Anja from Vienna, Austria wants
to know if any of my books have been turned into movies. If yes,
she writes, what's the title of the film? If no, why not? Would
you let one of your stories be filmed? Which one?
Thanks for your question. None of my books have been made into
movies, unfortunately, but if it were offered to me, I would certainly
leap at the chance to see one of my stories come to life on the
silver screen. You might be interested to know that a couple of
years ago, I agreed to let a pair of my screenwriter friends, Bob
Scott and Ken Levarse, draft The Pirate Prince into a screenplay,
which I could do because I retained performance rights in my contract
with my publisher.
After the screenplay version was written, Bob and Ken hooked up
with a local theatrical company, who performed a seated public reading
of the manuscript. (This means they just read the dialogue while
sitting on stools on the stage. There was no choreography or action,
etc.) The actors who played Lazar and Allegra were particularly
WONDERFUL and I had stars in my eyes hearing my dialogue come to
life like that. (I will look around and see if I can find a photo
from that night to share with my readers in the future. It was really
neat!)
The purpose of a seated reading like that is to check out how the
story works in the performance format. When the show was over, there
was big applause, which was really cool for me, because an author
never gets the immediate reaction of an audience the way actors
do. We then had a talk-back session asking for feedback from the
audience and got some good suggestions. Next, the three of us, Bob
and Ken and I, got together over coffee to talk about how to implement
the audience input. The guys went to work on these ideas.
When they had completed that final phase (I didn’t do any
of the screenplay writing because I was working on my next novel),
it was time to send it off to Hollywood, just like aspiring writers
have to send their novels to New York.
It wasn’t long before Bob called me all excited saying that
a major movie star’s agent wanted to read the whole thing
to consider it for his client…HUGH JACKMAN! (As Lazar—can
you imagine??)
We were really excited because Lazar is a complex character, being
both a pirate and a prince, and Mr. Jackmann has definitely proved
that he is fabulous at both action-adventure and portraying a high
class aristocrat (as in that movie with Meg Ryan where he played
a time-traveling English duke). Well, a lot of time has passed and
we haven’t heard anything further, but even to get that stage
was pretty incredible. Thanks for asking!
This question is from Anonymous: Should I copyright my material
before I send it in? Will they need to see proof of copyright?
Unless you have doubts about the integrity or professionalism
of the publisher or agent to whom you are submitting your work,
IMO, you don’t need to worry about establishing your copyright
for fiction. (OTOH, if you have these kinds of doubts about them,
maybe this is not an agent or publisher you should really be sending
your work to!) Reputable, established publishers or agents are not
going to steal your work.
If you have any lingering doubts or uncertainties and just want
to cover all your bases, what you can do is to send a print-out
of your work to yourself through the mail. The post office will
stamp it with the date, and then when you get it back, DON’T
OPEN IT. The sealed copy with the stamped date will confirm that
you owned the work before anyone else did.
Obviously, if you are sending your work over the internet to agents
or even critique partners, then it is harder to ensure the security
of your intellectual property. I’m far from a computer expert,
so all I can say is to be really, really careful about where you
post your work publicly online, or especially your story ideas,
which are even easier to steal. You never know where your work might
end up.
That said, I don’t think you have to be too paranoid about
your fiction being stolen by hackers. Unless you’re J.K. Rowling,
they’re more likely to go after your credit card and social
security numbers than your latest manuscript!
Sage, an aspiring writer, age 14,
asks: Why do you make the gentlemen tall, robust, and mysterious
and the women small and always beautiful and spunky? Its not that
I don't enjoy the tall strong men ;-) I am just wondering why you
don't have one of the characters be plain or not so stunning? I
think this would make the stories much more interesting.
What a good question. Many critics of the romance genre have asked
the very same thing. Here is the short version of my response, but
first, actually I did write a book with a not-so-stunning heroine,
Lizzie, in Devil Takes a Bride. She describes herself in the book
as “plain, sensible sort of woman.” Also, in Lord of
Ice, Miranda is described as a “statuesque” beauty,
which is romance-speak for big-boned. LOL. So, yes, we’ve
had a mousy nerdy girl and a plus-sized, bodacious babe.
That aside, I would put forth two simple arguments. One, everything
that happens in my novels is filtered through some character’s
point-of-view. (Point-of-view is one of the aspects of the craft
of fiction that is hardest for most newbies to grasp.) As a matter
of course, I always describe the heroine through the eyes of the
hero. Since the guy is going to end up marrying her, we would hope
that, whatever his taste in women might be, this particular man
finds her irresistibly attractive. The personality of the hero determines
everything.
For example, Lucien and Damien in Lord of Fire and Lord of Ice are
identical twins, but you could never have switched their girls on
them. Damien (who married bodacious Miranda) would never have been
the slightest bit interested in little miss goody two shoes, Alice,
who, in turn, soon had wicked Lord Lucien wrapped around her finger.
