Variety reports that director/writer Ben Affleck’s feature film adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s book GONE BABY GONE has started production in Boston, with Casey Affleck and Michelle Monahan as private eyes Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro.
Writing
PROfiles
Ed Gorman is kicking off a new feature on his blog called "PROfiles" — posing seven questions to different novelists. Today, he talks to Bill Crider , PJ Parrish, and IAMTW co-founder Max Allan Collins, the multi-talented author of ROAD TO PERDITION. Here’s a quote from Max:
3. What is the greatest pleasure of a writing career?
Hands down, the great pleasure is being able to pursue a passion and get paid for it. I consider myself a storyteller and, accordingly, work in many mediums. I love readiing novels and get to write them for money; I love movies and occasionally get to make them; I love comics and get to script them. My hobbies have turned into my job, and what could be a greater pleasure than hat?
Ditto.
Do Mystery Novels Suck?
My brother Tod is going to get in big trouble. In a post today, he explains why he doesn’t ready mysteries any more. Because, in his view, most of them suck.
I used to read a lot of mystery novels but in the last several years
have found myself easily disappointed by the easy conventions I find in
what are acclaimed as the finest in the genre……Part of it is a craft issue: I find a lot of mystery novels lazy in
characterization and lazy in drama, relying more often on tricks than
truth…
For instance, Tod recently read the acclaimed new bestseller by a beloved mystery author:
It had plot holes on every page, as if
someone had been fisting it. I solved the mystery in the first ten
pages. The villains were stock. The hero was suitably flawed but easily
redeemed and the ending was so schmaltzy that I literally said aloud,
"Oh, come on!" I then went and looked at the reviews of the book and
was stunned to learn it was the writer’s "best book in years." That the
novel was the "finest mystery of the year." That the writing was
"superb" and evoked "Chandler." That the twists and turns of the plot
kept reviewers "constantly guessing." That the ending packed "an
emotional wallop that will keep fans chatting for months!" Had I read a
different book?
He wonders if critics and readers go easier on mystery novels because they expect less from them than they do from other literary works. He also has a problem with the stagnant character development in some mysteries.
Most mystery novels I’ve read lately feel like just another episode,
the characters stuck in a commercial break until the next book comes
out. That, certainly, was the case with the novel I read…a continuing
series character, widely loved, widely praised, widely selling and so
cliched and trite now that it makes the previous works by the author
now seem something less. It’s a bland book, inoffensive in every way,
except that it made me wonder what mystery reviewers (and readers)
truly consider classic or brilliant anymore.
While I agree with Tod in some ways (look at the lambasting I got for not jumping on the Ken Bruen bandwagon) I think there’s a big difference between a series novel — which is, indeed, intended to be like an episode of a TV series — and a standalone thriller.
Like TV shows, readers expect a series novel to be the same book as the one they read before in the series — only different. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but we TV writers do it every day. A TV series gives you the same episode week after week, year after year, but with enough differences in the individual stories to make the show seem new and fresh. Marshall Matt Dillon was essentially the same guy in 1955 when GUNSMOKE premiered as he was when the show was cancelled in 1975…and none of the relationships in his life had really changed. The same is essentially true of most other non-serialized TV series and most series novels.
Stephanie Plum, Nero Wolfe, Phillip Marlowe, Shell Scott, Spenser, Elvis Cole, Kinsey Millhone, Jack Reacher, John Rain, Inspector Rebus… none of these characters have really changed in the course of their respective series. That’s one of the pleasures and comforts of the books…you know exactly what you’re going to get when you open one up.
Can it get dull? Yeah. Can the writers get sloppy and complacent? Sure. Are readers and critics more forgiving of successful series books and the authors who write them? I think so, because the authors and their characters are so beloved. You are pre-disposed to like the book and to cut it a lot of slack (whereas someone coming to the book fresh, without having read the previous titles, might judge it far more harshly and see the cliches the long-tme reader doesn’t).
The problem, perhaps, is that too many new mystery novels these days are reading like pilots for prospective book series rather than as strong, individual novels. You can feel the writer’s burning desire to create a franchise in every paragraph. In some ways, this goes back to the earlier discussion here about creating suspense. Nothing kills a book faster for me than the sense the author is more interested in marketing and promotion than in actually creativing vivid characters and telling a compelling story. He’s looking ahead to the hoped-for series rather than concentrating on writing a fresh, powerful, and provocative book.
Oops for OPs
Screenwriter John August does a post-mortem on his aborted Fox pilot OPS. His post provides a fascinating glimpse into the world of television development.
When a pilot is announced, it shows up in Variety. Everyone knows about it.
When a pilot dies, it dies quietly in the corner…… the show was announced as a “put pilot,” which means that when Fox
made the original deal with Jordan and me, one of the conditions was
that they basically promised to shoot the pilot. In reality, I’m not
sure there is such a thing as a put pilot.In the case of Ops, there was a substantial penalty that Fox agreed
to pay in the event they didn’t end up shooting the pilot. In a few
months, I’ll get a check with a few zeroes for my trouble. Given how
much time and money it would have taken to shoot the pilot, it’s almost
certainly for the best the train stopped where it did. There’s no sense
producing a pilot if the network didn’t want the show.
You’ll Never Go Wrong with Harry
I’ve never read a bad book by Harry Whittington. Ed Gorman posted an appreciation of Whittington’s A NIGHT FOR SCREAMING on his blog today.
