Huzzah for Hollywood Roundtable

This year marked the 83rd Academy Awards and I thought we might have a little bit of fun. The title of this post is a nod to The King's Speech which won Best Picture. Before the awards ceremony, I read a reviewer's post that favored Speech over The Social Network because in contrast, Speech had one central, very likable character with whom people could identify. We love well-defined, sympathetic characters who rise to inspire us. We need them.

That said, we know that books don't always translate well to the silver screen, but some movies are able to capture story nuances where others aren't so successful. I've laid out several options for this Roundtable today. We get to answer as many of the following as we'd like, and we hope you will jump into the fray with your answers:

1. What book-turned-movie was the most successful in your opinion and why? Least successful?

2. What book would you love to see made into a movie and who would you cast in the major roles?

3. Which book-turned-movie do you think was an improvement over the book?

4. Is there a movie that inspired you to read the book?

Okay, I'll go first.

#1 I think To Kill a Mockingbird would be my choice for most successful movie version. The casting was excellent. Whenever I pick up the book, I hear Gregory Peck speaking through the character of Atticus Finch and the essence with the story was treated with great care. I understand that Snow Falling on Cedars was a cinematic flop. I really enjoyed the book, but I won't spend money on the video unless it's shows up on Redbox for $1.

#2 I would love to see the movie version of Peace Like a River. I think Cameron Bright (& up & coming younger actor) would play Reuben Land and Jeff Bridges would play his father, Jeremiah. I see that a movie version has been 'in-development' since 2005 and it currently has a release date of 2011. Billy Bob Thornton is the only cast member listed right now. I still think Jeff would be a better Jeremiah (no offense, Billy Bob).

#3 I thought The Painted Veil was better as a screenplay. I think they stayed really close to the story but improved the ending. It was also a movie that inspired me to read the book.


Thanks for asking question #3, Debbie. I read The Horse Whisperer after seeing the movie, and I was sooooo disappointed in the book. First and foremost, I considered the female protagonist of the book weak and sniveling. She didn't feel fulfilled. She was married to a nice guy who loved her and was a terrific father, and yet the cowboy--strong and silent, of course--totally got her. Ack!!! And the ending in the book was very, very contrived. Redford not only added spectacular vistas (including his face), but while the two main characters were definitely attracted (dance scene!), the wife left the ranch with the intent of saving her marriage, and the cowboy didn't have to die to make that happen, like the good father and husband was the woman's consolation prize. In short, Redford added nobility to the story.

As for #2, I can't wait for Hunger Games to hit the big screen.

#1:
After reading "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood," by Rebecca Wells, I watched the film and loved every minute. To understand the finer points of character motivation, you'd want to read the book, but I thought the film was wonderfully cast. The characters were so much like old friends, I felt like waving.

#2:
I'd love to see "The Help," by Kathryn Stockett, on the big screen. Also, "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

#3 & #4:
My all-time favorite film is "Chocolat." I read the book after (by Joanne Harris), and was stunned to find that the film was such an improvement. The book is much darker, with little of the humor and wonder found in the the film, and (it's been a few years since I read it, so this is from memory) less compassion.

What a great Roundtable topic, Debbie. As I read Question #1, the first thing that came to mind as the most successful was To Kill a Mockingbird, then I saw it was your answer too. I don't mean to duplicate, but it tops my list, so I'll let it stand. The least successful, hmm ... I'll have to give that some thought.

#2. Again, I don't mean to duplicate, but like Patti, I'm so anxious for Hunger Games to come out. I'm a huge fan of the series. Hailey Steinfeld (True Grit) is being considered for the role of Katniss Everdeen. That would be terrific. I'd also love to see What We Keep made into a motion picture. I'd want Rene Zellwegger to be Ginny, Diane Kruger to be Sharla, and Helen Mirren to be their mother.

#3. I enjoyed reading The Notebook, but I loved the movie. I thought all the principle actors were terrific, especially Ryan Gosling.

