up with a logline for your existing story: create a new logline that represents what your current story could and should be, if all of those elements—WHO-GOAL-OBSTACLE—were present.

When you’ve got something you’re happy with—something that clearly, concisely, and persuasively summarizes the story you want (or meant) to tell—revise your current draft until it agrees with your new logline.

Don’t get hung up on preserving what’s already there, because what’s there isn’t working. That’s why you’re doing this. Anything that doesn’t serve your new logline must be altered until it does, or taken out. You’ll probably need to add new material as well. And be warned: this process will be time-consuming and painful.

But once you’ve gone through it, you’ll have a much-improved story, and a better shot at selling it. And you will never, ever begin another story without first working out your logline—because it’s a lot harder redoing your story than getting it right the first time around.

For more on loglines, see Logline Workshop: Jurassic Park.

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]]> http://makeyourbookamovie.com/building-the-perfect-logline-for-your-book-screenplay-or-other-story/441/feed/ 0 http://makeyourbookamovie.com/rex-pickett-author-interview/291/ http://makeyourbookamovie.com/rex-pickett-author-interview/291/#comments Thu, 12 May 2011 05:39:30 +0000 John Robert Marlow http://makeyourbookamovie.com/?p=291 Sideways. The modestly-budgeted film adaptation (written by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor) earned over $100M at the box office, and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay (which it won) and Best Picture. Rex has also directed, and has written several screenplays himself, including My Mother Dreams the Satan's Disciples in New York—a film that won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short. His most recent novel is a Sideways sequel called Vertical. JRM: How did the Sideways adaptation come about? RP: We went out to both film and publishing simultaneously. The publishing industry loathed the book in no uncertain terms, and we pulled it after 16 rejections because my book agent didn’t want to stink up the rest of the publishers in the event we did a film deal. But the film world turned it down universally as well. You hear about rejections in publishing, because your agent gets rejection letters and sends them on to you. In film, you generally don’t hear anything. And I didn’t. Read more...]]>

Rex Pickett is author of the novel Sideways. The modestly-budgeted film adaptation (written by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor) earned over $100M at the box office, and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay (which it won) and Best Picture.

Rex has also directed, and has written several screenplays himself, including My Mother Dreams the Satan’s Disciples in New York—a film that won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short. His most recent novel is a Sideways sequel called Vertical.

Rex blogs at rexpickett.com.

JRM: How did the Sideways adaptation come about?

RP: We went out to both film and publishing simultaneously. The publishing industry loathed the book in no uncertain terms, and we pulled it after 16 rejections because my book agent didn’t want to stink up the rest of the publishers in the event we did a film deal.

But the film world turned it down universally as well. You hear about rejections in publishing, because your agent gets rejection letters and sends them on to you. In film, you generally don’t hear anything. And I didn’t.

“The publishing industry loathed the book in no uncertain terms. The film world turned it down universally as well.”

My agent was at Endeavor [now William Morris Endeavor], which also represented director Alexander Payne. My agent passed the unpublished manuscript to Alexander’s agent. It took nearly a year before Alexander read it. During that year, no publisher and no film company wanted it. So when he called, it was literally out of the blue. A miracle, really.

He optioned the novel, and he and his writing partner Jim Taylor adapted it for the screen without a production deal, knowing that after About Schmidt and Election [also adapted by Payne/Taylor] they would probably have no trouble getting one.

A lot of credit goes to Alexander’s assistant, Brian Beery, an unsung hero in the whole success of Sideways, because he was the first one to read it and pass it along to Alexander with a ringing endorsement. Otherwise, it’s unlikely he ever would have read it.

JRM: Can you say what the option was like—was it one of those legendary $1 options, or something that actually put wine in your glass?

RP: It was $12,500 for one year, first right of refusal [right to extend the option] to Alexander Payne after one year, my right to refuse after the second year.

JRM: The book was still unpublished at this point.

RP: Yes. The Japanese foreign rights were bought, and I thought for a while there that I was going to be the only first-time novelist who couldn’t read his own published work. But the Japanese sat on the rights and waited until there was a movie before going forward with publication.

The American book was sold before there was a film deal, and was published about 6 months before the film was released. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t taken the measly $5,000 advance from the publisher. Had I waited until the film was released, I’m told the book would have sold for $1,000,000.00.

JRM: So you didn’t know it, but you were in a position—because you had both a book and a screenplay—to use the success of one to up the selling price of the other by 20,000 percent.

RP: RP: The success of the movie would have steeply driven up the price of the book. Holding out until the release of the film would have been tantamount to placing a bet where I had little to lose and everything to gain. Agents are always eager to do a deal, when sometimes patience—and more prudent advice—is what’s needed.

JRM: What was your level of involvement in the adaptation itself—the process of turning the book into a screenplay?

RP: Very little. They were generous to give me every draft of the script. I was so thrilled with how faithful it was to my book, I didn’t have that many comments. However, I had two that I thought were very important. The famous wine dialogue between Miles and Maya, for the first two drafts only had Miles rhapsodizing on Pinot Noir, his favorite grape variety. My margin notes on the second draft suggested that maybe Maya should have a complementary speech. I didn’t write that speech, but it came in the third draft and is one of the great scenes in the film.

