Category Archives: adaptation

January 15, 2013   Yassine   adaptation, e-books, future of publishing, opinion, technology, Yassine  
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Changes in Reading

My last blog entry of 2012 focused on a community who refilled the shelves of their recently shut down local library. This heart-warming story illustrated the importance that underscores the presence of a library or a bookstore in a community. Books can be found in and contribute to creating some of the most elegant stores in the world. These are buildings that house a wealth of entertainment, intellect, and emotion that are to be found in books.

Now let me swing to the opposite side for my first post of 2013 and tell you about a building that houses a wealth of entertainment, intellect, and emotion but does not possess a single printed book. Bexar County, TX is set to open the first book-less library this summer. The library will allow its residents to have access to electronic titles and let them check out e-readers. One of the architects behind the BiblioTech has reasoned that “The ever-changing landscape of technology means that literacy is no longer about picking up a physical book and being able to comprehend the words…Technology is changing the way we read, learn and thrive as citizens of the 21st Century.”

I agree with the sentiments behind this reasoning but I wouldn’t put it so didactically. The development of technology gives us options for how we read. It caters to a whole spectrum of taste, lifestyle, and needs. I don’t think we have to negate one to have the other or have to stand on a particular side of the fence and declare our allegiance. While I am grateful to be able to slip out my slinky e-reader whilst being crushed on the morning subway, I am just as thrilled to be able to ease back in a comfy chair, put my feet up and thumb my way through a hefty print book.

This is why I was intrigued to read this article that highlighted the presence of e-readers in traditional book stores in the UK. Essentially, e-readers sold at the bookstore would see the bookstore take a cut of future e-book sales, giving them an added revenue stream. Not confined to the UK, a number of US indie bookstores are also getting in on the act and through your reading device you are able to purchase e-book titles through independent bookstores.

For me, the development of technology has given us more options in the way we read. I have not been forced to choose one or the other and am excited to see if the conversation about print and electronic versions of books will begin to embrace one another rather than remain diametrically opposed. After all when you mix technology and books together and get this, it’s worth staying optimistic.

Are you embracing the best of both worlds? Or are you set in your reading ways. I’d love to know!

December 04, 2012   Yassine   adaptation, authors, creativity, digital publishing, e-books, future of publishing, multimedia, opinion, technology, Yassine  
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Building Books

As December rolls around, the perpetual question of “What would you like from Santa” is to be found in e-mails from supremely organized family members.  Just as well, then, that a compendium of “Best of 2012” lists abounds, and over the last few days I have been taking a gander at these lists, most obviously the lists for best books.

One of the ubiquitous occupants of these lists is the “book” BUILDING STORIES by Chris Ware. Although, in one review I read, calling Ware’s work a book, would be doing the book a disservice. BUILDING STORIES comes in a box and is compiled of fourteen pamphlets that readers are free to read in whichever order they choose. Readers are then able to re-order the sequence in which they read the materials again and again. In a sense, where is the last page of this book?

Or does there necessarily have to be one? Ware’s book in a box certainly grabs your attention through its inventiveness, but should we be at all surprised? With the expanding array of reading devices, the way we read books is growing ever more diverse, and what we read is becoming ever more multifaceted in the digital world. Books such as HISTORY OF A PLEASURE SEEKER have grown to become an interactive nest of audio, pictures, archives and art.

With these new forms of storytelling, where do you stand as an author? Is Ware an author in the traditional sense, or more of a compiler of artifacts? What do you think of multimedia being a part of your reading material? Is the digital reader set to become a digital explorer?

July 25, 2012   Brenna   adaptation, book to film, Brenna, culture  
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A Tale of Two Cities disguised as The Dark Knight Rises

As the details of the Aurora, CO, tragedy emerge, I’d like to point Batman fans to something that will get their minds off this dreadfulness. Surprisingly, I haven’t heard much about Christopher Nolan’s comments that this latest Batman installment was inspired by Charles Dickens. That is, until this article on Slate. (Warning: Do NOT read this article if you haven’t seen the movie yet!)

