How Not to Turn a Book into A Movie

Sorry I missed last month I was really sick, and this month I am a day late. Originally I was going to talk about Doctor Who because it is celebrating it's 50th Anniversary in 8 days time now. But I am literally launching three books today. Davey Beauchamp's Amazing Pulp Adventures RPG, Amazing Pulp Adventures the Short Stories and Writers for Relief vol. 3. So it has been a crazy week getting ready for the launch.

So what I give you is a spoiler free review of Ender's Game aka how not to turn a book into a film.

-Davey

Ender’s Game was not Ender’s Game and I am not sure where to begin. First the movie should have either been at least a half an hour to hour longer. People aren't afraid of a three hour film; just look at Lord of the Rings. Or it should have been two films; the first part being Battle School and the second Command School, which they could have easily had done. 


Then I remembered this movie was made by Summit. The movie company that loves to rip the heart and soul out of the YA books they adapt. For me this was the Hunger Games all over again. I felt like they had mutilated the Hunger Games with the base character interactions and why they should even begin to trust one another in this horrid situation they were placed in. It was one of the things Hunger Games the books did well and it was lost to the filmmakers.

They compacted and distilled Ender’s Game into nothing more than a special effects film. And when we do get the little special effects we get in this film; it is handled decently. If you expect a favorite scene from the book to be in this movie; don’t get your hopes up. The characters, their heart, the reasons why they were the way they were was ripped out of this film. Again like I said this is a Summit Film. I think I could have easily have adapted this book into a movie without compromising everything they compromised to make this film.

I barely recognize the story in the movie and I feel like they are assuming that everyone who is watching the film has read the book. Or at least that is the only way I can even begin to reconcile the films creation.

They had so much to work with and they just tossed it to the side and made this film. I can’t even call it a good film. It is a good mess asking the audience to make some wild jumps in character development. And if you expect any sort of a sequel to this movie; don’t. They mutilated the end of the book, which I was looking forward to seeing at the end of the film.

And I am not one of those that thinks the movie should follow the book verbatim. I don’t. I understand thing have to be changed it is a different medium then words on paper. It is an adaption, but I barely saw the book in this film. I guess it could be compared to World War Z where large liberties were taken, but at least I enjoyed World War Z a lot more.

Summit shows us how it is not done. So I hope other movie companies take note. I can see Ender’s Game flopping in theaters. And I hope it does, not because of Card or his beliefs; because it is a bad, bad film that felt like it was just thrown together. I am just glad I have Thor next week to watch to get this bad tasting movie out of my mouth.

I know some people are going to love this film and more power to them. I am glad they liked it or loved it, but I am not going to be able to get my 7.50 back anytime soon. I wouldn't even waste my time down loading it. And if anyone of you really knows me; I am the guy who likes about everything he sees in the theater as long as I don’t feel like I have wasted my time or was entertained in the slightest. And I love a good special effects film, but this film boards on me feeling like I wasted two hours of my time.

The only good thing I got out of this trip to theater was some great trailers of coming of attractions including the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Trailer, which people looked at me strangely when I squeed over it.

In the end make up your own mind about the film, but I was disappointed on so many different levels and I am not one of those diehard fans of the book. I just read it for the first time in September and found it a lot of fun.

The Great Wait

Today I'd like to talk about The Great Wait.

We all know in publishing that the process involves a lot of waiting.  When we send our book baby queries out into the big bad publishing world, or our agent sends submissions out to editors, we're prepared for the waiting time we know is going to come.  It might not be easy, in fact as I so intimately know, it's actually a vortex of never ending time, but we're at least prepared.

So that's not the wait I want to talk about.

I am, in fact, talking about The Great Wait in regards to letting your manuscript rest, before you send out the queries, and before your editors submissions go out.  One of the most common new writer mistakes I see is manuscripts sent out a long time before they're ready.  How do I know this?  Because I've made the very same mistake.  How do I know it's a mistake?  Because after agent, editor and CP comments, and after a considerable wait, I've come back and looked at my work and found a hundred ways to make it better.

I recently went through this process with my gothic novel.  I loved it.  I thought it was great.  Then over time, comments and suggestions, I came to realize it could be so much MORE.  I've been chatting with a few new writers lately and all they want to do is go, go, GO!  And yes, their work is fab, and yes it's clean and good.  But...who knows what a little time will do?  Distance.  Enough distance that you can't remember every word you typed and why you chose every line you did.

