Writing is Cake

The book is better than the movie. It’s a common complaint from people who read a lot. It’s often true but you know what? Movies aren’t books. They’re movies. It seems obvious but I think many people just don’t really grasp how different writing a screenplay is from a novel. In fact I think most people, even avid moviegoers, have very little idea what goes into writing a screenplay. It’s hard.

And when it’s an adaptation the writer gets a nice albatross around his neck in the form of the source material. The better known the source material the bigger and smellier that albatross gets. It takes some nerve to adapt other writers’ work but if you’re writing a movie you have to fit it into the screenplay format. I picked these movies not because they’re good (though I liked all of them), but because the source material for each was well known. In many circles it’s even considered sacred.

X-Men: Tom Desanto, Bryan Singer, David Hayter

It’s hard to fathom it now, but there was a time when it was pretty hard to get a comic book title onto the big screen. The X-Men presented even more challenges than normal. Not only was it a team-based title but over its decades long run it amassed dozens upon dozens of characters with their own origins and storylines. Even the most rabid fanboy would have a tough time naming them all.

So how do you take a work with a gazillion characters in years long storylines and write a movie from it? Well, you lose the gazillion characters and years long storylines. The writers focus on a few key characters, mostly Wolverine and Rogue. Wolverine is, of course, wildly popular and a great tough guy. Just what the hell he really is and how he got that way is perrenial story material in the comics. It’s still in the movie but it’s not central. Wolvrine learning that he doesn’t have to be alone and that he can care for others is. The other mutants are there but they’re carefully kept in the supporting cast of the movie. Even heavy hitters like Professor X and Magneto. Wolverine performs most of the action and he does it to protect Rogue.

The first thing this does is give us some characters we can identify with for the whole movie. The second is we don’t get overwhelmed with a tsunami of mutants we can’t keep straight, let alone grow to care for. There are plenty of mutants involved in the conflict and more in the background at Xavier’s school. Good stuff for the fanboys but someone who has never read one of the comics can keep the main players straight.

There are a few smirking references to nicknames and yellow spandex in the script. These acknowledge the comic book world but also acknowledge that the movie world is different. The world they wrote is much closer to our own and less disbelief has to be suspended. The intricate supertechnology that looks so good in comics is toned down to more melievable devices. Something you might see on FutureWeapons. Instead of an alternate comic book universe we feel like this is a glimpse of our near future.

The end result? The movie feels like a movie not a comic book. Since the viewer can focus on a manageable cast of characters they get out of the ’soap opera’ feel of monthly stories and into the more immediate feel of a three act movie. Tight, swift moving action with easily identifiable characters who travel through believable arcs. That’s good adapting, people.

Next movie: The Lord of the Rings.

This will be my last post on this blog. I could not be any happier than I am at this moment. This weekend brought news that was fervently hoped for and joyously recieved. I have received a full grant from the prestigious Stiershiessen Fellowship for Brilliance in Writing.

That’s right, chumps! The full ride! A two hundred thousand dollar award and free accomadations at the Fellowship retreat on Molokai. This isn’t the first time I’ve tried for the Stiershiessen grant but my entry this year, Le Jongleur du Printemps, finally garnered me the accollades I deserve. I think you’ll all agree.

Of course I’ll have to comply with all the Stiershiessen Fellowships requirements. Fortunately, I already wear a mustache so growing it to handlebar length shouldn’t be a problem. Besides, mustache wax is provided in addition to my monthly stipend of 401.08

So, I made it because my awesomeness is frighteningly boundless. I will no longer have time for you puling, talentless hacks. Farewell, losers.

Unfortunately, that dimension exists only in my head. Damn I wish I could write like that man. Even as a woman subject to hormonal whims I wish I could write like him. I have pen envy I guess. Let’s face it, he doesn’t waste one word. Not one comma is misplaced. Every word, every punctuation mark, every page number has a significant reason for being. It is quite spectacular really and damn difficult to achieve.

I imagine the powerful simplicity with which McCarthy writes his books is somewhat akin to the way Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter; it just has to be unbelievably difficult but is definitely very effective.

So far I have read three of McCarthy’s novels before I needed to take a break from their intensity: No Country for Old Men, Child of God, and the Pulitzer-prize winning The Road. Personally I like No Country the best and even went so far as to purchase 21 copies of the book so I could teach it to my Enriched English 11 class this year. I believe this novel to be supremely important in both its structure as a tool to teach writing, and in its message which rings through loud and clear with people who shake their heads when they read the papers.

As far as its use as a teaching tool for writing, my students are finally getting the idea behind writing as an art form. In McCarthy’s carefully crafted sentence structure; in his decision not to use quotation marks; in the vocabulary he uses and with every strategically placed conjunction he forces us to read passages of the story a certain way. For example, at the beginning of the novel Chigurh brutally kills a young deputy. When reading this out loud to the class we noticed how matter-of-fact that scene comes across. So I posed this question: Why might McCarthy want us to read the passage this way? Their reply: Because the man committing the act is cold and dead inside so we cannot read his actions with emotion without losing something of the character. Big smile on their English teacher’s face. Huge. Now they are experiencing what great writing can do for the reader; what it means to CONSTRUCT a sentence to get across a point or an emotion, or the lack of it.

In my next life I want to come back as this kind of writer. And Mr. McCarthy, if fate should ever bring you to read these words please know that if literature groupies exist, I am yours.