Kenneth Atchity's Blog, page 152
October 6, 2016
October 5, 2016
Breaking the Cycles Features Guest Author William G. Borchert Shining the Light on Family Addiction
Shining the Sunlight on Family Addiction by Willam G. Borchert
Having been sober for many years now, it continues to frustrate me no end that despite all those in the recovery field striving gallantly to educate the world about the fact that alcoholism is a disease, the shame and stigma remain. Too many people still consider abusive drinking a moral weakness or the lack of will power.
Sadly, I’m convinced that’s why so many alcoholics and drug addicts deny their addiction and why this denial keeps them sick, makes them sicker and kills too many.
I have felt this stigma more than once in my own life and still do on occasion. Even though I have become a rather successful author and screenwriter, I can still see people pause and reflect when, should the situation call for it, I mention that I am a recovered alcoholic.
For a long time I prided myself on being one of those people who was totally open about his sobriety—that my recovery was an open book and I was only too happy to offer you chapter and verse should you be interested. I didn’t realize I was practicing halfway measures until about two years ago when I was forced to come face-to-face with all the skeletons in my “alcoholic closet.”
Openness Can Help Reduce the StigmaI was speaking at a large convention in West Palm Beach, Florida and, since there were many gray heads in the hall, I happened to mention the terrible relationship I had with a drunken father when I was a child. I had never done this before. Then I went on to say that my father also found the miracle of sobriety and how his recovery and my own helped heal both of our families.
After my talk, the convention chairman and I struck up a conversation about how the disease of alcoholism creates so much pain, despair and disaster in families, that it is truly a family disease and that so many don’t know how to break the cycle of addiction.
The chairman then suggested that since I had written eight books and several movies on the subject of recovery—including the most watched television movie ever made, “My Name Is Bill W.” —that I write a book about my father and I and how alcoholism affected our families.
My initial reaction was negative. I didn’t want to face all those skeletons again, all that pain and shame, reliving a past I had put behind me. I had always thought that being open about my own disease was enough. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to realize it wasn’t—not if I was sincere about helping people, including families, find a way out as my dad and I did. And the more I talked with close friends including my wife, the more they helped convince me it was a book I should write. I finally did.
How I Became My Father…A Drunk – a Book to Help All Who Are Affected by Family Addiction I didn’t realize until I completed my research and put pen to paper that this would be a book that would help me come completely out of the shadows of addiction and into the bright sunlight of personal and family sobriety. I found joy and gratitude in places I had never looked before.
I came to realize that there are millions of families trapped in the malady of addiction. Faced with a husband or wife or a son or daughter getting sicker by the day from abusive drinking or taking drugs, the shame and stigma only makes things worse. They don’t know where to turn or what to do. Hopefully, the experience of my family and my father’s family will help show them the way.
So I keep writing about how recovery from addiction can lead to productive and fruitful lives, hoping that somehow it might reduce the shame and stigma and that more people will come out of the shadows and into the sunlight.
I would like to believe that the more the world comes to know “the sober alcoholic”, the more the stigma will gradually disappear. At least that is my hope.
Guest author, William G. Borchert, is shining the light on family addiction. As readers of BreakingThecycles.com well know, this disease affects not only the person who has the substance use disorder (aka addiction), but it affects their families. Together, they represent approximately 120 million Americans – that’s roughly one-third the American population! So it is with great respect and admiration that I share William’s (Bill) guest post on this devastating family disease and the life-fulfilling recoveries that all whom are affected can share.
William (Bill) is a multi-published author, national speaker, and Emmy award-nominated screenwriter. In addition to his long career as a book and screen writer and movie producer, Bill is the author of the movies, “My Name Is Bill W,” starring James Garner and James Woods, and “When Love Is Not Enough,” starring Winona Ryder and Barry Pepper. His film, “My Name Is Bill W.,” has become the most watched television movie ever made. Bill and his wife, Bernadette, live in Stratford, Ct. They have nine children and 24 grandchildren. His latest book, How I Became My Father…A Drunk is available at Amazon.com. To learn more about Bill and his work, visit his website, WilliamBorchert.com
Having been sober for many years now, it continues to frustrate me no end that despite all those in the recovery field striving gallantly to educate the world about the fact that alcoholism is a disease, the shame and stigma remain. Too many people still consider abusive drinking a moral weakness or the lack of will power.
Sadly, I’m convinced that’s why so many alcoholics and drug addicts deny their addiction and why this denial keeps them sick, makes them sicker and kills too many.
I have felt this stigma more than once in my own life and still do on occasion. Even though I have become a rather successful author and screenwriter, I can still see people pause and reflect when, should the situation call for it, I mention that I am a recovered alcoholic.