The girl each man chose was based on their own inner needs. Damien
had come back from the war scared to death that after so many years
of active duty combat that he was going to accidentally hurt someone,
but Miranda’s bigger size made him feel much more at ease
with her, unlike the little delicate debutantes he had otherwise
encountered.
Lucien, on the other hand, was surrounded by evil and kind of spiritually
lost, and it was Alice’s shining goodness, symbolized by her
light, sky- (heaven-) blue eyes and the brightness of her strawberry-blond
hair that made her, in his view, look like an angel, which he desperately
needed. Are you getting what I mean here?
As in life, the character’s personality is the important part,
but as a writer, I try to create a physical appearance for the ladies
that expresses who they are inside, and that is largely based on
the very kind of woman that I think the hero most needs. The external
looks are a symbol for the inner person.
Miranda was big because she had a big, bold, fearless personality.
Alice was petite and prim in appearance because that was how she
behaved. Just as Miranda needed a hero who could keep up with her
and literally look her in the eye (since she was tall), Alice needed
a bad boy type hero to loosen her up. I hope that helps you see
how the dynamic works.
The main thing is to remember is that the characters are not being
described objectively, by an omniscient narrator—it’s
not supposed to be me, Gaelen Foley, telling you how these girls
look—it’s coming to you filtered through the mind and
awareness of the hero. We would certainly hope that he finds his
future wife to be the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.
The second point I’d like to make is that one of the defining
characteristics of a heroic woman (heroine) is a solid level of
self-esteem. Since you’re a teenage girl soon heading into
high school, this is an especially relevant topic, so let’s
take a look. Self-esteem, which I’m sure you’ve heard
many times, is not being in love with yourself. It’s being
contented with who and what you are—including the looks God
gave you.
The French, who know a thing or two about beauty (and women, for
that matter) have a famous expression called the “beautiful
ugly woman.” It boils down to the notion that flawed facial
features have very little to do with a woman’s attractiveness
or lack thereof. Point being, you don’t have to be perfect
to be fabulous. There are all different kinds of beauty and the
best kind emanates from inside the person, especially from how she
feels about herself.
Self-confidence is the key. If a woman has solid value for herself
and knows who she is, then she will naturally project a self-assurance
that is devastatingly attractive, no matter what she physically
looks like. She is making herself happy simply by doing what she
wants to do with her life—she is not running around trying
to get boys to think she’s pretty—she draws the notice
and admiration of others by not trying so much. The truly self-assured
person doesn’t really care what you or I think of her. What
a great place to be!
That, to a greater or lesser degree, is where heroines start from.
You will rarely find a heroine agonizing over her lack of beauty,
and even less often congratulating herself on her good looks, if
she has them. Heroines in novels are generally too busy to indulge
their insecurity. They have big goals to pursue and big problems
to solve. They don’t have time to be primping in the mirror
and worrying much over a bad hair day. To them, their looks are
a non-issue.
They barely think about it, and then the hero comes along, and through
his eyes, she’s described as beautiful, so the idea of beauty
is the picture that the author leaves in the reader’s mind.
See how that works? The heroine might not think she’s beautiful,
but the hero does. (Of course, nobody likes false modesty.)
It works the same way for the guy. The girl can be staring at him
just mentally drooling, but good grief, who wants a guy who stands
there admiring his own muscles in the mirror? Blech, mimbo! No thanks!
Anyway, the self-confidence of most romance heroines is, I think,
one of the most valuable things about reading these books. In real
life, sadly, we don’t come across that many females who have
really terrific self-esteem, but in the pages of these novels, we
can get a look at such women and hopefully, through the magic of
fiction, get a taste of what it feels like to be that self-confident.
(This high self-esteem, by the way, is why most historical romance
heroines don’t leap into bed with the hero the first time
they meet, unless there are some sort of extreme extenuating circumstances
involved. Historical heroines, usually virgins, have too much value
for themselves—not to mention good common sense—to take
such a big risk without being absolutely sure that this man adores
her and that he is “the one.”) Hope this helps, Sage,
happy writing, and good luck in high school!
Our current project for the Writing page is
"Ask the Author." If
you are an unpublished writer with a question about craft, send
it in and Gaelen will answer it here.
It is okay to explain the story situation
in a sentence or two as it pertains to your question, but do not
send in your manuscript, chapters, or synopses. Legal issues and
time constraints require that any unsolicited material received
be deleted unread.
Questions having to do with the craft of writing
or the publishing process should be sent in to GaelenFoley@aol.com.
Put “Ask The Author” in the subject header, and please
give your name and town if you would like your question to be selected.
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