The other contribution was the ending. The first three drafts of the screenplay ended with Miles hearing a message from Maya on his answering machine. I complained, or remarked is more like it, how neither fish nor fowl that was. In the novel, Maya, somewhat shockingly, shows up at Jack’s wedding. Alexander thought that was too “Hollywood.” In the end, he met me halfway, with Miles returning to Buellton to see her—well, knock on her door. Alexander had complete control of the film—cast, final cut, everything.

“My margin notes on the second draft suggested that maybe Maya should have a complementary speech. My other contribution was the ending.”

JRM: Movies are seldom what the original author envisioned. How satisfied were you with the completed film?

RP: Very satisfied. Ecstatic, really. For example, the novel was written in first person, from the standpoint of Miles. That means, in the novel, I couldn’t go anywhere Miles didn’t go. In the movie, they could. But they didn’t. The film stays in the first person. We never journey off with Jack and Stephanie (nee Terra in the novel).

Also, the chapter structure of the novel was “Saturday,” “Sunday…” The movie maintained this chapter structure, utilizing title cards over black before the beginning of each day. It’s as if they filmed the novel.

Of course, some things had to be changed. Miles became a middle school teacher, whereas in the book he’s an out-of-work screenwriter hoping his novel will sell. Also, Sandra Oh—Stephanie in the film and Alexander’s wife in real life—changed a lot of things about her character so she would stand out more. She changed her name, her mode of transportation, added an interracial kid.

JRM: What effect did the film have on your book sales, your life, and your career in general—can you paint before-and-after pictures?

RP: Before the movie I was nobody. My life was complete shit. When the book came out, my publisher did nothing. The book should have been heavily promoted. It wasn’t. It should have been in every wine tasting room on the Pacific Coast—hell, the world!—and it wasn’t. They did no publicity, nothing.

After the movie, things improved dramatically. The film’s success raised my profile as a writer, and suddenly everyone wanted something from me. They wanted me to write TV—which I’m doing now, by the way. They wanted me to write another novel, to do adaptations, even a TV show. I had four agents working for me, and they all wanted something they could capitalize on.

I chose to write a novel for a different publisher. They made my life a living hell, and that’s a long story. The short version is, I sold a novel based on a screenplay I’d written in ’93, called The Road Back. The script was optioned 5 years, but never made, so I was going to novelize it. I had trouble with the novelization and I got zero support from the publisher.

But—and this is where it gets complicated—I needed the mother/son story from The Road Back to do the Sideways sequel Vertical. The publisher agreed to let me do that, but they weren’t happy about it. Then things got ugly, at which point I found an investor, bought out my publishing contract and came out with Vertical under my own imprint in January 2011.

JRM: Many authors find that a successful adaptation brings them more money than they earn from the book itself. Would you say this is true of your situation?

“All told, I made less than $100,000 off the book itself—advance, foreign, everything. The day the movie went into production, I made $300,000 on the film side.”

RP: All told, I made less than $100,000 off the book itself—advance, foreign, everything. The day the movie went into production, I made $300,000 on the film side. There’s no question it raises your profile, that you have a lot of opportunities to do a lot more things. I was principally a screenwriter and indie filmmaker before becoming a novelist. And Sideways certainly opened doors.

But I’m still the same modest, non-materialistic guy I was before. To me, it was never about the money. It was always about the critical and commercial validation. And we got that in spades.

JRM: Being a screenwriter to start with, why did you decide to become a novelist—and to create Sideways as a novel rather than as a screenplay?

RP: I originally wrote it as a screenplay, but it didn’t work. Back then I was writing a short story in the first-person, from the standpoint of a character named Miles. It was at a wine tasting in Santa Monica. I got to the end of the short story, realized Jack could show up, and off they would go. I stood up from my computer in a rare moment of pure epiphany, and realized I had a novel. The first-person voice of Miles made all the difference.

JRM: Did you write the novel with the idea that it would—or could—become a movie?

RP: Yes, absolutely.

JRM: How did you first learn that the film based on your book had been nominated for five
Oscars, and what did that feel like?

RP: I was watching the announcements on TV at 6:00 a.m. when they come on. Five nominations, all in major categories! Of course I was beyond thrilled.

JRM: How did it feel when the screenplay won?

RP: Ecstatic.

JRM: Sideways was also nominated for five Golden Globes, and won two—best screenplay and best picture. Were you invited to the Golden Globes and to the Academy Awards?

“I was not invited to the Golden Globes. I was invited to the Oscars, but was seated in the middle tier, behind the cameras.”

RP: I was invited to Fox Searchlight’s Golden Globes party on the top floor of the Beverly Hilton, where the ceremony was held, but not to the actual awards. I was invited to the Oscars, but was given a seat at the last minute, in the middle tier behind the cameras, rather than with the Sideways nominees and their plus-ones and the Fox Searchlight brass.

JRM: Many of the people reading this will be book authors who intend to sell film rights, or to adapt the book themselves or with help and then sell the screenplay. Do you have any thoughts on the best route to pursue?

RP: More than likely, you shouldn’t be the one to adapt, because it’s very hard to adapt your own work. In many cases, it’s disastrous. Pure novelists are usually bad screenwriters, especially when adapting their own work. They tend to transcribe their novels, which is the biggest mistake you can make when adapting.