For a long time I prided myself on being one of those people who was totally open about his sobriety—that my recovery was an open book and I was only too happy to offer you chapter and verse should you be interested. I didn’t realize I was practicing halfway measures until about two years ago when I was forced to come face-to-face with all the skeletons in my “alcoholic closet.”
Openness Can Help Reduce the StigmaI was speaking at a large convention in West Palm Beach, Florida and, since there were many gray heads in the hall, I happened to mention the terrible relationship I had with a drunken father when I was a child. I had never done this before. Then I went on to say that my father also found the miracle of sobriety and how his recovery and my own helped heal both of our families.
After my talk, the convention chairman and I struck up a conversation about how the disease of alcoholism creates so much pain, despair and disaster in families, that it is truly a family disease and that so many don’t know how to break the cycle of addiction.
The chairman then suggested that since I had written eight books and several movies on the subject of recovery—including the most watched television movie ever made, “My Name Is Bill W.” —that I write a book about my father and I and how alcoholism affected our families.
My initial reaction was negative. I didn’t want to face all those skeletons again, all that pain and shame, reliving a past I had put behind me. I had always thought that being open about my own disease was enough. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to realize it wasn’t—not if I was sincere about helping people, including families, find a way out as my dad and I did. And the more I talked with close friends including my wife, the more they helped convince me it was a book I should write. I finally did.
How I Became My Father…A Drunk – a Book to Help All Who Are Affected by Family Addiction I didn’t realize until I completed my research and put pen to paper that this would be a book that would help me come completely out of the shadows of addiction and into the bright sunlight of personal and family sobriety. I found joy and gratitude in places I had never looked before.
I came to realize that there are millions of families trapped in the malady of addiction. Faced with a husband or wife or a son or daughter getting sicker by the day from abusive drinking or taking drugs, the shame and stigma only makes things worse. They don’t know where to turn or what to do. Hopefully, the experience of my family and my father’s family will help show them the way.So I keep writing about how recovery from addiction can lead to productive and fruitful lives, hoping that somehow it might reduce the shame and stigma and that more people will come out of the shadows and into the sunlight.
I would like to believe that the more the world comes to know “the sober alcoholic”, the more the stigma will gradually disappear. At least that is my hope.
Guest author, William G. Borchert, is shining the light on family addiction. As readers of BreakingThecycles.com well know, this disease affects not only the person who has the substance use disorder (aka addiction), but it affects their families. Together, they represent approximately 120 million Americans – that’s roughly one-third the American population! So it is with great respect and admiration that I share William’s (Bill) guest post on this devastating family disease and the life-fulfilling recoveries that all whom are affected can share.William (Bill) is a multi-published author, national speaker, and Emmy award-nominated screenwriter. In addition to his long career as a book and screen writer and movie producer, Bill is the author of the movies, “My Name Is Bill W,” starring James Garner and James Woods, and “When Love Is Not Enough,” starring Winona Ryder and Barry Pepper. His film, “My Name Is Bill W.,” has become the most watched television movie ever made. Bill and his wife, Bernadette, live in Stratford, Ct. They have nine children and 24 grandchildren. His latest book, How I Became My Father…A Drunk is available at Amazon.com. To learn more about Bill and his work, visit his website, WilliamBorchert.com
October 4, 2016
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Ken Atchity Best-selling author, writing coach, movie producer Dr. Ken Atchity (Yale Ph.D.), author of over 20 nonfiction books and novels, has spent his lifetime helping writers get started with and improve their careers and has worked in nearly every part of the entertainment and publishing industries. He’s produced nearly 30 films in the past 25 years for major studios, television broadcasters, and independent distribution. His documentary special for Discovery Channel, based on the New York Times bestseller “The Kennedy Detail” by Jerry Blaine & Lisa McCubbin, was nominated for an Emmy. Nearly two dozen of his clients have been NYT Bestsellers.As professor of comparative literature and teacher of creative writing at Occidental College and UCLA, he helped literally hundreds of writers find a market for their work by bringing their craft and technique to the level of their ambition and vision. During his academic career, Ken also served as Fulbright Professor to the University of Bologna, Italy, book columnist for The Los Angeles Times Book Review, and founder and co-editor of DreamWorks: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Dreams and the Arts.
Films he’s produced include “Gospel Hill” (starring Danny Glover), “The Madams Family: The Truth about the Canal Street Brothel” (Ellen Burstyn), “Joe Somebody” (Tim Allen), “Life or Something Like It” (Angelina Jolie), “Hysteria” (Maggie Gyllenhaal,), “Erased” (Aaron Eckhart), and “Angels in the Snow” (Kristy Swanson).
