Books and magazine articles have long provided the IP Hollywood depends on, but until recently, authors played little role in the process. Now, lit agencies and publishers are changing the rules and shortening the page-to-screen pipeline.
Given the increase in book-to-screen deals in recent years, and the tendency of the TV/movie industry to build off existing intellectual property, it's natural for authors to wonder if their own work is suitable for adaptation-or if they can increase their chances of writing something that will be adapted. Read more
There is more than one devastating murder in my debut novel One Night, New York. It would, of course, ruin the book to reveal who dies at whose hand, but what I want to do here is poke around a little bit in the who and the when and the how of writing these murder scenes. Read more
I know that writers often feel that the screen adaptation of their work is an inferior-sometimes even an embarrassing-take on the original. Writers say: I told myself that a novel and a film are two different things. Once you sign that contract with Hollywood, let it go. It's out of your hands.
When author and illustrator Ariella Elovic drafted her book proposal for Cheeky: A Head-to-Toe Memoir, she never considered that the graphic memoir about body acceptance might one day become a television series. Read more
It was author David Finkel who taught me to "report cinematically." This was key, he argued, to writing a story that feels like a movie, using the variety of camera angles available to the cinematographer, from wide establishing shots to extreme close-ups. Read more
Much has been written about the style and mood of William Friedkin's The French Connection (1971). Commentators are fond of identifying influences ranging from Costa-Gavras' Z and the Maysles brothers work, to the more recently noted Kartemquin documentaries of the 1960s. Read more
If you want a preview of next year's Emmy Awards, just take a walk past your local bookstore. According to data drawn from Publishers Marketplace, the industry's clearinghouse for news and self-reported book deals, literary adaptations to television have been on a steady climb. Read more
‘Gone are the days when authors could afford to be reclusive, knowing that their publishers would be active on their behalf. Nowadays, authors are routinely expected to be performers, salespeople and marketers all at the same time.
Her touching verses about heartbreak, fat-shaming and body hair have made her Britain's most-followed poet on social media - and now she's heading for TV
IN 1978, BILL GROSE, editor-in-chief at Dell, decided to make a star of a young author from San Francisco. Grose was a thumper of novelizations from popular film and television, a fan of media tie-ins, a man with his finger in the air to feel the direction of the wind. Read more
Author Anthony Horowitz has said it's wrong "writers are running scared" due to a fear of offending, elaborating on comments he made earlier this year at Hay Festival.
As a writing coach, most of my clients come to me after months, years or even decades of trying to write a book on their own and floundering. Read more
I doubt you need to be told you should be reading more. There's a good chance you struggle to make time for reading, and it feels like just another obligation, like hitting your daily step goal, or drinking more water. Read more
Crime fiction is as popular with writers as it is readers. Fans of the genre often try their hand at writing the gripping noir and twisting tales they love. But writing crime fiction comes with its own unique challenges as crime readers demand tight plots, dark settings and gripping mysteries like no other.
If you open up any one of hundreds of news stories of rightwing "parents' rights" groups trying to have book removed from schools for having queer characters or mentioning the existence of sex, you might notice a common refrain: "We aren't banning books. Read more
American horror novelist Stephen King is taking on a new monster: corporate consolidation.
The author was the star witness in an anti-trust trial to block the two biggest US publishers' $2.2bn merger.
The US Department of Justice called on King to testify about how the proposed tie-up of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster could affect authors.