Take a moment to consider this. There’s the location—the corrupt, crime-ridden city; the orphans as principal characters; the lower class uprisings. You may even notice (full disclosure here: I didn’t) that the novel itself makes an appearance in the film. As we all know, there are a handful of stories that have been told and re-told throughout the centuries. Some people just happen to be better at re-telling those stories in new and unusual ways—like Christopher Nolan—than others. Yes, other film directors that have come out with a new superhero movie lately, I’m thinking of you.

We’ve been seeing interpretations a lot more than usual recently—or maybe I’ve just been noticing it more—from Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter being the basis of Easy A to the influx of modern day fairy tales at the multiplex. What classic tales would you like to see re-told and in what way?

April 03, 2012   Brenna   adaptation, book to film, Brenna, buzz  
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Screenwriter (finally) turns book author

Charlie Kaufman has sold his first novel to Grand Central, with no plot revealed, not even a hint.

And it’s about time! For those of you who have been living under a rock, the super talented screenwriter is best known for Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Being John Malcovich. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s taken him this long to dip his toes into book publishing. His screenplays are some of the most powerful I’ve ever read, and I really can’t wait to see what he does with a new format.

Oh, and check out this clever article from the AV Club!

We’re always talking about books being turned into movies – but what about the other way around? What movies would you like to see turned into books? Or better yet, what screenwriters would you like to see write their first novel?

December 20, 2011   Morris   adaptation, media, multimedia, opinion, reading, Video Games  
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Video Games + Books = ?

The New York Times wrote up a new Scholastic children’s book series today: Infinity Ring. What is interesting to me about this series isn’t that it is written by several different authors, some of which we represent, or that it is (according to the New York Times, anyway) supposed to be the successor to the Harry Potter throne. What I find interesting is that there is a tie-in video game, and that it is being called a multi-media property.

Video games are certainly one of the most interesting story telling mediums today, mostly because it hasn’t quite figured out how to best tell a story. Role Playing Games, like the recently released The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, have an expansive history of elaborate backstory and narrative driven gameplay. Action and Shooter games, on the other hand, have put significantly less emphasis on story, but some games, like the Assassin’s Creed series and the Uncharted series, are looking to change that. Meanwhile, there are those games that put story absolutely up front and center, like 2010’s Alan Wake, but those tend to fall flat on gameplay to the point of being totally boring. Of course, being an interactive medium, video games should be focusing more on player interaction than story. The greatest game I’ve ever played, Shadow of the Colossus (please play the ps3 version), has a story so bare bones and minimal it almost isn’t there. I call it the greatest game I’ve ever played because every time I play it, without fail, my palms sweat, my heartbeat triples, and I get this feeling of utter fragility in my limbs. That is what video games excel at – getting the player completely physically and emotionally involved in the game. You would imagine that video games that tie-in to other properties would do this exceptionally well, as the story and characters have already been laid out for the game designers and they need to just focus on the gameplay – like Shadow of the Colossus does.

An example of a truly great tie-in/multi-media project is Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire: the novel was really gripping, the comic was fun as hell, and the video game was absolutely amazing (I still play it). More importantly, each medium offered stories and aspects of the project unique and well-suited to that specific format. To the point where not only did each of the three work well as a standalone entity, but you couldn’t really consider any one of them to be the principal focus of the overall story. All three worked together in concert.

I have high hopes for Infinity Ring. There are really great authors behind it,  Scholastic is an exceptional publisher, and I think the timing is perfect for something new to sweep in and steal the hearts and minds of our youth. I really, really hope to see is a truly multi-media project in which all the different mediums being used are used to their full potential. It could be revolutionary, to the likes of which we haven’t seen before, and I can’t wait to see what happens.