To adapt well, you have to have the ability to pick and choose what to keep, and to be brutal in how you go about it—without defaming the source material. And that’s hard for a novelist to do with his own book. Probably nine out of ten novelists aren’t capable of writing a good screenplay, let alone adapting a novel—much less their own. It goes the other way, too: nine out of ten people writing screenplays couldn’t write a good novel.

JRM: For those new to film—any thoughts on the difference between writing a book and writing a screenplay?

RP: This would take too long to answer completely. They’re different animals. A good screenplay is really a novel imagined and then adapted without having written the novel. Writing a novel is different depending on the novel, of course. There are purely literary novelists that are just un-adaptable for the screen. Then there are authors like Elmore Leonard and John Grisham whose books all get optioned, and many made.

Writing a novel is harder because it’s longer. A good screenplay is not easy to write, but it’s easier to write, if you know what I mean. Fewer words. With montages, you can jump around. You can’t really do that in a novel, to generalize. I started writing novels to separate myself from the myriad screenwriters toiling away in the various Starbucks.

JRM: When, say, a first-time author signs a standard publisher’s contract, they sometimes fail to realize that they’re signing away rights to—or income from—film, multimedia, and merchandising sales that may be important down the road if Hollywood takes an interest. Was this an issue for you?

RP: Hopefully the lawyers take care of that stuff. Mine did.

JRM: Speaking of contracts—can you say what kind of deal you were able to negotiate on Sideways?

RP: It was $5,000 for the novel, plus 70 cents for every copy sold once the advance was earned out. Not much. For the adaptation, 3% of the budget, with a ceiling [maximum] and a floor [minimum]. Which came to $300,000 altogether, plus 2.5 worthless net points.

JRM: As both novelist and screenwriter, you know New York and L.A. What would you say are the most important things for a book author (or other creator or rights-holder) to know when pursuing a film adaptation?

RP: Before you write a book, be mindful of what a screenplay is—dialogue and action and compression of narrative time. And oh, yeah, you need a book that can be made into a movie.

“Before you write a book, be mindful of what a screenplay is—dialogue and action and compression of narrative time. And oh, yeah, you need a book that can be made into a movie.”

On the business side, it depends on what kind of power you wield and how badly you need the money. Sure, there are directors or actors in a position of power, who you know might be completely wrong for your material. But, if they’re waving a fat check at you, I guess you have to decide between your work being vitiated for money, or sticking to some ethical code and holding out for someone who is right, maybe for a lot less money—and potentially risking that it will never sell. It’s a tough call, if you’re lucky enough to find yourself in that position.

JRM: What’s next for you—-and how are Vertical’s film prospects looking at the moment?

RP: The Vertical novel—the Sideways sequel—is my latest effort. The film sequel is out of my hands. Fox Searchlight owns the film rights to Miles and Jack in perpetuity. They’ll wait on Alexander Payne, but that could be a long time.

ADAPTATION SERVICES

]]> http://makeyourbookamovie.com/rex-pickett-author-interview/291/feed/ 0 http://makeyourbookamovie.com/make-your-book-a-movie-adapting-your-book-or-story-for-hollywood/121/ http://makeyourbookamovie.com/make-your-book-a-movie-adapting-your-book-or-story-for-hollywood/121/#comments Fri, 29 Apr 2011 01:02:13 +0000 John Robert Marlow http://makeyourbookamovie.com/?p=121 Make Your Story a Movie book will be published by St. Martin's Griffin in 2012. Until then, this post remains a solid introduction. New material will continue to be added to the blog through additional posts, so book and blog will grow together. (For more information on the the book (including excerpts), visit the book page.) Most authors would like to see their work adapted for the big (or small) screen, but the path from here to there is, at best, unfamiliar-and can seem incomprehensible. Some bestsellers are made into movies, others ignored. Obscure books, short stories, and magazine articles are blessed by Hollywood's magic, while thousands of screenplays are turned away. Harry Potter sells to Hollywood a mere year after publication, while The Lord of the Rings takes nearly five decades to hit the screen. What sense does that make? Is there no rhyme or reason here? Well, yes, actually. But it’s hard to make out when-like most writers-you’re on the outside looking in. This article will take you through the looking glass and make some sense of the enigma that is the Hollywood adaptation process. More importantly, it will explain why some books are made into movies while others are not, and what you can do to make your book (or story) more attractive to filmmakers. To do that, we’ve pooled our own knowledge and consulted with several friends in the industry. Read more...]]>

Make Your Story A Movie: Adapting Your Book or Story for Hollywood (complete version)

by John Robert Marlow with Jacqueline Radley

Authors’ Note: This article, published in several versions (print and online) and repeatedly revised and expanded, has now been— appropriately—adapted into a book, which contains far more information than could possibly be squeezed into a single article or blog post. The Make Your Story a Movie book will be published by St. Martin’s Griffin in 2012. Until then, this post remains a solid introduction. New material will continue to be added to the blog through additional posts, so book and blog will grow together. (For more information on the the book (including excerpts), visit the book page.)

Most authors would like to see their work adapted for the big (or small) screen, but the path from here to there is, at best, unfamiliar and can seem incomprehensible. Some bestsellers are made into movies, others ignored. Obscure books, short stories, and magazine articles are blessed by Hollywood’s magic, while thousands of screenplays are turned away. Harry Potter sells to Hollywood a mere year after publication, while The Lord of the Rings takes nearly five decades to hit the screen. What sense does that make? Is there no rhyme or reason here?