Ken’s books include A Writer’s Time, Writing Treatments That Sell, How to Publish Your Novel, and How to Escape Lifetime Security and Pursue Your Impossible Dream: A Guide to Changing Your Career; as well as Seven Ways to Die (with William Diehl), The Messiah Matrix, and Brae Mackenzie.
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October 3, 2016
Dani Menkin's IS THAT YOU? OPENING now IN LOS ANGELES OCTOBER 14!
Trailer - Is That You? - Reviews from Dani Menkin on Vimeo.
Ronnie, a 60-year-old man from Israel reconnects with a lost lover from 40 years ago online. This reconnection propels Ronnie to travel to the United States to reunite with his past, only to discover the "What-ifs" of his life on a road not taken. Playing now in Cinemas in the USA.
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September 29, 2016
How to Design Your Novel For Film Adaptation Guest Post on The Writer's Digest
Mid-career novelists seeking representation complain that none of their books have been made into films. At any given moment, we in Los Angeles have literally stacks of novels from New York publishers on our desks. Going through them to find the ones that might make motion pictures or television movies, we—and other producers, managers, and agents—are constantly running into the same problems:
This guest post is by writer/editor/literary manager/producer Ken Atchity. Atchity has made hundreds of film and television deals for storytellers wanting their books to be films–including movies, series, and reality shows–since he began producing in 1987 after retiring from his tenured professorship at Occidental College. Also, as literary manager his authors have logged nearly twenty New York Times bestsellers. His own most recent novels are The Messiah Matrix and Brae Mackenzie. Dr. Atchity is also the creator of the free on-demand webinar presentation “Sell Your Story to Hollywood” for aspiring storytellers available at realfasthollywooddeal.com.
Common Problems in Novel-To-Film Adaptation“There’s no third act…it just trickles out.”“There are way too many characters and it’s not clear till page 200 who the protagonist is.”“I can’t relate to anyone in the book.”“At the end, the antagonist lays out the entire plot to the protagonist.”“There’s not enough action.” Not just action but dramatic action.“There’s nothing new here. This concept has been used to death.”/“We don’t know who to root for.”“The whole thing is overly contrived.”“There’s no dialogue, so we don’t know what the character sounds like.”“There’s no high concept here or a new way into a familiar concept. How do we pitch this?”“There’s no real pacing.”“The protagonist is reactive instead of proactive.”“At the end of the day, I have no idea what this story is ”“The main character is 80, and speaks only Latvian.”“There are no set pieces.”Of course anyone with the mind of a researcher can list a film or two that got made despite one of these objections. But for novelists who are frustrated at not getting their books made into films that should be small consolation and is, practically speaking, a futile observation. Yes, you might get lucky and find a famous Bulgarian director, who’s fascinated with the angst of octogenarians, studied pacing with John Sales or Jim Jarmusch, and loves ambiguous endings.
But if you regard your career as a business instead of a quixotic crusade, you should be planning your novel at the drawing board to make it appealing to filmmakers.
CharactersCharacters are the most important element of the story and should generate the action, the setting, and the point of view. Your job as a writer is to give us insight into each and every character in your story, no matter how evil or virtuous his or her actions may be. Characters are the heart of the drama.
Give us a strong protagonist whose motivation and mission shape the action and who, good or bad, is eminently relatable—and who’s in the “star age range” of 35-50 (where at any given moment twenty male stars reside, and maybe ten female stars; a star being a name that can set up the film by his attachment to it).Make sure a dramatist looking at your book will clearly see three well-defined acts: act one (the setup), act two (rhythmic development, rising and falling action), and act three (climax leading to conclusive ending).Express your character’s personality in dialogue that distinguishes him, and makes him a role a star would die to play.Make sure your story has a clear-cut dramatic premise, e.g., unbridled ambition leads to self-destruction or you can’t go home again.Have someone in the film industry read your synopsis or treatment before you commit to writing the novel.
Revise accordingly.
Though I’ve observed the phenomena for several decades now, it still surprises me that even bestselling novelists, even the ones who complain that no one has made a film from their books yet, don’t write novels dramatic enough to lend themselves easily to mainstream film. It’s a well-known, but lamentable, phenomenon in publishing that, with very few exceptions, the more books a novelist sells the less critical his publisher’s editors are of his work. So time and again we read novels that start out well, roar along to the halfway point, then peter off into the bogs of continuous character development or action resolution.
A publisher invests between $25,000 and $100,000 or more in publishing your novel. A low-budget feature film from a major Hollywood studio today costs at least $50 million. There is, from a business point of view, no comparison. Risking $50 million means the critical factor is raised as high as can be imagined when your book hits the “story department”—much higher than the critical factor of even the biggest publishers. Hollywood studies what audiences want by keeping track, in box office dollars, cents, and surveys–what they respond best to.