If you can get that kind of distance, you can read objectively.  And that's what it's all about.  You need to be able to be objective.  Have you ever bought a pair of shoes you just had to have, and a year later you're totally out of love with them?  Well, books can be like that too.  I'm not saying you should wait a whole year.  I'm saying you should put your money back in your purse, go for a walk around the shopping center, and come back a week later to see if that thrill is still there.  In fact, make it two weeks.  A month.  However long it takes for you to be able to read your book like a NEW reader.

Trust me.  It'll help.  I used to not believe this.  I used to nod my head and go "yeah, yeah, yeah".  But I was wrong.  TRUST ME.  Welcome to The Great Wait.  I'll see you on the bench.

Give Your Writing a Workout: How Writing Exercises Can Improve Your Book

Confession time: When it comes to writing exercises, I used to be a cynic. A nonbeliever. Write a diary entry in my character’s voice? Write a letter from one character to another? Interview my character? Seriously? All I thought was “big ole waste of time.”

To write words that would never make it in the actual book seemed absurd. Pointless. Dare I admit, pretentious. Why waste the precious minutes and hours I have to write on words that no one but me will ever read?

Hold on a sec, while I swallow this last bite of crow. Gulp.

Okay, so the answer that won me over is this: because sometimes words, things, events you never expected have a way of weaseling their way into your book. Even form the backbone of your book. At least that’s what happened to me.

Let me backtrack. The first fiction book I ever wrote took me three years. I was a pantser, not out of any firm belief or philosophy, but out of ignorance. I didn’t know any better. I sat down to write and soon discovered I had no idea where my story was going, what my characters would do, should do, what they wanted, that they even had to want something. The end result was a manuscript in need of serious revision.

I began to read craft books, but in every one, I flipped right past all the pages about writing exercises and writing prompts. After years of rewriting, my first book found its plot, my characters found their voice, and my book found its way into my heart. I loved it, but when it came to writing my next book, I wasn’t about to have a repeat performance.

When the idea for BECOMING JINN came to me, I wrote down the concept, the main characters, and what I thought then would be my three disasters (which though not exactly what they are now, are pretty close). Before going further, I enrolled in a novel planning course with author James Scott at Grub Street in Boston.

He made me a plotter. Though I’d read advice on story planning and structure, it wasn’t until James put his particular spin on them that the light bulbs started glowing above my head.

His techniques helped me write BECOMING JINN, my second fiction book, in two months instead of three years. Revisions were fast and targeted. And now, more than a year and a half later, I still reach for the big black binder of “Research on Writing” that I put together, starting with handouts from that class.

While I still have much to learn about writing, and while I’m sure I won’t be quite as good a teacher as James, over the course of my next few blog posts I hope to share some of the key concepts that converted me from a floundering panster to a happy plotter.

Today, I’ll start with the general concept of writing exercises. The writing exercises I’m talking about are different from writing prompts. Think of a prompt as a way to rev your engine. Press down on that accelerator by doing some “freewriting” to get you in the mood to write, to overcome writer’s block, or to explore a potential concept or idea. A writing prompt could be anything from “write your earliest memory in the first person” to “set a timer for thirty minutes and write a story using the words ‘muffin,’ ‘spaceship,’ and ‘clown.’” Incidentally, Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles has its origin in a writing prompt: set a story in the future and include a fairy-tale character. That particular prompt clearly served Ms. Meyer well. 

Many writers swear by writing prompts. While useful, I’m more into writing exercises. The ones presented in the course I took have become the core of the work I do while planning my books and even reappear during my drafting and revising stages. If I suddenly plop my characters in a new location, I refer to my setting exercises. If a new character appears or a minor character needs to be amped up, I go back to the questions that help me create a character profile.

Over the course of my next few posts, I plan to share the concepts I find most useful when thinking about character, setting, structure, beginnings, and endings. I’ll also list some of my favorite writing exercises for each. And I’ll get back to that question that formed the backbone of my book (look for it next month in my December 4th post on character).

But since I started this introductory post by saying I was a cynic when it came to writing exercises, let me end by sharing what made me a believer.

I was sitting in the novel planning course, inwardly scoffing at the questions James had written on the whiteboard and asked us to answer about setting. We were to take a scene, either one we were working on or one we had yet to begin, and answer eight questions about the scene’s location. The questions included:

1. What’s above your characters’ head?

2. At their feet?

3. To their left

4. To their right?

5. What time of day is it and how do you know?

6. What season is it? How do you know?

7. What can they smell?

8. What can they hear?

Picking the scene I thought would start BECOMING JINN, I forced myself to put pen to paper and answer the questions. I went through them one by one, creating the living room in my character Azra’s house. From an interior designer’s standpoint, the finished digs were beautiful. Sleek, modern, with a white sofa and silver arched floor lamp. It was a nice room, one I wouldn’t mind living in. But it was not Azra’s living room. It was not the living room of her mother, Kalyssa, a Jinn with Moroccan roots who spent her life traveling the world to grant wishes. Gone was the black and white geometric rug and in was a crimson Turkish prayer rug. The coffee table switched out its glass for hand-carved wood. They couldn’t smell anything from the outside because Jinn hate the cold and even in the summer keep their windows shut to seal in the warmth.