Well, yes, actually. But it’s hard to make out when—like most writers—you’re on the outside looking in. This article will take you through the looking glass and make some sense of the enigma that is the Hollywood adaptation process. More importantly, it will explain why some books are made into movies while others are not, and what you can do to make your book (or story) more attractive to filmmakers. To do that, we’ve pooled our own knowledge and consulted with several friends in the industry.

INDUSTRY PLAYERS SPEAK

Gale Anne Hurd is the first woman to join the ranks of Hollywood’s previously all-male Big Budget Action Club. A graduate of Stanford University, she co-wrote and also produced The Terminator, and has since gone on to found her own company (Valhalla Motion Pictures) and produce over thirty films and five television features. Much of her work has been wildly successful, and her films have been nominated for numerous awards, including fourteen Oscars. She sits on the board of the PGA (Producers Guild of America) and is a winner of the Women In Film Crystal Award.

Gale’s work runs the gamut from young adult like Clockstoppers and family dramas such as Safe Passage (adapted from the novel) and The Wronged Man (based on a magazine article) through adventures like The Ghost and the Darkness (based on a true story), comedies like Dick and Dead Man On Campus, and horror such as Bad Dreams and The Relic (based on a novel). She has also produced big-budget action fare like Armageddon, Aliens, and The Abyss as well as the Terminator, Hulk, and Punisher franchises (the last two adapted from graphic novels). Most of her upcoming projects are adaptations.

“I respond to character-driven material, regardless of its origin. I fall in love with the characters and generally respond to stories featuring ordinary people who succeed in overcoming extraordinary challenges.” —Producer Gale Anne Hurd

“I respond to character-driven material, regardless of its origin,” Gale says when asked what draws her to adaptations. “I fall in love with the characters and generally respond to stories featuring ordinary people who succeed in overcoming extraordinary challenges.”

Many such stories do not start out as screenplays. “From the true story of Calvin Willis being released from prison after serving twenty-two years for a crime he didn’t commit—which was based on a GQ magazine article—to The Incredible Hulk showcasing Bruce Banner’s attempt to control his rage in the Marvel Comic, underlying material has so much to offer writers and producers. When it comes to the screenplay itself, I look for a unique voice and singular vision that set the writer apart, and a powerful story that I can’t put down once I’ve started reading.”

Director Lesli Linka Glatter began her career as a dancer and choreographer. Her directorial and producing debut—Tales of Meeting and Parting—was based on a series of true stories, and earned an Academy Award nomination for best live action short film. She has since directed several features and TV movies, and dozens of episodes for series including Twin Peaks, NYPD Blue, Gilmore Girls, The O.C., The West Wing, Grey’s Anatomy, ER, Weeds, Mad Men, The Mentalist, and House, M.D.

Lesli sits on the board of the DGA (Directors Guild of America), won the 2010 DGA Award for Best Director of Dramatic Series (Night), and has five feature films in development—three of which are adaptations. She also directed the pilot for a new series called Pretty Little Liars (based on the series of young adult novels by Sara Shepard), which was recently picked up by Warner Brothers for ABC Family.

“I’m a huge reader,” says Lesli. “So adapting things from other sources is something I am somehow always pulled to. For me, the material has to have a strong theme, some sort of purpose—and whether that’s to make you laugh or cry, or to be a great ride, there’s got to be some sense of connection to what it means to be human.

“I’m also attracted to true stories. I’m always interested in that one experience, that one thing that happens that changes your life forever, and you’ll never be the same—because everybody has those, even if they don’t realize it at the time.”

Screenwriter Teena Booth is also drawn to adaptations. She began her fiction career as a novelist, then switched to screenplays after winning a Chesterfield Screenwriting Fellowship. Teena has written eight produced TV movie scripts—most with female leads. Five of those were based on books or true stories. Three of them aired in 2010.

“I love to get hold of a great idea I would never have come up with on my own,” she says. “It always seems a privilege to be able to borrow someone else’s imagination. Facing a blank page is in many ways an exercise in torture, but working on an adaptation takes the torturous component out of the creative process, leaving me the much more enjoyable work. I look for a premise that seems to offer a range of emotional conflicts and possibilities to explore, and hopefully a character or two I can relate to and/or have fun with.”

Still, regardless of personal preferences, the writer must also craft a story that appeals to the Hollywood studio system. Because unless you plan to finance the film yourself, you will at some point need to keep a studio happy, even if all they do is distribute your finished film. And the studios’ world is one of harsh financial realities.

“I develop stories I believe I can sell. There are any number of ways to develop a project, but not all of those are commercial. Studios don’t want something they cannot sell.” —Producer Julie Richardson

“I trust my instincts on story,” says Julie Richardson, who produced Collateral for the big screen and Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office for television. “But I’ve also learned that instinct is only one woman’s opinion. So I develop stories I believe I can sell. There are any number of ways to develop a project, but not all of those are commercial. Studios don’t want something they cannot sell. Even outside the studio system, those who invest in the film want and deserve our best efforts to ensure a profitable return.”

Like publishers, film studios and the production companies that team with them do look for good stories, well-told with interesting characters. But they also look for other things—some of which simply don’t matter to publishers. Which is why it’s possible to have a great book with little film appeal. Julie continues: “It’s important to understand their mindset because the studios are your market, and you need to know their market.”