If you want to add film to your profit centers as a novelist, it would behoove you to study what makes films work. Disdaining Hollywood may be a fashionable defense for writers who haven’t gotten either rich or famous from it, but it’s not productive in furthering your cinematic career or building your retirement fund.
Read more
Brian A. Klems is the editor of this blog, online editor of Writer’s Digest and author of the popular gift book Oh Boy, You’re Having a Girl: A Dad’s Survival Guide to Raising Daughters.
Follow Brian on Twitter: @BrianKlems
Sign up for Brian’s free Writer’s Digest eNewsletter: WD Newsletter
Listen to Brian on: The Writer’s Market Podcast
This guest post is by writer/editor/literary manager/producer Ken Atchity. Atchity has made hundreds of film and television deals for storytellers wanting their books to be films–including movies, series, and reality shows–since he began producing in 1987 after retiring from his tenured professorship at Occidental College. Also, as literary manager his authors have logged nearly twenty New York Times bestsellers. His own most recent novels are The Messiah Matrix and Brae Mackenzie. Dr. Atchity is also the creator of the free on-demand webinar presentation “Sell Your Story to Hollywood” for aspiring storytellers available at realfasthollywooddeal.com.Common Problems in Novel-To-Film Adaptation“There’s no third act…it just trickles out.”“There are way too many characters and it’s not clear till page 200 who the protagonist is.”“I can’t relate to anyone in the book.”“At the end, the antagonist lays out the entire plot to the protagonist.”“There’s not enough action.” Not just action but dramatic action.“There’s nothing new here. This concept has been used to death.”/“We don’t know who to root for.”“The whole thing is overly contrived.”“There’s no dialogue, so we don’t know what the character sounds like.”“There’s no high concept here or a new way into a familiar concept. How do we pitch this?”“There’s no real pacing.”“The protagonist is reactive instead of proactive.”“At the end of the day, I have no idea what this story is ”“The main character is 80, and speaks only Latvian.”“There are no set pieces.”Of course anyone with the mind of a researcher can list a film or two that got made despite one of these objections. But for novelists who are frustrated at not getting their books made into films that should be small consolation and is, practically speaking, a futile observation. Yes, you might get lucky and find a famous Bulgarian director, who’s fascinated with the angst of octogenarians, studied pacing with John Sales or Jim Jarmusch, and loves ambiguous endings.
But if you regard your career as a business instead of a quixotic crusade, you should be planning your novel at the drawing board to make it appealing to filmmakers.
CharactersCharacters are the most important element of the story and should generate the action, the setting, and the point of view. Your job as a writer is to give us insight into each and every character in your story, no matter how evil or virtuous his or her actions may be. Characters are the heart of the drama.
Give us a strong protagonist whose motivation and mission shape the action and who, good or bad, is eminently relatable—and who’s in the “star age range” of 35-50 (where at any given moment twenty male stars reside, and maybe ten female stars; a star being a name that can set up the film by his attachment to it).Make sure a dramatist looking at your book will clearly see three well-defined acts: act one (the setup), act two (rhythmic development, rising and falling action), and act three (climax leading to conclusive ending).Express your character’s personality in dialogue that distinguishes him, and makes him a role a star would die to play.Make sure your story has a clear-cut dramatic premise, e.g., unbridled ambition leads to self-destruction or you can’t go home again.Have someone in the film industry read your synopsis or treatment before you commit to writing the novel.
Revise accordingly.
Though I’ve observed the phenomena for several decades now, it still surprises me that even bestselling novelists, even the ones who complain that no one has made a film from their books yet, don’t write novels dramatic enough to lend themselves easily to mainstream film. It’s a well-known, but lamentable, phenomenon in publishing that, with very few exceptions, the more books a novelist sells the less critical his publisher’s editors are of his work. So time and again we read novels that start out well, roar along to the halfway point, then peter off into the bogs of continuous character development or action resolution.
A publisher invests between $25,000 and $100,000 or more in publishing your novel. A low-budget feature film from a major Hollywood studio today costs at least $50 million. There is, from a business point of view, no comparison. Risking $50 million means the critical factor is raised as high as can be imagined when your book hits the “story department”—much higher than the critical factor of even the biggest publishers. Hollywood studies what audiences want by keeping track, in box office dollars, cents, and surveys–what they respond best to.
If you want to add film to your profit centers as a novelist, it would behoove you to study what makes films work. Disdaining Hollywood may be a fashionable defense for writers who haven’t gotten either rich or famous from it, but it’s not productive in furthering your cinematic career or building your retirement fund.