The simple eight questions on setting put me in my characters’ shoes. And unexpectedly, I not only learned things about where they lived but also about who they were.

Pretty powerful stuff. Enough to turn me into a plotter. I now love and rely on writing exercises to help me plan my novels.

What about you? Do you use writing exercises? Have I convinced you to try? Check back next month when I share the ones I use to create my character profiles. 

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Coastal Magic Con Spotlight: CA Kunz

Coastal Magic Con is an awesome weekend celebrating paranormal romance and urban fantasy in Daytona in February! Today, I'm featuring one of the Con's guests, CA Kunz.

Carol and Adam Kunz make up the mom and son author duo, C.A. Kunz. They thoroughly enjoy writing about things that go bump in the night and action-packed dystopian romances while drinking massive amounts of English breakfast tea and Starbucks coffee. This author pair currently reside forty-five minutes away from each other in the sunny state of Florida.

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YAtopia: You attended Coastal Magic Con's first incarnation, Olde City New Blood last year. What brought you back?

Carol and Adam – Definitely the people. The authors, bloggers, and readers were all so much fun to chat with and meet. Even though it was the first year of the con, it didn’t seem to have too many hiccups (that we were aware of), and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

YAtopia: Do you have any weird writing habits?

Carol - I like to write in the evening, and I don’t like listening to music while writing because it distracts me. I don’t think that’s weird, or maybe it is?

Adam – I also find that I’m most productive at night when I write, but unlike my mom, I love to listen to music while writing. Another thing I do is put a TV show that I’ve seen a million times, but won’t necessarily pay attention to (Buffy, Angel, Charmed, etc.), on in the background while I work on a novel. What can I say? I love my Netflix, hahaha!  

YAtopia: Name three books you think everyone should read.

Carol – 1) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
             2) Diary of Anne Frank
             3) Dracula

Adam – 1) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Well, the whole series to be honest)
             2) The Fault in Our Stars
             3) The Giver

YAtopia: Which one of your characters has the most of you in him/her?

Carol - Cat Colvin from the Childe Series.

Adam – I’m not sure there really is a character like me in any of our stories. I usually get inspiration for our characters through interactions with others. There are a ton of characters that I connect with, but I wouldn’t say that any of them have a lot of me in them.

YAtopia: If you could only give aspiring writers one piece of advice, what would it be?
Carol - Don’t wait until you’re my age to start writing. Oh, and when you do start, make sure you write your little butt off.

Adam – My advice would simply be this: if you have an idea that you’re passionate about, write it down. Oh, and never worry too much about your first draft, because almost every first draft kind of stinks. The important part is getting your ideas out of your head and onto paper.

YAtopia: What's next for you? What are you working on now?

Carol - Just finished my first standalone NA romantic comedy, Lucky Number Four, and now I’m going back to our third book in The Childe Series, Wicked Darlings.

Adam – I’m currently working on the second novel in my NA romantic suspense series Seasons of Deception entitled, Two Little Lies. Once I finish that, I plan to join in with Mom on writing Wicked Darlings.


YAtopia: Thanks for stopping by today! 

Do you love urban fantasy and paranormal books? Check out Coastal Magic Con! 

Cat Colvin
Average teenager?
Or something else entirely?

Cat Colvin is pretty much your typical run-of-the-mill teenager. Sure, she's taller than most girls, has a mane of fiery red hair that's impossible to tame, is left-handed, and her eyes are two different colors, but that's where the differences end . . . unless you include the minor detail of her slow transformation into a Childe.

High school can definitely be challenging, and for Cat it's no different. This is especially true when she's faced with the daunting task of trying to hide her budding Childe traits as they begin to reveal themselves at the most inopportune times. To make matters worse, her family is oddly dead set against Ryan, the boy she grows to like. But everyone has their secrets: is Ryan really what he seems to be, and what is Cat's family not telling her?

The Childe is the first book in this coming-of-age fantasy series which follows Cat's life through the twists and turns toward finding out whom and what she really is. Come and take the plunge with Cat into a world filled with mystery, biting humor, and the paranormal.