So, aside from good stories with compelling characters—what are the qualities that persuade rational corporations to put anywhere from $1 million to $400 million-plus into a film that will rise or fall on the crest—or trough—of public opinion?

APPEALING TO HOLLYWOOD

It’s a brave new world for Hollywood—and a scary one. Films must now compete with big-screen TVs, cable networks, video games, free Internet videos, and a thousand other forms of entertainment that, until recently, didn’t exist. Experience has taught the studios what’s needed to meet that challenge, and they look for a number of very specific things—the most important of which are…

A CONCEPT that can be communicated in a ten-second summary called a logline. Agents and studio execs are incredibly busy and need to convey ideas to other busy people—quickly. If this cannot be done, it suggests that the story itself is not sharply focused, and that conveying the concept to its potential audience in a thirty-second trailer is going to be a problem.

While it’s true that a small minority of stories—some of them quite wonderful—cannot be boiled down to a snappy logline, these tales are both rare and incredibly difficult to sell. The reason is simple: without a logline, someone must actually read the story to gauge its potential—and almost no one has the time to do that.

An agent or producer can read seven hundred to a thousand loglines in the time it takes to read a single script. It’s more efficient to do that than to attempt to read everything. When they come across a jewel of a logline—A fugitive doctor wrongly convicted of killing his wife struggles to prove his innocence while pursued by a relentless U.S. Marshal—that script will be read. (A good logline can also persuade an agent or editor to read a book manuscript.)

A RELATABLE HERO whom a large segment of the moviegoing public can relate to, root for, sympathize or empathize with. Audiences must care about your hero, or Hollywood doesn’t care about your story. If concept is king, character is heart—and a poor hero with heart will draw more viewers than a king without.

STRONG VISUAL POTENTIAL. Film is less flexible than print. A novel can delve inside characters’ heads and stay there for three hundred pages. Film is a visual medium, and interesting things must pass before the camera. Unless carefully adapted, introspective books make lousy movies. (When brilliantly adapted, they win Academy Awards.)

A THREE-ACT STRUCTURE. The vast majority of commercially successful films are “classically structured” into three acts. Even those with additional acts (like Star Wars) have only three major acts; the others fall within that framework.

A TWO-HOUR LIMIT, of sorts. If a story cannot be told in two hours or less (one hundred twenty script pages), it may be too costly to shoot. Film is an extraordinarily expensive medium; and when you’re footing a bill that could run upwards of $1 million per minute of screen time, you don’t want to hear that some rookie screenwriter thinks his story should run long. Seasoned veterans with proven track records warrant occasional exceptions; newcomers do not.

A REASONABLE BUDGET. In the book world, the publisher’s cost-per-page remains the same, whether your characters are playing checkers or blowing up a planet. This is not true of film, where shooting two characters playing checkers might cost $200,000, and filming a major action sequence could run $10 million. If the story seems prohibitively expensive to film, it will not become a movie unless someone very powerful pushes the project very hard.

LOW FAT. Because of time and budgetary constraints, there’s little room for anything not absolutely essential to the story. Novelists can burn ten pages describing a room. A screenwriter might do this in a sentence—and going on for more than a paragraph will mark him or her as an amateur. As the old Hollywood adage states: If you show a shotgun over the mantle in the first act, you’d better use it in the third.

SEQUEL POTENTIAL. If a film based on your book can be sequeled and prequeled, that’s a big point in your favor. If the first movie hits, it’s a safer bet to release a sequel to your film than it is to risk vast sums on something new and untried. Sequel/prequel potential isn’t mandatory—but the more expensive the film, the more it helps. (At this moment, there are eighty-six movie sequels in development.)

“FOUR QUADRANT” APPEAL. Studios divide the moviegoing public into four large segments, or quadrants: young male, older male, young female, older female. The greater the number of quadrants your project appeals to, the better. Four-quadrant appeal is the primary reason for the huge success of animated films—and of Avatar and Titanic, by far the two biggest grossing films of all time.

Four-quadrant appeal is not a strict necessity (the more people you pull from one quadrant, the fewer you need to pull from others), but it’s nice to have. And if, like James Cameron, you can draw viewers from eight to eighty—you’ll be king (or queen) of the world.

MERCHANDISING POTENTIAL. Film studios make more money from film-related merchandising than they do from the films themselves. A lot more. Films with low or no merchandising potential continue to be made, but the tidal wave is moving the other way, favoring projects with strong merchandising appeal. Generally speaking, big-budget action and animation films are merchandising bonanzas while dramas, thrillers, and comedies have considerably less merchandising appeal.

Obviously, this hasn’t kept studios from making dramas, thrillers, and comedies—which are less expensive to film and, therefore, don’t require the kind of Herculean merchandising blitz needed to keep a marketing juggernaut like the Batman franchise raking in the billions.

MAKING YOUR STORY FILM-FRIENDLY

Most books are not movies. Some never will be. Most, however, could be movies if carefully adapted. There are several avenues to pursue here.

If the work is still in manuscript form, you can alter the story to make it more cinematic by adding or playing up the elements Hollywood is looking for. (Booklist’s review of article author John Marlow’s first novel read: “Reads like a big-budget summer blockbuster.”)

