Can I use a mental illness in a book without sounding like an after school special?

Good morning!

So, following the rule that a writer writes, I've started a new writing project hot on the heals of my most recent release A Hero's Spark.  This time around I'm working on a series, an actual series, one that's linked by the exact same character doing what she does.  And it's going to be an inspirational series, so no swearing, no sex, so basically you won't have to hide it from your kids, but hopefully it'll be entertaining.

As I started writing, because I'm not an outliner, I just sort of go with the flow when it comes to writing, I was also watching pretty much everything the Discovery Fit and Health channel was showing during their "Psych Week."  (Think "Shark Week" only instead of man eating sharks you've got the entire spectrum of mental illness and psychological quirks.  It's awesome.)

As plowed through a couple pages of character development, an idea crept into my typing. (I'm going to sort of use the "Adam and Eve" defense:  It wasn't me, Lord, it was the fingers you gave me that wrote this.  LOL!)  And, the more I typed, the more I realized that I'd found an interesting character quality for my character, Nora Hill, to have.  And I have Psych Week to thank for it.

Here's the thing, though, I'm worried about:  Can I write this without sounding like some schmalzy, do gooder, after school special?  

Like most people, mental illness has touched my life in many different ways, some very close to home.  I, personally, have not been diagnosed with a mental illness...yet.  (I have my suspicions.  As they say, "Insanity runs in my family.")  So can I, in good conscience and without sounding smug or condescending?  

I very much want this character to be real, but also to be very memorable.  I fell in love with all the Stieg Larsson books and with the one US film.  Rooney Mara is so perfect as Lisbeth Salander it takes my breath away.  And the thing about the character Lisbeth is that you know, YOU KNOW that girl isn't completely right in the way the world thinks of people being "completely right."  And yet, she strikes a chord with me, with millions of readers because in spite of all her "flaws"  (based on society's ideals) she is a hero.  No one, after reading those books, is going to forget Lisbeth Salander. 

We're also getting into that old rule, "Write what you know."  While I do believe you should know what you're writing, I think if all authors stick to this rule we'd be missing whole huge chunks of literature and awesome, awesome reading.  I mean, I'm pretty sure James Patterson has never met winged teen agers, and yet you cannot deny the appeal of his Maximum Ride series.  (Teens and adults alike are going to love those books.)  And while Charlotte Bronte, I'm sure, knew what it was to be a governess, I doubt very much she'd met a lord who kept his insane wife locked in the attic.  (Oh, what, a spoiler?  for "Jane Eyre?")  If I follow that rule, I'll be relegated to writing stories about Midwest Suburban while girl life.  Yawn.

So we're back to the question, am I able to write someone who is living with a mental illness?  Should I even try?  Will anyone want to read it when I'm done?

I guess we'll find out.

If a picture is worth 1000 words are we writing with an eye toward the big screen?

Good day all!

Like most Americans, my children went back to school this week.  I'm especially envious of my son, who is a senior in high school.  He is taking a class called "Music in Film."  Where were those classes when I was a senior?  (Oh yeah, we were taking "Intro to word processing" on these things called computers that were one day going to replace the typewriter.)

I'm envious because I love all things movie.  There aren't many movies I hate enough to never watch again.  (Although "Lost in Translation" would be at the top of the list.)  I am especially fond, as you readers know, of movies based on books.  It's a long debate, the book to movie adaptation quality, and not the point of my blog today.

Today, as I was thinking about movies and books and books and movies, I realized that with both Dream in Color and with Lies in Chance, I wrote with the thought of how the story would look on screen.  In fact, with Lies in Chance, I really wrote it more like a made for TV movie  (Hello?  Lifetime Movie Network?)  than anything else. 

It's certainly not a new concept, this writing with a thought for movie rights.  I know many of my writer friends joke about retaining movie rights and not letting Hollywood WRECK their work.  (John Grisham's "The Firm" stands as one of the all time worst movie adaptations.  People actually booed the film in theaters...and no, I wasn't the only one booing!)  Authors, I think, especially authors of this generation, look at people like Stephanie Meyer and JK Rowlings and think, "That's where I want to be.  Book signings AND movie premiers."

But the question is...should we?  Should we as writers actually plan out plot lines and scenes with the idea that this book may one day be a movie?  Has writing changed so much that instead of winning the National Book Award, we dream of winning the Oscar for best screenplay based on previously published works?  Does writing with this thought in the back of our mind help or hurt the stories we tell?

