Jill Amadio
Slogging away as we do on our mysteries, enjoying making sure we’ve planted subtle and not-so-subtle clues and fascinating red herrings, it’s a marvelous feeling to write The End and look forward to working on the second draft.
After the third or fourth draft and you’ve decided that your manuscript is publication-worthy, how often has the thought flashed through your mind of it being picked up by Hollywood? Have you sat and imagined the different scenes coming to life, your characters personified by, say, Meryl Streep and Anthony Hopkins? I’ve always dreamed of Emma Thompsonplaying my amateur sleuth, Tosca Trevant, but she’d have to dye her hair dark and grow it to her waist.
A few days after I tried to picture Emma thus transformed and realized it probably wouldn’t work unless I switched Tosca’s dark hair to Emma’s blonde locks, I received an invitation to Fox Studios. Charlie, a screenwriter and author friend who lives nearby, is a member of the Screenplay Development Group at Fox. Each month the group is supplied with the script of a current movie, urged to see the film, and invited to critique both forms of entertainment. At the meeting we were to discuss and voice our feedback while comparing the two genres.
Coincidentally, our script last month was “Late Night,” a comedy starring Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling who produced and wrote it. Be still my heart! The first three pages of the script were evaluation sheets for discussion at the meeting. Charlie pointed out to me that the script itself was held together by only two staples, the middle hole left empty. If a third staple was added the writer would be considered an amateur and the script immediately dumped in the rubbish bin.
We decided to drive up early to LA for lunch, see the movie, and then go on to Fox. We had both read the script and discussed it between ourselves a few days earlier over coffee and found we agreed that the premise was excellent, the execution of the idea rated a Very Good, and the dialogue was spot on and very funny. We were to rate the character roles, settings, visuals, writer intentions, relationships, plot, etc. We also had to consider the cost of making the movie and were provided with amounts ranging from $5-200 million. Charlie and I figured we’d need only $10 million because there were very few set changes. Most of the action took place, coincidentally, in a studio’s Writers Room.
I knew that the Writers Room was where the magic happened, having seen Writers Rooms on TV shows. Reminded me of my first job in the newsroom of a newspaper. To me, both magical places. At Fox I envisioned all those creative types sitting around thinking up jokes, sex, violence, and crazy dialogue. I remember a movie wherein two writers were locked in the Room until they came up with a better script. On the other hand, I need complete silence and solitude when I write but I hoped being thrown into this new environment might spark some new book ideas.
Charlie and I drove down Pico Blvd to make sure Fox Studios was still standing, then headed off in the opposite direction to the Westside Pavilion, a large shopping mall, for lunch. We found an entrance to the parking garage and Charlie, for some reason, said it was best to drive up to the roof. We noticed no cars parked anywhere and decided the mall had not opened yet, must be too early. We proceeded blithely up the ramp, saw boarded up windows everywhere and realized the Pavilion was closed. Permanently. We turned the car around and drove down but were stopped at the exit by a large wooden barrier arm that refused to raise. Charlie pressed all the buttons and finally shouted into the ticket slot. Eventually a guard came out, shook his head at us for not knowing the mall had closed a year ago and let us out, no charge.
On Sunset Blvd we found a coffee shop that sold lattes and blueberry muffins for outrageous prices. Charlie pointed out that the meeting would be catered. In Hollywood language that meant tons of food. Slightly fortified but poorer we drove over to the Landmark cinema to watch the matinee of “Late Night.” We noted that the first several pages of the script had been scrapped and the action began in New York, not London. Emma, in the script, is depicted as something of a loose woman, married, with lots of lovers. In the movie she indulges in only a single one-night stand. Wonder who changed that around? Also, the ending was entirely different, so we knew there’d be lots of pro and con at the meeting.
Along Pico Blvd we spotted the Fox Studios sign. Exciting! We’d received two pages of instructions on how to enter and what to say to the guard at the studio gate, where to find the Steven Bochco Building, where to park, and told in VERY LARGE BOLD LETTERS not to enter any other building on the lot. No sir!
Pretty soon several others arrived and we went inside to register and find a seat at the immensely-long writers table. Must have been carved from a redwood tree. My blood pressure rose, I am sure, because this was such an adventure and we were in a real, real movie studio. Despite my many years interviewing celebrities and a bit part in “Dr Zhivago” that was filmed in Spain when I lived there, this sent my heart racing. It’s one thing to be on an outside set, fun but okay, and another to be on a lot where several movies are filmed simultaneously and buildings are named after the famous.
There were about 38 of us sitting around the table, average age was, surprisingly, 40s with a few maybe in their 30s. Several older men and women were there and were veteran writers. Long-time producer Bill Taub led the discussion and we went around the table describing what we were working on. Blatant but truthful, I announced I was an author and had just finished adapting my third script to a book after my clients had been told to Write the Book First. Everyone else was a screenwriter. One person had adapted her novel to a script, and three attendees were in film school at UCLA. No one had a movie in production but three had sold to studios.
The actual discussion was lively, a little argumentative, and revealing. I kept quiet most of the time, making notes for a possible future murder in a Writers Room. The changes between the “Late Night” script and the movie, of course, were the subject of much talk as well as a learning curve and a warning that such cuts were typical. We all wondered why Emma’s persona was cleaned up and agreed that cutting the first ten pages unfortunately eliminated the set-up of how Brit Emma came to be a famous late-night TV talk show host in New York and was married to some old chappie.