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Book Versus Movie

I'm firmly in the camp of: the book version is always better than the movie version. But I still get totally excited when a fav book is turned into a movie. (Can you say Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings?)

Since summer, I've been jonesing to see the film adaptations of some of my favorite books: Ender's Game, Catching Fire, and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Along with the excitement comes a tingle of anxiety. Will the movie live up to my expectations? How will they change the characters? Will they look how I picture them? What scenes will be cut? Will they futz with the ending?

For example, regarding Ender's Game, the actor who plays Ender Wiggin looks nothing like I pictured. He's supposed to be six years old!

Did I feel a twinge of disappointment when I first saw the kid cast as Ender?

Yep.

And about two seconds later, I got sucked into the super awesome CGI effects.

(Yeah, I'm kinda superficial when it comes to movies--the more explosions and the more action, the better.)

Then I remembered: While I know that, for me, the book always trumps the movie, I also like to keep an open mind when I watch a film adaptation. It's impossible to include every nuance of the book, to cast actors who look exactly like the characters in the book, and to create the world that I envisioned with my imagination.

So what do I do?

I enjoy the movie for the movie. I try not to compare the film to the book. I judge it on itself.

And for the most part, I enjoy movies based on books.

How about you? Do you like to watch the film version of books? Do you read the book first or watch the movie first? Why?

And what's better: the book or the movie?

* * * *

Laura Diamond is a board certified psychiatrist and author of all things young adult paranormal, dystopian, and horror. Her Young Adult Paranormal Romance novelette NEW PRIDE and novel SHIFTING PRIDE debuted late 2012 from Etopia Press. A spin off short story based on the lions of Tsavo, TSAVO PRIDE, is now available on Kindle. In 2013, her Young Adult Dystopian series, ENDURE and EVOKE, are being published by Etopia Press. Her Young Adult Paranormal Adventure, THE ZODIAC COLLECTOR, is coming 2014 by Spencer Hill Press. When she's not writing, she is working at the hospital, blogging at Author Laura Diamond--Lucid Dreamer, and renovating her 225+ year old fixer-upper mansion. 

If you’re interested in reading more about me, or interacting with me on the web check out the following links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DiamondLB

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorLauraDiamond

Author Laura Diamond: www.authorlauradiamond.com

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5815639.Laura_Diamond

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Laura-Diamond/e/B009Y7L432/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1377733776&sr=8-1

Blog: http://lbdiamond.wordpress.com/

Hope to “see” you soon! 

Elected Cover Reveal

Today is the cover reveal of ELECTED, a YA science fiction novel scheduled for release April 2014 from Entranced Publishing. It sounds awesome and the cover is fantastic!

In the year 2185, Aloy must masquerade as a boy to claim her country's presidential role and save her people.

Aloy’s father is the current Elected, the leader of the country, just as her grandfather and great-grandfather were before. Her older brother should fulfill the role, but he disappeared eighteen years ago. Without an Elected, East Country would fall into civil war. With no one else to take his place, Aloy’s parents cut her hair and told her that she could never be a girl again. To assume the role, she must conceal her gender at all costs. If discovered, she risks execution.

In two weeks, Aloy will turn eighteen and take her father’s place. She hopes to govern as he did, but she is inheriting a different country. The long concealed Technology Faction is boldly stepping out of the shadows and, as turmoil grows within East Country, cryptic threats arrive from beyond their borders. After generations of isolation, Aloy knows nothing about their only neighbor, Mid Country. And, East Country doesn’t have the resources to defend itself.

As she struggles to lead, Aloy maintains her cover by marrying a woman, Vienne, but battles with feelings for Griffin, the boy who knows her secret - the boy who is somehow connected to East Country's upheaval. When assassination attempts add to the turmoil, Aloy doesn’t know whom to trust. 

Aloy knows leadership requires sacrifice. She just didn't expect that the sacrifice might be her life.

And now for the cover...

"One blonde curl is wrapped lusciously around my pointer finger. I gaze down at it and then force my eyes upward to drink in the image of my face. Long blonde hair trails past my shoulders and onto my back. In the cracked mirror, my eyes squint, trying to capture this one fleeting picture of myself as a girl.

This is what I could look like if I weren’t forced to masquerade as a boy."

Rori Shay's debut novel, ELECTED, is book one of a young adult sci-fi trilogy, which challenges the notion of duty above desire. Rori is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). Rori lives in Maryland with her husband, two daughters, and two proficient hair shedders: Misch the cat and Gerry the 90-lbs black lab. Rori studied public relations and marketing at the University of Maryland and received an MBA from George Washington University. She enjoys travelling, running, reading, pumpkin-picking and snow-shoeing!