November 17, 2011   Jessica   adaptation, book fairs, international literature, Jessica  
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Turkish Delight

I’m writing this post from Istanbul, where I was fortunate enough to participate, if only briefly and rather marginally, in the frenzy of bibliophilia that is the Istanbul Book Fair. Perhaps more a book bazaar than an international rights fair on the order of Frankfurt or London, it nevertheless provides an excellent immersion into this rich, energetic and fascinating language market. Indeed, I felt increasingly abashed that my knowledge of Turkish fiction begins and ends with Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk and Elif Sefak (whose books I have not even read, but plan to). Happily, at my request and over a dizzying array of mezze and kebab, a kindly Istanbul-based agent assembled a brief primer on contemporary Turkish fiction. She recommended that I check out the works of Mario Levi, İhsan Oktay Anar, Tezer Ozlu, and in particular the curiously titled The Garden of Departed Cats by Bilge Karasu. In addition to Turkish colleagues, I also met editors and agents from all over the world, and had an opportunity to compare notes on subjects familiar (the meteoric rise of the e-book, the role of Amazon.com) and less so (the fixed prices of books in many European countries). It’s always refreshing—and often reassuring—to see that despite the considerable challenges it faces, book culture is not only surviving, but adapting and thriving, throughout the world.

September 27, 2011   John   adaptation, digital publishing, e-books, future of publishing, John, opinion  
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What’s your backstory?

Nifty little piece yesterday from Fast Company on how Amazon laid the groundwork to swipe the e-reader market from Sony, despite Sony having produced the first e-reader three years earlier. Evidently, Jeff Bezos saw Sony’s Librie reader at a conference and realized that it could put him out of business as a print bookseller—so instead, he decided to beat Sony at their own game.

Okay, not exactly a new story. But what’s interesting here is Slywotsky’s thesis that Amazon’s behind-the-scenes maneuvering with publishers to supply a huge library of available titles positioned Kindle to outstrip Sony’s sales 3 to 1. Obviously, a smart business strategy, and ironically, it’s a twist on what publishers do as a matter of course. Most big publishers spend a year marketing their new titles to booksellers in the hope of making as many titles available in stores as possible—a process that’s mostly hidden from public view. According to Slywotsky, Bezos turned the tables and stocked as many titles as possible under the radar pre-launch—he just did it in a new format.

So, what does all this have to do with us? Well, it got me wondering about submissions in terms of project launch, and how behind-the-scenes maneuvering plays into the acquisition stage, as opposed to publication. Certainly, as agents, we lay as much groundwork as we can before sending out a book—getting to know editors, teasing them with ideas and samples, using the media, publishing our newsletter, etc. But I wonder if there are other approaches and tools we could utilize—maybe there’s still a game-changer out there?

More importantly, what about you? What kind of background work do you do to land representation or a book deal? Any advice/tips for your fellow writers?

August 17, 2011   Stacey   adaptation, book to film, fun, opinion, Stacey  
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Kizmet in the Land of Hollywood

I guess summer is a good time for movies, which might explain why we’ve recently been posting about them. I got a good response to my post, so I thought I’d follow it up with a look at the inner workings of a bestselling book-to-film adaptation. This piece from National Post is really cool because it talks about how a relatively unknown director got the job for this huge Hollywood movie through some very strong personal connections to the book author. Here’s another piece that talks about how they’ve been friends since kindergarten!

Turns out Tate Taylor actually optioned the book long before it sold to a publisher, envisioning it as a low-budget movie that might actually help get it sold as a book after having been rejected by over 50 literary agents.

Having worked on the outskirts of Hollywood for a number of years, I know this kind of back road to getting a movie made without big Hollywood names attached is practically unheard of, for a few reasons. First, Hollywood likes to reward success with money, in the form of job offers, and they don’t like risk, which is why there are barely more than a handful of A-list Hollywood writers out there. The same writers get all the big jobs. Also, they like to separate the writing and directing process, leaving the best of each to do their jobs (there are exceptions to this, like Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen). Another reason, and the reason I love this story that much more, is that the book writer is often essentially left out of the adaptation process completely since they rarely have screenplay experience and therefore create a higher risk for the project. Not always, but often, the screenwriters come in and do the adaptation, and the process unfolds with very little and sometimes no involvement from the creator of the book that the movie is based on.

Talk about a Hollywood success story that breaks all the rules (and in the book author’s favor!). This kind of synergy is practically unheard of today. Seems so easy that childhood friends should work together to create a blockbuster film from a bestselling book, yet in Hollywood this is a really rare occurrence. What do you think about this insider track for the movie version of The Help? I haven’t seen it yet, but from what I’ve heard and read, it’s quite good. Maybe Hollywood will take notice and start listening to the writers of the film’s source material more often. Hope so!