I recently watched the most recent incarnation of "Jane Eyre."  I'm not saying the movie was bad because NOTHING with Dame Judi Dench is going to be bad.  But it was slow moving, tedious,and not at all the "INTENSE UPDATED VERSION" I was promised in the trailer.  Since "Jane Eyre" is one of my favorite books, I'm well versed in many of the multitude of movie versions out there.  Some are good.  Some are terrible.  Clearly, Charlotte Bronte was not writing for movies or plays or tv.  Yet her book of an orphaned governess and the handsome landowner with a dark past continues to inspire readers and movie watchers alike. 

I maintain that some books, albeit a very few,  are made better by their movie versions.  Ah, yes a mention of Moby Dick, the worst book ever published in the English language!  Yet, there are many movie versions of this dull, unwieldy book, and why?  Because at the core of the 700 pages of drech is an epic story about chasing the impossible dream and then having that dream turn into a nightmare.  So the movie, which cuts out about 650 pages of the book, brings out the heart and soul of the story and makes Moby Dick an American classic.

Some books translate to film well, regardless of whether or not the author planned it.  "Gone With the Wind" is a very visual book as well as a beautifully filmed movie.  (And, while the two have almost nothing in common other than character names, they are both near the top of my reading and movie lists.)  "Rebecca" is a great novel, and, at the hand of the master, Alfred Hitchcock, the movie is sneaky in its creepy vibe, not to mention a very striking visual, especially given that it's in black and white.

So, do you write with dreams of your story on the big screen?  (Again...Lifetime Movie Network...I'm waiting for your call!)  Writing is not, by definition, a visual art.  We are weavers of words, painters of word pictures.  We may have a good story, but if our word pictures aren't clear enough, any attempt at a movie is going to fall flat. 

The business of writing is far different than those of years gone by.  Authors are encouraged to bring out big actions on page one.  Long passages of description are discouraged.  Everything is compressed.  We do not have Melville's luxury of writing every thought we might have on the subject of whaling, whaling in art, whaling in sermons.  We live and write in a "get to the point" world.  I think by simply working under the rules of publication, anything we write now feels more and more like a movie or tv show than a book from a century ago.  Maybe it's part of the natural evolution of things as we progress through a new millennium. 

As for me, I'll just keep dreaming of accepting my Oscar, thanks!  That, or an Emmy for my Lifetime Movie!

As writers...do we really WANT our books made into movies?

Good afternoon!

Ahhhh, what is it about vacations?  No matter how long or short they are, we always come back exhausted?

I just finished reading It's King of a Funny Story.  This is one of my son's favorite books, and was recently made into a movie.  I made the mistake of watching the movie before I read the book.  Always, always read the book first!

The movie was fine, but, as always, the book was better.  Ned Vizzini's heartrending, yet funny tale of a 15 year boy who checks himself into a mental hospital is a story that should be taught in colleges as an example of excellent modern day literature.  The movie...well, the movie cut out a good bit of the heart and a whole lot of the intent of the book. 

Now, according to my son, the film adaptation of this book is not nearly as awful as the one for his other favorite book, Youth in Revolt.  I read that book, the journals of one Nick Twisp, and believe that, too, should be taught in colleges.  And perhaps touched upon in parenting classes.  But the movie, which I have not seen, but the Boy child has, apparently is terrible.

Which brings up the age old question:  Do writers really want their books made into movies? 

Hey, if someone wanted to make Dream in Color into a movie, I would do a gigantic dance of joy.  And then I would probably be one of those writers who does something stupid, like sign away my control of the story.  Which would then mean that Ramona will become some sort of streetwalker with a heart of gold, Neil is some business mogul out to blow up the universe, and Jesse is a reformed CIA agent...or something like that. 

I've seen so many versions of my favorite book, Wuthering Heights, made and remade, it makes my head spin.  How could someone get that story wrong?  And yet, with all due respect to Lawrence Olivier, his version of that book is particularly stupid and unwatchable.  I don't care if it won an Oscar.  It's fairly terrible and I have to believe that if Emily Bronte were alive to see it, she would have pitched a fairly sturdy fit.

How about just about every single Harry Potter movie EVER?

I think we all agree...the book is ALWAYS better.  Well, except for Moby Dick.  In that case, the movies, no matter how bad, are WAY BETTER.

So, as writers, should we even think about the possibility of our books on the screen?  TV or Movies, it doesn't seem to matter...the end result is generally not great.  But movies reach more people, I believe, than books.  (Sorry...but I've seen infinitely more movies than I've read books, and I've read hundreds of books in my life.)  Movies might generate interest in a book that's been forgotten, or missed. 