You want twists and turns? You want to be knocked out of your seat not
three but four times in about the last forty pages? You want to change
your politics and take up with a chick with Hooters and run away to the
sunny beaches of Indiana and hold yur breath for six days? Well, this
slender little novel with one of the truly classic cover paintings will
make you do all those crazy things and more. I promise.This is an example of taking a familiar set-up and turning it into
a novel you’ve never read before. I’m in the process of outlining it
now. I want to see how he did it.
What I find fascinating about this post isn’t the rave for Whittington — Ed has done that before and he’ll do it again. It’s the idea that Ed, the acclaimed author of countless mysteries, westerns and thrillers of his own, is outlining Harry’s novel for himself.
It just goes to prove that a true professional writer knows there is always more to learn about their craft — and that the best way to do it is to never stop reading, appreciating, and studying what other writers have done.
When is a Tie-in Not a Tie-in?
Word that a sequel to PETER PAN will be written by award-winning children’s book author Geraldine McCaughrean (authorized by Great Ormond Street Hospital, which owns the copyright to
the original characters) got novelist Jeff Mariotte wondering why literary tie-ins aren’t treated with the same lack of respect in the publishing industry as other tie-in novels.
Books set in the world of Peter Pan, or The Godfather, or Gone With the Wind, are works made for hire, based on characters and settings created by other writers. The originals are loved by millions. The new books are approved by the copyright holders of the original material.
Every word of that is true of a Star Trek novel or a Conan novel or a Buffy novel. And yet, the literary establishment embraces one while frowning on the other. Readers of what are traditionally considered tie-in novels are made to feel like they’re indulging in a lower form of entertainment, on a par with cockfighting or something.
He goes on to say that this kind of bias is why an organization like the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers is long over due. Obviously, I couldn’t agree more. So far, we’ve brought over a 100 professional media tie-in writers together and will soon be announcing more details about our first annual Scribe Awards, honoring excellence in tie-in writing.
UPDATE: Several other tie-in writers/bloggers, like Karen Traviss and Keith R.A. DeCandido have also commented on Jeff’s observations.
What Happens When the Mystery is a Mystery to the People Writing the Mystery
The Fox show REUNION was supposed to be murder mystery that spanned decades in a single season. But the show was cancelled in November, leaving the show’s handful of fans wondering whodunit. The problem is, the writers of the show didn’t know whodunit either. Zap2it reports:
When FOX lowered the boom on
"Reunion" in late November, the show’s creator says there was no way to
resolve the show short of a full season because of how "intricately
plotted" it was. It was so intricately plotted, in fact, that the question of who committed the murder at the show’s center was still up in the air.
That, at least, is the word from FOX Entertainment president Peter Ligouri, who on Tuesday (Jan. 17) addressed the show’s early demise with reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour.
"’Reunion’ was particularly cumbersome in terms of trying to provide an ending for
the audience," Ligouri says of the show, in which each episode represented a year in the life of six friends, one of whom ends up dead. "How [creator Jon Harmon Feldman] was laying out the show to gap those additional 14, 15, 16 years was an incredibly complex path. There were a number of options, and he didn’t make a definitive! decision on which option he was going to go with as to who the killer was, and there was just no way to accelerate that time."Feldman himself hinted at that in a statement following the show’s cancellation, saying that solving
the mystery of who killed Samantha (Alexa Davalos) was "partially reliant on characters we haven’t yet met — and events we haven’t seen."Ligouri says the network and the show’s team talked about several ways to go with the killer’s identity, but "the best guess was at that particular time that it was going to be Sam’s daughter," whom she gave up for adoption early in the series. The why of the murder remains a mystery.
Especially to the show’s writers, which may be why the series didn’t work. If the show’s writers didn’t even know whodunit or why, then what were they writing about? If the clues led nowhere, how did they expect the story to actually payoff in the end? Is it any surprise viewers didn’t get hooked by the mystery since it, um, actually didn’t exist?
(Thanks to Bill Rabkin for the heads-up!)
Seeing Red
The LA Weekly tells the bizarre story of screenwriter Eric Red ("The Hitcher"), who drove his Jeep into a bar, killing two people, then slit his own throat in a suicide attempt.
Market Widens for Tie-ins
Two interesting Publisher’s Weekly articles about the tie-in business — "Where
the Fans Are: New formats broaden the base for tie-ins" and "Breaking Out of the Box: Original novels
based on popular TV series are finding a ready market" — are now up on
the IAMTW site. The articles
are from 2003, but are still relevant today.
"DVD has changed the landscape because fans can go back for what they missed,"
concurred Hope Innelli, v-p and editorial director of HarperEntertainment.
"Tie-in books, therefore, have to serve a different purpose."Many of
these books keep fans happy by shedding more light on the characters, filling in
plot gaps or turning back the clock. For example, the lightning pace and
Washington insider backdrop of the Fox series 24 left a lot of unanswered
questions at the end of last year’s premiere season. "We created a backstory in
conjunction with the writers that explains how key characters got there in the
first place and reveals why the revenge plot unfolded. That’s just not on the
show," said Innelli.Original novels can also exist in entirely
different time frames, taking the audience to places the shows can’t go……To some extent, the mushrooming of prime-time shows that run concurrently with
syndicated reruns, along with the rise of DVD series collections, have already
conditioned viewers to operate in parallel timeframes. Law & Order, for
example, regularly shuffles its cast, though everyone shows up on cable reruns.
"Readers are savvy enough to recognize that the books have their own
continuity," said Clancy.
The Tie-In Game
Novelist William Dietz has written an article over at the IAMTW site on how to go about novelizing a game. It’s a fascinating look into the business behind media tie-ins.