If you’d prefer to keep your manuscript the way it is, or if your book has already been published, you can adapt the story by writing or commissioning a screenplay based on the book. In fact, you might want to consider this option even if your story is already film-friendly.

A book is meant to be read and enjoyed for what it is. A screenplay aims to roll a movie in the reader’s head so vividly that he or she says: “I want to make this movie, I want to see it on the screen, and I will pay money to make that happen.”

Christopher Lockhart is Story Editor at William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, one of the few Hollywood super-agencies. He has read and consulted on scripts for top-end WME and (former employer) ICM clients including Antonio Banderas, Nicholas Cage, Russell Crowe, Robert Downey Jr., Richard Gere, Mel Gibson, Goldie Hawn, Jennifer Lopez, Adrian Lyne, Steve Martin, Matthew McConaughey, Liam Neeson, Sam Neill, Ed Norton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder, Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone, Denzel Washington, and others.

He’s also a producer; his first documentary, Most Valuable Players, was selected by Oprah for her Documentary Film Club, to be aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network. In Christopher’s considerable experience, every Hollywood player asks one question after reading a script: “Is this a movie? If the answer is yes, you’ve got a shot at selling that story.”

“Every Hollywood player asks one question after reading a script: “Is this a movie?” If the answer is yes, you’ve got a shot at selling that story.” —Producer / Story Editor Christopher Lockhart

Lesli couldn’t agree more: “I think I know immediately. If I read something and I see the movie—I know I’m the right person to direct it. If I don’t see the movie, it’s probably better that someone else does it. Because the project deserves someone who’s that passionate about it.”

When courting Hollywood, it’s essential that your story be as much like a movie as possible—and the best way to do that is to present it as a screenplay. “If you’ve actually got the adapted screenplay and it’s a good screenplay,” Lesli says, “I think you have a better chance of getting it made. Because someone can look at it and say, “Wow, this is great.’ And that’s a big step closer to getting the movie made.”

Books raise questions screenplays don’t: Will this work onscreen? How do we squeeze four hundred pages into two hours? Half the book takes place inside the hero’s head; how do we fix that? This would cost $300 million to shoot—can we make it less expensive? Can we tell this story in three acts, streamline the plot, strengthen character arcs? If we buy the rights, who do we hire for the adaptation? How much is that going to cost? And, at the end of all that—will this be a movie?

By going in with a screenplay instead of a book, you avoid such complications and potential objections, allowing the prospective buyer to focus on that one, all-important question: Is this a movie? It comes as no surprise when Gale says, “There are more buyers for finished screenplays than for pitches.” (In fact, Warner Brothers announced in October 2010 that they would not consider any pitches until 2012—preferring instead to concentrate on completed spec scripts.)

“Whether you’re raising money independently or going through the studios, you don’t have anything without the screenplay.” —Director Lesli Linka Glatter

Lesli concurs: “Whether you’re raising money independently or going through the studios, you don’t have anything without the screenplay.” Another thing to consider is…

MONEY MONEY MONEY

The typical advance for a first novel is in the neighborhood of $10,000 to $20,000. The typical selling price of a spec screenplay by a first-time writer hovers between $300,000 and $600,000, with some first scripts topping the $1 million mark. (This is not true of adaptation rights alone, when there is no screenplay.)

Novels run three to five hundred pages of densely-written text. Screenplays run one hundred to one hundred twenty pages of fairly light text. Do the math: on the low-end, a book (at five hundred pages and $10,000) pays $20 a page, while a screenplay (one hundred twenty pages and $300,000) pays $2500 per page.

Before deciding to give up books and write screenplays, though, be aware that screenplay earnings are capped; regardless of how successful the film or television series may be, you will be paid the purchase price, bonuses, residuals, and so on—and that’s all. After that, the well runs dry—for you. The studio makes money forever.

The book world imposes no such ceiling: every copy sold puts more money in your pocket. If the book does insanely well, you make an insane amount of money. This is why there are no pure screenwriters on Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-earning writers. But keep in mind: there are no authors without film involvement, either. That’s because…

THE GLOBAL MARKET IS DIGITAL

A recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that only one in four American adults claimed to have read a book during the previous year. Those who did read reported going through an average of nine books—in an entire year. The AP’s article on the study referred to book sales as “flat in recent years” and “expected to stay that way indefinitely.”

As it turns out, this may be optimistic: a report released in April 2010 by the Association of American Publishers shows an overall decline in actual book sales compared with the previous year. Even a sharp increase in ebook sales could not reverse the downward trend.

Reasons cited by the poll include competition from other media and a mature publishing industry with “limited opportunities for expansion.” One respondent summed things up succinctly: “If I’m going to get a story, I’ll get a movie.”

Our personal feelings are irrelevant. The plain fact of the matter is that people who won’t—or can’t—read books still watch movies. Bad films are seen by more people than most good books. And pollsters would be hard-pressed to find any first world resident—adult or juvenile—who’s viewed a paltry nine movies over the course of any recent year.

Industry expansion? The first large-scale 3D film—Avatar—raked in nearly $3 billion at the box office, annihilating the previous record set by Titanic over ten years before. If the typical ratio holds (and it may well be exceeded), the record-breaking DVD release brings that total to between $12 and $15 billion, exclusive of merchandising and other rights. For a single film. (Two sequels are planned.)

