Tips for
Writing a Book that is Attractive to Movie Producers by Guest Blogger Lisa
Grace
Back on May 23rd
2011, I published my first ebook on Amazon. An amazing thing happened. By
The option was
immediately exercised and is currently in development through Motion Picture
Pro Studios which has been involved with five academy award winning films.
As I was going
through the process, I talked to other authors who have optioned their books
for films, from major movie deals to Hallmark movies.
These tips are
some of the things I learned:
Broad appeal
Your book must
appeal to a fairly broad segment of people to get it into theaters. This is one
reason romance and teen themes do well. They appeal to broad segments of the
population and are relatively cheap to film. The smaller your target market,
the smaller your chances.
Certain themes do
better among groups of viewers. When a movie producer runs across a film he
thinks might make a good movie, they fill out a questionnaire or a synopsis and
then hire a research company like http://www.the-numbers.com/to give them a profitability score on the film. This number helps get investors (producers and studios) on board.
Location,
location, location
Sets and locations
should be reasonable to re-create. Most movies do not have huge blockbuster
budgets. This means the cheaper they can re-create where your scenes are set,
the more you open up your project to being considered.
They call this
thinking, “man in a box.”
Animation is
expensive. Octopus like aliens may knock your book out of consideration, but
one with more humanoid ones may keep it in the running.
Generic tornado
scenes and such can be purchased as stock footage from companies like
Dreamworks, so weather is okay if your characters can stay high and dry for the
most part.
Know your
market
In this article from
the New York Times certain scenes work
better in movies than others. For instance one they mention in the article is
for horror films: Demons that target people rather than those that are summoned
(like by a Ouija Board) do much better on opening day. These details are
determining which books now get made into movies.
A Simple Story
in Seventy to One Hundred Scenes
Epic sagas are out
for your average film maker. The budget just isn’t going to be there. A simple
story that can be told in ninety - one hundred and twenty minutes or less,
which means around seventy to one hundred scenes is typical. Movies are visual.
When you are writing your book, try imagining watching it in your head. I know
most of you do.
Plots move forward
in two ways, action and dialog. The best is when there is some action with the
dialog. Scenery is pretty but three seconds on screen is enough to set it in
the viewer’s mind.
Just like
everything else, the “art” of film making and turning books into movies is now
being heavily influenced by factors that can be measured on a money making
scale. So if your hope is to see one of your books turned into a movie, understanding
what producers consider might help you achieve your goal.
The difference between vampires and angels? Angels are real.
Books 1 & 2 are optioned for film, in development now.
Follow Lisa on Twitter @LisaGraceBooks
Very insightful comments, Lisa Grace!
ReplyDeleteThanks for this Lisa. It's something I have never really given much thought to. I'll keep it in mind for my next series. Now I just have to finish off the two I am writing now! ;)
ReplyDelete