Read more
Brian A. Klems is the editor of this blog, online editor of Writer’s Digest and author of the popular gift book Oh Boy, You’re Having a Girl: A Dad’s Survival Guide to Raising Daughters.Follow Brian on Twitter: @BrianKlems
Sign up for Brian’s free Writer’s Digest eNewsletter: WD Newsletter
Listen to Brian on: The Writer’s Market Podcast
The Writer's Digest Guest Post: How to Design Your Novel For Film Adaptation
Mid-career novelists seeking representation complain that none of their books have been made into films. At any given moment, we in Los Angeles have literally stacks of novels from New York publishers on our desks. Going through them to find the ones that might make motion pictures or television movies, we—and other producers, managers, and agents—are constantly running into the same problems:
This guest post is by writer/editor/literary manager/producer Ken Atchity. Atchity has made hundreds of film and television deals for storytellers wanting their books to be films–including movies, series, and reality shows–since he began producing in 1987 after retiring from his tenured professorship at Occidental College. Also, as literary manager his authors have logged nearly twenty New York Times bestsellers. His own most recent novels are The Messiah Matrix and Brae Mackenzie. Dr. Atchity is also the creator of the free on-demand webinar presentation “Sell Your Story to Hollywood” for aspiring storytellers available at realfasthollywooddeal.com.
Common Problems in Novel-To-Film Adaptation“There’s no third act…it just trickles out.”“There are way too many characters and it’s not clear till page 200 who the protagonist is.”“I can’t relate to anyone in the book.”“At the end, the antagonist lays out the entire plot to the protagonist.”“There’s not enough action.” Not just action but dramatic action.“There’s nothing new here. This concept has been used to death.”/“We don’t know who to root for.”“The whole thing is overly contrived.”“There’s no dialogue, so we don’t know what the character sounds like.”“There’s no high concept here or a new way into a familiar concept. How do we pitch this?”“There’s no real pacing.”“The protagonist is reactive instead of proactive.”“At the end of the day, I have no idea what this story is ”“The main character is 80, and speaks only Latvian.”“There are no set pieces.”Of course anyone with the mind of a researcher can list a film or two that got made despite one of these objections. But for novelists who are frustrated at not getting their books made into films that should be small consolation and is, practically speaking, a futile observation. Yes, you might get lucky and find a famous Bulgarian director, who’s fascinated with the angst of octogenarians, studied pacing with John Sales or Jim Jarmusch, and loves ambiguous endings.
But if you regard your career as a business instead of a quixotic crusade, you should be planning your novel at the drawing board to make it appealing to filmmakers.
CharactersCharacters are the most important element of the story and should generate the action, the setting, and the point of view. Your job as a writer is to give us insight into each and every character in your story, no matter how evil or virtuous his or her actions may be. Characters are the heart of the drama.
Give us a strong protagonist whose motivation and mission shape the action and who, good or bad, is eminently relatable—and who’s in the “star age range” of 35-50 (where at any given moment twenty male stars reside, and maybe ten female stars; a star being a name that can set up the film by his attachment to it).Make sure a dramatist looking at your book will clearly see three well-defined acts: act one (the setup), act two (rhythmic development, rising and falling action), and act three (climax leading to conclusive ending).Express your character’s personality in dialogue that distinguishes him, and makes him a role a star would die to play.Make sure your story has a clear-cut dramatic premise, e.g., unbridled ambition leads to self-destruction or you can’t go home again.Have someone in the film industry read your synopsis or treatment before you commit to writing the novel.
Revise accordingly.
Though I’ve observed the phenomena for several decades now, it still surprises me that even bestselling novelists, even the ones who complain that no one has made a film from their books yet, don’t write novels dramatic enough to lend themselves easily to mainstream film. It’s a well-known, but lamentable, phenomenon in publishing that, with very few exceptions, the more books a novelist sells the less critical his publisher’s editors are of his work. So time and again we read novels that start out well, roar along to the halfway point, then peter off into the bogs of continuous character development or action resolution.
A publisher invests between $25,000 and $100,000 or more in publishing your novel. A low-budget feature film from a major Hollywood studio today costs at least $50 million. There is, from a business point of view, no comparison. Risking $50 million means the critical factor is raised as high as can be imagined when your book hits the “story department”—much higher than the critical factor of even the biggest publishers. Hollywood studies what audiences want by keeping track, in box office dollars, cents, and surveys–what they respond best to.
If you want to add film to your profit centers as a novelist, it would behoove you to study what makes films work. Disdaining Hollywood may be a fashionable defense for writers who haven’t gotten either rich or famous from it, but it’s not productive in furthering your cinematic career or building your retirement fund.