August 15, 2011   Jane   adaptation, book to film, Jane, opinion  
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Books into films—getting it right!

This past weekend, I was really looking forward to the release of the films based on two books I loved.  I avidly read the press just to get a sense of how true the movie makers were to the author’s intended story.  One review was glowing, while the piece on the second was so off putting, that after reading it, I have no intention of seeing the film.

The first is The Help based on the novel by Kathryn Stockett (“ ‘The Help’: ’60s Racism in Black and White,” behind the WSJ paywall). I loved the book and felt the author captured an important time and place in our country. From what I read about the movie, it does the same.  I am really looking forward to seeing it.

The second movie is based on another wonderful novel I read recently—One Day by David Nicholls (“Fitting ‘One Day’ Into Two Hours, also in the WSJ).This is the story of two people who meet initially on the night of their college graduation and then again on the same day for the next twenty-five years.  But the movie covers only eight of those meetings and I cannot imagine how it could capture the real essence of the book by cutting out virtually two-thirds of it. Ironically, this screenplay was adapted by the author and the movie was made by a new film division of the publishing company that published the book in the U.S. Sadly, I have no desire to see the movie after reading the article.

So my question is why can’t movie makers be more faithful to the books they are basing their films on?

I, for one, am so looking forward to seeing the movie(s) based on The Hunger Games, and I really hope the film makers don’t “get all creative” and screw up those stories.  That would be an incredible shame considering the huge potential audience now that the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises are ending.

I wonder what books-turned-movies you are looking forward to.  Which recent movies based on books have you liked and which disappointed you?

July 27, 2011   Stacey   adaptation, book to film, opinion, Stacey, subsidiary rights  
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A few words on film adaptations

Before I became a book agent, I worked in film and tv development for 7 years in New York, first for PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and then for Hearst Entertainment. My job was to be the middle man (or woman, in this case) between the film companies in LA and London (when I worked for PolyGram, they had international companies like Working Title on board) and the book publishers. The idea was to scout for book projects that could be adapted into film or television properties. It was fun work back then because Hollywood was still paying big dollars for the right project, and there existed a cottage industry in New York of film scouts like myself who were funded by the studios and whose job was to get their hands on as much material as possible. Perks included expense accounts, movie screenings, and first looks at books in manuscript form. The hope was that a book wouldn’t be missed and snatched up by someone else, even one that might not ever become a blockbuster franchise, which is mostly what Hollywood looks for today. Thinking back, it makes me wonder if a book like The English Patient would have even been made as a film today. I like to think yes, and I suppose it’s possible, especially since the book won The Booker Prize, but I’m really not so sure.

One of my most memorable book-to-film projects back then was Lorenzo Carcaterra’s Sleepers. It was a big deal book that had been kept secret until the film agent was ready to submit it wide to producers. When they did, it was literally a race to get to the agent’s east and west coast offices to read the book immediately. All of us wildly locked ourselves in our offices and read into the night. The next day there was a heated auction, and at the end of it, one of our producers at PolyGram nabbed the rights. There was controversy later about the believability of the book (this was long before A Million Little Pieces, but a lot of the same questions applied), the movie wound up being good but not great, and from what I remember, a commercial disappointment compared to the book’s success, but the process to get it to screen was exciting.   I’ve been thinking about this lately because of the recent success of Captain America, not based on a book, but 70 years worth of comics. This piece from the Writer’s Guild of America about the writers who adapted the film version is worth reading if you’re into this stuff. It’s amazing to think these two talented guys, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, were able to extract the elements from so many years of history and turn them into a modern day commercial blockbuster film. Good writing is good writing, and it’s impressive when it’s done in book form, or for film.   The general consensus is that the book is always better than the movie, and I think that’s usually true. But there are some wonderful screen adaptations that stand on their own, like The Wizard of Oz, or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (based on Road Dah’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), or Gone With the Wind. I’m curious to know what your favorite book-to-film adaptations are. Please share!

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