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Characters that Stick
“Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and change it for you into a kind of wisdom. His mind had no horizon and his sympathy had no warp.” When I was fifteen, I thought that writing couldn’t get any better than John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row. I thought that no ensemble could ever be sketched…
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Valley of Lights
Once again, a question in the comments spawns a post… Stan, people are gonna start talking. The true answer to the question (about which of my novels I’d most like to see adapted) is The Spirit Box, for reasons I’ll go into another time, but for now here’s an extract from my afterword to the…
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Book into Film (2)
In the comments section, Stan asked: “On the topic of novel-to-film translations, what would be your favourites? I was very impressed with ‘LA Confidential’ and ‘The English Patient’ – they both seemed to condense large novels without really losing anything (although they did actually dispense with a lot of plot and characters). It’s a crime…
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The Birds
From Variety, and presented without comment: Cathy Schulman has made her first hires and promotions as president of Mandalay Pictures and Mandalay Independent Pictures. A highlight of the Mandalay Pictures’ slate at Universal is the remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, scheduled to be in production by early fall. “We think we have a very…
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Why Libraries Matter
According to The Guardian, several publishers are planning to put recommended age ranges on the covers of their children’s books. It strikes me as an earnest but dumb idea. How do you categorise Enid Blyton, whose continuing popularity depends on children whose reading age is racing ahead of their emotional maturity? How do you keep…
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Book into Film
Inspired by the questioner mentioned in my previous post, who wanted to know how best to scan a novel into his computer before starting to adapt it, I’ve dug out some thoughts that I put together for a Writers’ Guild newsletter some time back. Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings series had just…
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Johnny Hollywood Explains It All
Last year I gave an e-mail interview to a journalist preparing an article for a US magazine. Turned out to be one of those pieces where a dozen of you oblige and the writer cherrypicks a quote or two from each. I never saw the piece so I’ve no idea of what may have been…
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Neill, Bean, Crusoe
Today’s Guardian has some accurate catch-up info on Crusoe casting: “Sam Neill and Sean Bean are to feature in a big-budget production of the Robinson Crusoe story being made by a UK independent producer for US network NBC. Crusoe is to be played by Philip Winchester, who featured in the 2004 movie remake of Thunderbirds,…
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Last ITV Viewer Located
Read the story here.
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CBS Fall Schedule
It’s just been confirmed that Eleventh Hour will air in the post-CSI slot on Thursdays at 10pm in CBS’s Fall schedule. In the words of one of the people who passed me the info, “This is huge”. It had already been tagged as “the biggest television deal ever made during development season” – which, if…
Hauling Like A Brooligan
Stephen Gallagher
