Revising thoughts

[olmue]

Anyone know of any good sources of commentary on adapting books to film? I'm looking at my last five chapters and trying to take the basic story I know and deepen it, adapt it, so that, as Holly Lisle would say, it has all of the passion and none of the toothbrushing. I imagine it's a bit like making a film, where you have to somehow make what you show the most moving and key points. Sometimes that means rearranging things or making a new, more saturated scene to take the place of a so-so one. I've found stray comments occasionally by filmmakers on this very thing, and I guess I'm trying to put my mind around that and see my book the way it needs to be seen. Ideas?

Comments

[edawn.livejournal.com]

I can't really help you with this, but it made me think of how they have the deleted scenes from the movies on the DVDs. Maybe someday we could have a section of "killed darlings" at the end of the book. That might be interesting.

[olmue.livejournal.com]

Those would be fun to read. Maybe they'd be good fodder for a web site--here is the book, here are the outtakes. That way those darlings don't have to be really, truly dead.