What do you think of the cover? Will you be reading Elected?

What To Do Before And After "THE CALL" From An Offering Literary Agent

It’s my agent-iversary this month (one year since I signed with my lovely agent, Holly Root) and it seems as though something is in the air these days. Twice this week I opened my email to exciting news from writer friends who’d received “Let’s schedule a call” emails from agents. In both instances, the next line of their email was, “What now?”

There are tons of resources online for what questions to ask DURING The Call. Check out this fantastic and thorough list. My post is instead going to address some things to do BEFORE The Call and more things to do AFTER The Call.

BEFORE The Call:

Consider more queries. You have an email requesting a call, but since you don’t have an official offer, it is still ethical to continue querying and this might be the time to reach out to those “dream agents” of yours. This way, if you do get an offer, you can send an email to anyone who has your query and/or pages with the subject line: Nudge With Offer of Representation. This tends to be agent catnip and you may find yourself with full requests within minutes of hitting send. You should feel free to nudge anyone who has pages OR simply a query. I'm sure this will garner some comments below, but I'll defend this by saying that you clearly have a manuscript that someone in the publishing industry finds "sellable" so offering it to other agents is actually to their benefit as much as yours.

AFTER:

Request time to consider. Be sure to ask for more time than you think you need.  You may be squee-ing internally the entire call and ready to sign on the dotted line the instant the official offer is uttered. It's a heady feeling to have someone gush over your work after collecting stacks of form rejections! But that offer will still be there tomorrow. It’s appropriate to request a “mulling-it-over” period to allow any other agents with your material time to read and consider. Ten days would be the minimum I’d request, but two weeks is perfectly fine. Agents are busy people and can’t always drop everything to read something overnight. Giving them time increases your odds of having multiple offers, which can be stressful, but ultimately gives you more control over your career and determining who will be by your side throughout it.  I’m a huge believer in trusting my gut feelings, but hearing how other offering agents answer your questions and envision your career should help you make the most logical and thoughtful decision (then you can save your gut to use as a tie-breaker!).

Call other clients. It is acceptable practice for you to ask the offering agent if it is okay for you to contact current clients. I can’t imagine an agent saying no to this (warning flag if he/she does), and the agent may even offer up the names and contact information of clients to reach out to. That’s great and you should contact those authors. I would go a few steps further and make sure you ask that agent for the name of a client who is still out on submission or has not sold a book yet. This person will be you in a matter of days, so talking to someone who’s at this stage now will give you insight into how your early interactions with your agent will be and show you how things will progress on sub and/or if your first manuscript doesn’t sell. It is not often talked about openly, but a majority of first manuscripts do not sell and it will be helpful to know how your agent will keep your spirits up, nudge you to write more, and work with you to determine the next step. I would also suggest contacting an author or two the agent didn’t offer up. Most authors are easy to track down on Twitter, Facebook, or via their websites. I suggest politely requesting a quick phone call, so the author will feel comfortable talking freely versus having to put frank feelings in writing to someone he or she doesn’t know. In my instance, I called two clients from an offering agent and, while one raved, the other client was days away from severing her relationship with the agent and I got an earful that certainly played into my decision-making process. Of course, I suspect the truth was somewhere between those two clients, but there were some red flags raised in those conversations that steered me away from that particular agent.

Researching other clients and their books can also tell you something about the agent. One of the major things that tipped the scales in Holly’s favor in my decision-making process was that her client list was basically my bookshelf. If I loved to read what she repped,I felt more confident that she would “get” my writing style. Also, her clients’ brands very closely matched with the type of career I wanted for myself and I knew if she could help get them there, she was the one I wanted in my court.

If you are signing with an agent who reps authors book-by-book versus for a career, you may want to ask that agent to read samples (a chapter or two) of your other work to make sure he/she likes your style and voice overall. There is no guarantee that agent will like your next manuscript, but you might want to know ahead of time that he/she at least responds to your next idea or your WIP.

I know it can feel odd to ask the agent to send you names or to read more for you before you’ve signed, but taking the time to figure out if you’re well-matched now will save everyone (including him or her) time and grief further down the road. This is a time of role-reversal- agents are wooing you and often that feels strange after a series of “This just wasn’t for me” emails. But don’t let this throw you! Recognize that you are going to be partners on a publishing journey now and take the time and ask the questions that will allow you to be super-comfortable with your potential agent going forward. 

If you’re reading this because you’ve gotten that elusive email from an interested agent, congratulations and good luck!! Are there other things you’re wondering at this stage? If you are agented, are there things you were glad you asked/did or things you wish you had?