Charlie and I continued our discussion driving home, me still high with excitement, and decided we would join the group again at a later date. I’m not sure if any of the talk helped me with my own writing because the genres are so different. Even so, input about dialogue was valuable as far as getting to the point of a scene and knowing that instead of a character being described in a script simply as Female Comic, 19, nervous, I can flesh her out in my book, paint word pictures, and endow her with thoughts and emotions I want her to have rather than a character re-created by a film director who probably hadn’t read my book.
Still, when all is said and done, getting your sleuth onscreen must be very special indeed.
Late Night – Official Trailer | Amazon Studios
****
(Posted for Jill Amadio by Jackie Houchin.)
.
When returning home from a recent trip in April and touching down in Washington D.C., the South African pilot announced, “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the United States of America.” I have to admit, I got a lump in my throat and tears welled in my eyes. So often I take the privilege of living in “the States” for granted. So many in the world would change places with me in a heartbeat!
In a church in Florence, Italy, I discovered (along with the burial place of Michelangelo and Marconi) a statue that very well could have been the inspiration for the French gift of the Statue of Liberty. Softer, more feminine, but amazingly similar!
Let me explain what Author Speed Dating is first. In two hours, two authors pitch their works to approximately 144 readers at 18 tables seating 8 people. Each author has 2 minutes to pitch their book/project and then the next author pitches their book for 2 minutes. I partnered with 
After that point I ceded my time to Ann who spoke about her protagonist Inez Stanner traveling from Leadville to San Francisco in the 19th century and then a quick pitch for her friend 
On a recent short-term mission trip to Malawi for my church, I had the opportunity to teach Writing classes to two groups of home schooled MKs (Missionary Kids). These were children from American, Canadian and South African families. There were nine in the 3rd-4th grade group and seven in the 5th grade and up group.
After reviewing the stories and talking to the other home school teachers, we all agreed that the kids needed help in character development. The action was amazing; the worlds they created were vivid, but the heroes, helpers, and villains were flat and hard to imagine.
Before I arrived I asked that the kids (both classes) bring the first several paragraphs of a story they had written to class. In class, I had them each read their paragraphs aloud. There were Captain Jack, Commander of a Starship, twin girls named Peace and Harmony, and a 20-year old girl named Ella who wanted to become a princess (and a dozen others).
For the younger class, I had them draw in their workbooks a circle for a face, then slowly add features (eyes, nose, mouth, ears, hair) and write a description of each as they went. Next they drew bodies with any kinds of clothes and shoes (or not) they wished. I had them write why these “characters” were smiling, wearing… glasses, a soccer jersey, a swim suit, a long dress, a tutu, and had on sandals or swim fins. They began to see how to show what their story characters looked like by writing descriptions, and in the process developed more interesting information about them. (I could see “light” dawning in their eyes!)
Next, we had fun with thirty-six 
For the older class (all boys, and most writing sci-fi or fantasy) we delved a bit deeper into making their characters memorable by using various ways to describe physical as well as personality traits. They practiced describing a character in an action scene (showing fear or bravery without actually using those words) and played around with using an occasional quirk, flaw, or unconscious mannerism to reveal hidden traits.
One of the things that helps is listening to a podcast of Old Time Radio Westerns. Before most of the classic western series of the 1950s and 1960s were on television, they were on radio. I grew up with those TV series, so the stories, while different, are very familiar. Now I fall asleep to the Lone Ranger or Gunsmoke or the less-familiar Frontier Gentleman.
Brief Bio:
How many blogs besides this one do YOU read regularly (daily, weekly, monthly)? Yes, you can confess. We don’t mind. Reading them will help you become a better writer.
I’ve been intrigued with this idea since I read Walter Mosley’s This Year You Write Your Novel. Yes, that Walter Mosley, creator of the bestselling historical crime series featuring Easy Rawlins. Mr. Mosley considers poetry the basis of all writing and suggests that reading, writing, and studying poetry gives fiction writers a deeper appreciation of the nuances of language.
Maggie King is the author of the Hazel Rose Book Group mysteries, including Murder at the Book Group and Murder at the Moonshine Inn. She has contributed stories to the Virginia is for Mysteries anthologies and the 50 Shades of Cabernet anthology.
Now, the week before Thanksgiving I thumb through the 3×5 cards in Mom’s old plastic recipe box, looking for the Cranberry Salad, the Holiday Mincemeat Cake, and the Chiffon Pumpkin Pie recipes. The writing is faint and blurred; the cards are stained. And my heart gives a twist as I picture Mom taking each one out and assembling the ingredients on the counter. (This “treasured” box came to me 20 months ago when, at 94, she died.)
Daily for a year or so in 1999, Dad sat at their kitchen table and drew stick figure sketches of Mom in various situations, from housecleaning and cooking, to relaxing with a morning coffee on the patio, working a jigsaw puzzle, gardening, and packing/traveling to Solvang on their anniversary. Each filmy paper illustration has her comment in a balloon above her head. I can hear her saying them all! I admit, I cried as I looked at each one in the stack.
The Writers in Residence 
You must be logged in to post a comment.