Not coincidentally, 3D televisions were rolled out the same year, and a process has been developed to upconvert films originally shot in 2D to 3D. Equipment created to shoot Avatar may well revolutionize other aspects of the film world as well. Film itself is no longer film, but digital imagery.

While the persistent rumors of print’s death remain highly exaggerated, it is undeniable that movies are evolving in a way that print is not. And whether we like it or not, the writing (so to speak) is on the wall (or screen): in an increasingly digital culture, entertainment becomes, well, increasingly digitized. There is, in the end, only so much we can do with printed, even digitized words.

But while books still live, movies—and screenplays—can be used to amplify their impact and their authors’ bank accounts through…

SYNERGY

Having both a book and a screenplay opens up new possibilities. Mere interest in one is almost certain to increase interest in the other. The actual sale of either will make purchase of the other more likely. And in the best of all possible worlds, a savvy agent can play studio interest against publisher interest and elevate the price on book and screenplay to ridiculous heights.

If the book is published and succeeds, the screenplay (if unsold) is far more likely to be purchased, and (if sold) far more likely to be produced.

If the book didn’t sell, but the screenplay does, publishers will suddenly become interested in the book. (The reverse is also true: if the script doesn’t sell and the book sells high or becomes popular, the screenplay may get a second life.)

And of course, a successful movie will resurrect sluggish book sales, and push brisk sales even higher. Because of the cap on screen-side earnings, a hit film can cause your book to make you more money than the screenplay ever will.

But you need the screenplay to make that happen.

ADAPTING YOUR BOOK OR STORY

As mentioned earlier, film makes unique demands of the source material. As Gale points out: “Adaptations pose the challenge of determining which material is relevant, and it’s especially difficult—though often necessary—to lose compelling scenes and characters from the underlying source material.”

Teena Booth agrees. “In adapting novels, the problem is often how to take interior drama and make it explicit and visually exciting.”

“I think it’s very hard to adapt,” adds Lesli. “To create the kind of experience that people can see taking place on the screen. You have to strike a delicate balance between being true to the original material and story concept and translating it into this other, very visual medium.”

“In adapting novels, the problem is often how to take interior drama and make it explicit and visually exciting. With true stories, the biggest challenge is to come up with a dramatic arc for the main characters or a suspenseful arrangement of events—elements frequently missing from a book or article.” —Screenwriter Teena Booth

True stories present their own issues. “I usually adapt true stories,” says Teena. “And my biggest challenge is to come up with a dramatic arc for the main characters or a suspenseful arrangement of events—elements frequently missing from a book or article.” These same elements are often missing—or less-than-fully realized—in unpublished (and some published) fiction manuscripts as well.

“Obviously, true stories seldom follow traditional plot lines, and that offers up both opportunities and obstacles along the way,” Gale adds. “It’s important to be able to see the forest and not just the trees.” Most book authors facing their first adaptation get lost in the trees.

So, who will see the forest? Once you’ve decided to adapt your book or other story, you have three basic choices: write the screenplay yourself, get some help, or hire someone to write it for you…

WRITE IT YOURSELF

This costs you nothing but time. But don’t let that one hundred twenty pages fool you—a screenplay can be every bit as difficult to write as a novel. And it can take even longer to write. The peculiar challenge of the screenwriter’s art is to say more with less, using fewer words to convey greater meaning. For those unaccustomed to the format, this takes a surprising amount of time.

“As with any career, it’s critically important to practice and hone your craft,” advises Gale. “Join a writer’s group or two; and w rite, write, write. Find your original voice, and look for stories and characters that speak to your background and what is unique in your worldview.” Is screenwriting success more difficult for women than for men? Gale’s experience tells her no: “I don’t believe there are, or should be, different rules for male and female writers.”

In other words, it’s equally difficult for everyone—and the most difficult transition of all is going from novelist to screenwriter. Novelists tend to write long (by Hollywood standards), and overly descriptive writing is the surest mark of an amateur scriptwriter. In this sense, much of the novelist’s experience works against him or her.

How long does it take to become a good screenwriter? In most cases, the answer is years. You can speed that up if you…

CONSULT WITH AN EXPERIENCED SCREENWRITER

Or, better yet, screenwriter/novelist or adaptation specialist. They can review your story with a practiced eye toward screen potential, and suggest specific points/changes to consider during the adaptation. The trick is to find the right person (more on this below), and then work with them on a detailed outline for the screenplay—before writing it.

With professional input and some story flexibility on your part, this should provide you with a solid three-act structure, proper pacing, a relatable hero, and good character arcs. Of course, it’s still up to you to make all of that work. Check in with your consultant every thirty pages or so for feedback on your progress.

Approaching the task in this way can accelerate your learning curve tremendously, and is a good idea even if you plan on writing an original (non-adapted) screenplay. Still, if it takes you a long time to become a good screenwriter, those consulting fees can add up—quite possibly to the point where it would have been cheaper to…

HIRE A SCREENWRITER OR ADAPTATION SPECIALIST

Hiring someone who knows their way around a screenplay is the fastest way to ensure quality results. “Writing is the most difficult aspect of filmmaking,” says Gale. “Staring at a blank page and having to fill it with meaningful stories and well-rounded characters is the most daunting challenge in the business. And while there are exceptions, I would generally recommend approaching professional screenwriters or producers to undertake adaptations—because it’s a rare author who has sufficient objectivity to make the best choices when adapting their own material.”