#4. Circle of Friends inspired me to read the book, which led me to become quite a fan of Maeve Binchy.

I tried to read the Lord of the Rings and felt like I was pulling my feet through molasses. Then I saw the first film and a fire broke out in the theater and it was evacuated ten minutes before the ending of the film. But it didn't matter, I hated it. Not until I was hosting an eleven-year-old when his parents were in divorce court for three days did I learn to appreciate Tolkein. To distract the young boy, I had him talk me through all three films and now they are among my favorites.

Write What You Know - A She Reads Guest Post by Marybeth Whalen

Please welcome Marybeth Whalen to Novel Matters. She is the co-founder of our sister blog She Reads, a wonderful connecting place between readers, writers, and book clubs.

I've heard this adage since I was in creative writing class in high school. And while it might be true, it's been repeated so often that I don't think we even hear it anymore. Like a favorite Bible verse, do we even stop to really ponder what it means?

What would it mean for you to write what you know?

I have found that writing what you know can be invaluable. The trick is to find that thing that you know that no one else knows about.

I had been visiting the mailbox on Sunset Beach, NC for years and years. So long, in fact, that I can't even remember when I first started going or how I first learned about it. I loved the mystique of the place, the folklore attached to it. I loved going there and reading the letters from people all over the world left for the Kindred Spirit-- the anonymous person who tends the mailbox. I loved leaving the occasional letter myself. But it wasn't until two years ago that the idea occurred to me that the mailbox would make a perfect centerpiece for a romance. It was already a romantic place. But surely someone else had already had the idea... right?

I searched Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the library. I went to the bookstore in Sunset Beach and asked the book mavens there if they'd ever heard of a book that focused on the mailbox. When they said no, I whispered a silent, "Yes!"

The mailbox-- at least as far as the subject in relation to a novel was concerned-- was mine. I had found something no one had done, about something I was uniquely aware of. This month my novel, The Mailbox, is being released. My unique angle on a beach romance paid off.

We all have things like this if we learn to look for them. That ring that was your grandmother's with the mysterious story attached to it. The family tall tales of your great grandfather, the horse-riding evangelist. That little out of the way vintage soda shoppe you've been going to for years with the sassy, gum-cracking waitress who must be 90 years old if she's a day.

Nicholas Sparks mined the story of his wife's grandparents to create The Notebook. Kathryn Stockett delved into her history with her family's maid to create The Help. In the same vein, Joy Jordan Lake wove bits and pieces of her adolescent experience with racism into the Christy Award winning Blue Hole, Back Home. Bonnie Grove used her counseling experience to tell the story of a woman who started hearing her dead husband talking to her in Talking To The Dead. The writer of Steel Magnolias created the play based on his sister's death as viewed through the friendships of the strong southern women he'd grown up around. He took something that was uniquely his and packaged it in such a way that it resonated profoundly. (Who hasn't cried during that funeral scene?)

The trick for all of us is to look around, to pay attention to what we've experienced, felt, thought or been piqued by and wrap a novel around it, focusing on the uniqueness of those experiences, feelings, and curiosity. My friend Ariel finds endless story ideas through the newspaper and magazine articles she reads. Her novel eye of the god was sparked by an article she read in Life Magazine in high school on the curse of the Hope Diamond. This article caused her to begin researching the curse, and over time a novel came out of the information she had acquired. She was passionate about it, and that passion lives and breathes on the pages of her novel. It became uniquely hers and she was able to uniquely share it.

Any of us can tell a story about friends or motherhood or WWII or a vacation. But can we set those stories somewhere interesting that most other people don't have access to? Can we have characters who do fascinating jobs that most people don't know about? Can we find a unique motif or object to center the novel on that is part of our culture or geography? Publishers will tell you that selling a novel does depend on the writing-- absolutely-- but it also depends on bringing something new to the table-- approaching a subject that's been done a million times in a way that is fresh and exciting.

What do you bring to the table? Start looking around, paying attention, and discovering how to write what you know... that no one else does.