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Brian A. Klems is the editor of this blog, online editor of Writer’s Digest and author of the popular gift book Oh Boy, You’re Having a Girl: A Dad’s Survival Guide to Raising Daughters.
Follow Brian on Twitter: @BrianKlems
Sign up for Brian’s free Writer’s Digest eNewsletter: WD Newsletter
Listen to Brian on: The Writer’s Market Podcast
This guest post is by writer/editor/literary manager/producer Ken Atchity. Atchity has made hundreds of film and television deals for storytellers wanting their books to be films–including movies, series, and reality shows–since he began producing in 1987 after retiring from his tenured professorship at Occidental College. Also, as literary manager his authors have logged nearly twenty New York Times bestsellers. His own most recent novels are The Messiah Matrix and Brae Mackenzie. Dr. Atchity is also the creator of the free on-demand webinar presentation “Sell Your Story to Hollywood” for aspiring storytellers available at realfasthollywooddeal.com.Common Problems in Novel-To-Film Adaptation“There’s no third act…it just trickles out.”“There are way too many characters and it’s not clear till page 200 who the protagonist is.”“I can’t relate to anyone in the book.”“At the end, the antagonist lays out the entire plot to the protagonist.”“There’s not enough action.” Not just action but dramatic action.“There’s nothing new here. This concept has been used to death.”/“We don’t know who to root for.”“The whole thing is overly contrived.”“There’s no dialogue, so we don’t know what the character sounds like.”“There’s no high concept here or a new way into a familiar concept. How do we pitch this?”“There’s no real pacing.”“The protagonist is reactive instead of proactive.”“At the end of the day, I have no idea what this story is ”“The main character is 80, and speaks only Latvian.”“There are no set pieces.”Of course anyone with the mind of a researcher can list a film or two that got made despite one of these objections. But for novelists who are frustrated at not getting their books made into films that should be small consolation and is, practically speaking, a futile observation. Yes, you might get lucky and find a famous Bulgarian director, who’s fascinated with the angst of octogenarians, studied pacing with John Sales or Jim Jarmusch, and loves ambiguous endings.
But if you regard your career as a business instead of a quixotic crusade, you should be planning your novel at the drawing board to make it appealing to filmmakers.
CharactersCharacters are the most important element of the story and should generate the action, the setting, and the point of view. Your job as a writer is to give us insight into each and every character in your story, no matter how evil or virtuous his or her actions may be. Characters are the heart of the drama.
Give us a strong protagonist whose motivation and mission shape the action and who, good or bad, is eminently relatable—and who’s in the “star age range” of 35-50 (where at any given moment twenty male stars reside, and maybe ten female stars; a star being a name that can set up the film by his attachment to it).Make sure a dramatist looking at your book will clearly see three well-defined acts: act one (the setup), act two (rhythmic development, rising and falling action), and act three (climax leading to conclusive ending).Express your character’s personality in dialogue that distinguishes him, and makes him a role a star would die to play.Make sure your story has a clear-cut dramatic premise, e.g., unbridled ambition leads to self-destruction or you can’t go home again.Have someone in the film industry read your synopsis or treatment before you commit to writing the novel.
Revise accordingly.
Though I’ve observed the phenomena for several decades now, it still surprises me that even bestselling novelists, even the ones who complain that no one has made a film from their books yet, don’t write novels dramatic enough to lend themselves easily to mainstream film. It’s a well-known, but lamentable, phenomenon in publishing that, with very few exceptions, the more books a novelist sells the less critical his publisher’s editors are of his work. So time and again we read novels that start out well, roar along to the halfway point, then peter off into the bogs of continuous character development or action resolution.
A publisher invests between $25,000 and $100,000 or more in publishing your novel. A low-budget feature film from a major Hollywood studio today costs at least $50 million. There is, from a business point of view, no comparison. Risking $50 million means the critical factor is raised as high as can be imagined when your book hits the “story department”—much higher than the critical factor of even the biggest publishers. Hollywood studies what audiences want by keeping track, in box office dollars, cents, and surveys–what they respond best to.
If you want to add film to your profit centers as a novelist, it would behoove you to study what makes films work. Disdaining Hollywood may be a fashionable defense for writers who haven’t gotten either rich or famous from it, but it’s not productive in furthering your cinematic career or building your retirement fund.