Besides, I get the feeling some days, as I watch movies like "The Hangover II" come out, that screen writers really do need our help.  This is not a slander on screen writers.  But seriously...do we really need "The Hangover II"?  What ground can a second movie possibly cover that wasn't done in the first movie?

Yeah, I'll be skipping that one.  Instead, I'll be hitting the newest incarnation of Jane Eyre and see how it measures up to one of the best books ever written.

Is a classic always a classic? Or are we just getting dumber?

Good afternoon!

So my son, who is a junior in high school, is reading "Jane Eyre" in school this month.  It's easily one of my top 50 books ever.  I've read it every couple of years since I was in 8th grade.

My son, of course, hates it.

"It's a classic," I tell him, using the argument that every parent and teacher since the dawn of time has used on every reluctant student and child when introducing said child to any book.

"It's stupid," is the general retort from said child.

Now, my son is not a reluctant reader.  Both my kids love to read. But, with a very few exceptions, neither find the joy I did in books like "Jane Eyre,"  "Gone with the Wind," or my favorite of all times, "Wuthering Heights."

The stories hold up, however.  One of my daughter's favorite movies is the Ralph Fiennes/Juliette Binoche version of "Wuthering Heights."  And "Gone with the Wind" is what we pull out on a long winter's day.

So is this a sign that the classics aren't holding up, or are we getting too stupid to appreciate great literature?

Or the idea of "Great Literature" a cultural thing?

A few summers ago my son and I both read "Moby Dick."  It was a for a school project for him, and I had never read the book.  It's Great American Literature, right?  It's the epic tale of a man chasing the impossible.

It's quite possibly the worst book I've ever read.

By today's standards, if an editor at a publishing house got his or her hands on "Moby Dick,"  I have to think, based on my own experiences, that there would be so much red ink on the manuscript, it would look like the last algebra test I took.    Melville wanders his way through more than 700 pages discussing whaling, art, anything pretty much except the epic story of a man chasing the impossible.  If you removed all the extraneous stuff, the book would be about 100 pages long.  And way, way WAY better.

Now when it comes to reading, I'm not the top of the intellectual heap, but I'm no slouch either.  So am I too dumb to understand the mythic tome that is "Moby Dick," or is it a bad book?

Keep this in mind....Melville couldn't sell this book in his lifetime...during a period of time when folks didn't have TV, movies, radio, video games, Internet.  In short, Melville couldn't sell his book when there was NOTHING ELSE TO DO BUT READ HIS BOOK. 

Looking at my favorite book, "Wuthering Heights," one could make an argument, in fact I believe some have, that if you put the book into today's language, you'd have something akin to today's romantic fiction.  It's just a question of how our language has evolved.

One of my son's favorite books is "It's Kind of a Funny Story."  I'm reading it right now.  Some might say it's garbage.  I think time will tell.  Which makes me wonder, what makes a book 'great literature?" 

I've taken a lot of English classes, and done a lot of reading, and I'm still not sure.  Is it popularity during the life of the author?  Hardly.  History is littered with great authors who died penniless but whose work is hailed as great.  Is it weeks on the best seller list?  Again, doubtful.  Fifty years from now will we still be reading John Grisham?  Maybe. 

If you want my opinion, I don't think we're getting dumber when it comes to what we read.  It's sort of like how Americans view British folks.  We Americans seem to think that British folks are smarter than we are because of their accent.  No disrespect to our friends across the pond, but I'm not sure that's completely true.  An accent doesn't make you smart.  Being smart makes you smart.  I think it's the same with literature.  We think what's being published now isn't up to the standards of past classics because it's easy for us to read.   But the truth is, books have always been written in the language of the day.  Which means "Wuthering Heights," in the days of Emily Bronte, wasn't nearly as hard for a 14 year old to read because that was the language of the day.

So I'll make an argument for this:  I think we're getting smarter.  We might not like working through the flowery language of Jane Austen, but we do it to get to the story inside.  We're able to to do it, in spite of the fact that we're practically reading in a foreign language.

Hey, you know what book I'd like to become a classic...maybe in my own lifetime?  "Dream in Color!"

Now my friends, stop on by tomorrow and Wednesday...I've having a special guest blog...my friend Kelly Moran.  She has a new book coming on on Friday and she'll be giving a free eBook copy to one my readers!