Lesli seconds that. “When the work you’re adapting is your own, you’re obviously intimately connected to it—making it that much harder to step back and be objective about the changes that have to be made. That’s a huge challenge.”

Teena Booth agrees, noting that while some books might appeal to some TV markets without adaptation, others “don’t necessarily scream commercial appeal and may be impossible to sell without the buyer seeing a script.”

But who to hire? Most screenwriters with produced credits belong to the WGA (Writers Guild of America)—an organization whose rules prevent members from accepting less than a $50,000 to $90,000 minimum for feature-length work. Those at the top of the game routinely charge $1 million or more. If you can afford that, and your writer has adaptation experience, your search is over. If not, read on.

You need to find someone who’s good—but most likely unproduced. The dilemma then becomes: How can an author or storyteller with little or no Hollywood experience (you) be reasonably sure that a probably-unproduced screenwriter knows his or her stuff? The answer is simpler than it might seem: rely on the opinions of those who do have Hollywood experience.

One way to do this is to look for someone who’s been optioned by a real producer or company, or someone who’s been “in development” with a real company or filmmaker. If film industry professionals have shown strong interest in your writer’s work, that means a lot—and sets him or her apart from the cast of thousands of would-be screenwriter/consultants who have no real industry experience or contacts.

You can also look for someone who’s placed very highly in a prestigious screenwriting competition. And you should know that there are many script contests of questionable integrity, designed more to fatten the wallets of their creators than anything else. Placing highly, even winning one of these, may mean little. As Christopher Lockhart notes, “Somebody’s gotta win.”

The Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting Program, on the other hand, stands head and shoulders above all other screenplay competitions. It’s run by the same organization that hands out the Academy Awards. Gale sits on the committee that judges the finalists. Thousands of writers submit their scripts each year, but only ten scripts are declared finalists. Those who’ve reached this level have gone on to write films like Air Force One, Arlington Road, Armored, Erin Brockovich, Pocahontas, Transformers 2, 28 Days, and the Castle TV series. (The Chesterfield, another prestigious fellowship, is no longer active.)

Given a choice, you also want someone who knows what it’s like to write and adapt a book, because they’ll have a better understanding of where you’re coming from (even if your story is not in book form), and what it takes to get your story from three hundred-plus pages to one hundred twenty. A published novelist or nonfiction book author who is also an accomplished screenwriter is a good find. An adaptation specialist is ideal.

Lastly, you need a writer who sees the story as you do, and who will keep its “heart” alive and beating strongly in the new medium. Be open to changes—but also know when to say enough is enough, that this is no longer the story you want to tell. Again, work with the screenwriter or adaptation specialist to create a detailed outline before the writing begins. Any significant departure from the outline should be approved by you in advance.

Check with your screenwriter / adaptation specialist every thirty pages or so to be sure things are going as planned, and consult again at the end, before the “polish.” It can be a powerful learning experience to see screenwriting principles applied to your own work—and one that cannot quite be duplicated in any other way.

Keep in mind that, like everyone else, screenwriters have bills to pay. Asking a writer to work for nothing up front, and a percentage of the sale price only if and when the script actually sells, is a classic amateur move. (Would you write someone else’s book based on such an offer?)

As Rocky Balboa once said, “It’s simple mathematics.” If the screenwriter writes his own script and sells it, he gets 100 percent of the money—so why should he set his fabulous ideas aside to work on yours? Great ideas are not all that uncommon. The ability to do those ideas justice for the duration of a screenplay or novel is rare. That’s what good writers are paid to do. To quote The Joker, “When you’re good at something, never do it for free.”

After the script is written, what then? As with publication, the road from script to screen is seldom easy—but those who do get their projects consistently made in this town share a single defining attribute:

PASSION

“Once you have the screenplay, you need a bit of luck—but also persistence,” says Teena. “Knock on every door you can find, and don’t stop trying.”

Lesli also casts her vote for “tenacity. Don’t accept no. Just keep at it. You can have hundreds of no’s, but all it takes is one person who says yes.”

Gale agrees. “Work hard, be passionate about your projects, and persevere when the going gets tough. Jim [Cameron] and I had twelve passes on The Terminator. We were down to our very last pitch—and sold it on the thirteenth try.”

“When I started twenty years ago, I didn’t know anybody,” Lesli relates. “I did a film that got people’s attention—a little film on no money—and I’ve been doing this ever since. So I have to believe that when push comes to shove, it is in the end about the quality of the work.”

When a producer, director, or star becomes truly passionate about a screenplay—falls in love with it—he (or she) will go to extraordinary lengths to nurture it. After producing the Tom Cruise/Jaime Foxx thriller Collateral (written by Stuart Beattie), Julie Richardson came across a romantic comedy script she couldn’t live without. The only problem was—no one could find the writer.

“I wanted this script,” Julie recalls. “And by God, I was going to get it.” Unable to locate the writer on her own, she hired a private detective to track him down, and then optioned the script—a romantic comedy—from article author John Marlow. It’s now in development. That’s passion.

It’s often said that Hollywood is more about who you know than what, and many writers spend vast amounts of time trying to connect with people in the industry. But if you can craft a screenplay that gets readers passionate about characters and story—Hollywood will want to know you.

And that, ultimately, is what you want.

ADAPTATION SERVICES