Read more
Brian A. Klems is the editor of this blog, online editor of Writer’s Digest and author of the popular gift book Oh Boy, You’re Having a Girl: A Dad’s Survival Guide to Raising Daughters.Follow Brian on Twitter: @BrianKlems
Sign up for Brian’s free Writer’s Digest eNewsletter: WD Newsletter
Listen to Brian on: The Writer’s Market Podcast
Top 5 Ancient And Medieval Censored Books To Read During Banned Book Week
The tactic of banning books is, to quote Disney’s version of Beauty and the Beast, a tale as old as time. Yet it is rarely an effective method for halting the spread of information. The word censura (“censorship”) comes from the Latin verb censeo, which means to assess. Although publication took a different form prior to the printing press’s introduction to the West in 1450, there was still a great deal of textual censorship and numerous instances of book burning in the premodern Mediterranean. Here are just a few:
Statue of Abelard at Louvre Palace in Paris by Jules Cavelier (Image via Wikimedia).5. Abelard (Burned his own book in 1121 CE): There can surely be nothing so painful as an author than being forced to burn your own book. This is precisely what the medieval philosopher and theologian Abelard was forced to do at the Council of Soissons in the twelfth century. As with many instances of book burning, it was a highly public act wherein he was forced to burn his book on the Holy Trinity. He was also sentenced to imprisonment in the Abbey of St. Medard, but he escaped to Troyes and continued to teach. Abelard may be best known for his love affair with Heloise (herself an exceptional philosopher and writer) and impromptu castration, but having to burn his own book publicly likely added insult to injury.
4. Ovid (Exiled in 8 CE): Although there were many private collections of books in the city, Rome’s public libraries did not open until the late first century BCE. During the reign of Augustus, the Temple of Apollo, the Atrium of Liberty and the Porticus of Octavia thrived as public libraries in Rome; however, the emperor still maintained control over the libraries’ contents. In 8 CE, he banned the poet Ovid to exile (a sentence called relegatio) and kept his racy Ars Amatoria (“The Art of Love”) from public libraries — though his other works appear to have remained available. From his exile on the Black Sea, Ovid wrote: “I come in fear, an exile’s book, sent to this city: kind reader, give me a gentle hand, in my weariness: don’t shun me in fear, in case I bring you shame: not a line of this paper teaches about love” ( Tristia 3.3).
3. Sappho (Burned in 1073 CE): Although the famed poet of Lesbos was born around 615 BCE it was not until over a millenium and a half later, in 1073, that Pope Gregory VII allegedly called for her writings to be burned in Rome. Rumors also circulated that bishop Gregory of Nazianzus had earlier ordered her poetry to be burned (in c.380 CE), but I can find no merit to this malicious rumor. The late antique Gregory in fact enjoyed and often paraphrased Sappho in his own poetry, making the later Gregory of the 11th century the likely culprit if there was in fact a mass burning of Sappho’s poetry at all. Regardless, you can read what we have left of her works here or read about the newly translated Sappho fragments here.
![Most of Sappho's poetry is preserved in manuscripts of other ancient writers or on papyrus fragments, but part of one poem survives on a potsherd.[24] The papyrus pictured (left) preserves the Tithonus poem (fragment 58); the potsherd (right) preserves fragment 2.](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1475268708i/20704325._SY540_.jpg)
An ostrakon that preserves fragment 2 of Sappho. Although most of her poetry was preserved on papyrus or in manuscripts from other writers, pot sherds also served as writing surfaces in antiquity (Image via Wikimedia).(NB: I should here state that the transition from the use of the scroll to the codex in the later Roman empire means that most earlier “book burnings” or “book bans” were actually more of a scroll burning or ban, but for alliteration’s sake, let’s just go with “book.”)
2. Manichaean Texts (297 or 302 & 923 CE): Under the emperor Diocletian (r.284-305 CE), the texts of the followers of Mani, the Manichaeans, were ordered to be burned, along with their leaders. The bishop Augustine wasn’t a fan either, and in a polemic around 400 CE against these followers, he wrote that the Manichaeans should, “burn all [their] parchments with their finely ornamented bindings; so you will be rid of a useless burden, and your God who suffers confinement in the volume will be set free.” As Dirk Rohmann has written in his new book, Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity, early Christians often spoke of books as a kind of body that demons could inhabit. What better way to kill these demons than to burn them? In the Near East, bags of “heretical” books of the Manichaeans, along with a portrait of Mani, were also burned in 923 CE. This was in Abbasid Baghdad, according to medieval Islamic historian Abu’l-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi.
1.The Sibylline Books (Prophecies burned in the 6th c. BCE and 5th c. CE): The utterances of the Sibyl of Cumae were kept at Rome and overseen by the quindecimviri. The Greek verses had originally been brought to Rome either during the reign of the King Tarquinius Priscus, the legendary fifth king of Rome (r.616-579 BCE), or the last regal period king, Tarquinius Superbus (r.535-509 BCE). When a woman approached him to sell him nine scrolls, he refused her price. The woman went away and burned three of the nine books and then came back, asking for the same price as the first. Again, she was rebuffed and again she burned three of the remaining six. A final time she came back and asked for the same price for the remaining three as the nine scrolls originally pitched to Tarquin. This time, Tarquin was worried and asked Rome’s religious augurs what he should do. They replied that they were a gift from the Gods and he should buy them — so he did. Although the remaining scrolls were allegedly burned by Stilicho at the beginning of the 5th c. CE, the lesson here is to always buy a book from a persistent lady.
These are just a few instances of book burning or censorship in antiquity, but there are of course many more. I am sure I will receive mail about not including the Bible or other religious texts burned at various times, but the point here was to show that book censorship was usually a quite futile act. It frequently involved a public display in order to advertise the disdain of a group of people or of the state, but such tactics have only rarely kept works from being read completely. Book burning was much more detrimental to authors and their works in an era before the printing press — no doubt — but banning books was more a symbolic act than an effective censorship tactic. In fact, it usually makes us want to read the book even more.
Cumaean Sibyl, fresco painted by Michelangelo (1475-1564), Sistine Chapel Ceiling (1508-1512) Rome, Vatican (Image via Wikimedia). Sarah E. Bond is an Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Iowa. For more on ancient and medieval history, follow her @SarahEBond.
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September 21, 2016
‘Longmire’s Robert Taylor Joins Prehistoric Shark Tale ‘Meg
Robert Taylor is the latest addition to Jon Turteltaub’s giant-shark thriller Meg, Warner Bros’ upcoming adventure produced in conjunction with China-based banner Gravity. Taylor, the Aussie actor who stars in Netflix’s Western drama Longmire, will star alongside Jason Statham and Li Bingbing in the film. Longmire‘s fifth season starts streaming Friday.
Turteltaub directs Meg, an adaptation of Steve Alten’s 1997 novel, with Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, Belle Avery and Colin Wilson producing. The story, written by Dean Georgaris (with a rewrite from James Vanderbilt), follows a Navy deep-sea diver (Statham) whose military career ended in disgrace after his team encountered a living Megalodon, a prehistoric ancestor of the shark believed to reach up to 60 feet in length. With his team destroyed by the beast, he soon is offered a chance at redemption when the monster wreaks havoc off the coast of present-day China.
Wei Wayne Jiang, Barrie M. Osborne, Randy Greenberg and Gerald R. Molen exec produce with Flagship Entertainment, China Media Capital division Gravity Pictures and Warner Bros Pictures co-financing. Gravity Pictures will distribute the film in China, while Warner Bros handles the title throughout the rest of the world.
September 20, 2016
Cliff Curtis Joins Meg
Cliff Curtis has been set to star alongside Jason Statham in Warner Bros’ sci-fi action title Meg, directed by Jon Turtletaub.
Dean Georgaris adapts the script (with a rewrite from James Vanderbilt) from the 1997 novel by Steve Alten, Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror. The story follows a Navy deep-sea diver whose military career ended in disgrace after his team encountered a living Megalodon, a prehistoric ancestor of the shark believed to reach up to 60 feet in length. With his team destroyed by the beast, he soon is offered a chance at redemption when an international underwater observation program led by Chinese scientists encounters the same beast after a volcanic eruption released it from an underwater trench into open water.
Curtis takes the role of the Operations Chief aboard the Mana One, joining Ruby Rose, Rainn Wilson and Chinese actress Li Bingbing in the cast.
New Zealand native Curtis stars on AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead and recently produced and starred in New Zealand indie feature The Dark Horse, based on the true story of Kiwi chess player Genesis Potini who suffered from severe bipolar disorder. Curtis has had roles in such films as Live Free or Die Hard, Training Day, Three Kings and The Fountain.
Read more at Deadline Hollywood
Dean Georgaris adapts the script (with a rewrite from James Vanderbilt) from the 1997 novel by Steve Alten, Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror. The story follows a Navy deep-sea diver whose military career ended in disgrace after his team encountered a living Megalodon, a prehistoric ancestor of the shark believed to reach up to 60 feet in length. With his team destroyed by the beast, he soon is offered a chance at redemption when an international underwater observation program led by Chinese scientists encounters the same beast after a volcanic eruption released it from an underwater trench into open water.
Curtis takes the role of the Operations Chief aboard the Mana One, joining Ruby Rose, Rainn Wilson and Chinese actress Li Bingbing in the cast.
New Zealand native Curtis stars on AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead and recently produced and starred in New Zealand indie feature The Dark Horse, based on the true story of Kiwi chess player Genesis Potini who suffered from severe bipolar disorder. Curtis has had roles in such films as Live Free or Die Hard, Training Day, Three Kings and The Fountain.
Read more at Deadline Hollywood
