My advice to anyone adapting a novel is that once they've read it and learnt to understand it, then they must throw it away and never look at it again!
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Adapting a novel is not really about being faithful to every word and every moment the author has created. It's more about that same story being filtered through somebody else's sensibility.
The problem with books, now that I've written one, is that the idea of adaptation is so much easier than sitting down to write something new.
Every reader re-creates a novel - in their own imagination, anyway. It's only entirely the writer's when nobody else has read it.
Oftentimes when you see adaptations of books you like, you're let down. As an author, you assume that they are going to suck. A little bit of hope is dangerous.
Sometimes I get to see a movie that's adapted from a book that I haven't heard about or that I love the movie so much that I will, of course, read the book.
The issue of doing an adaptation of a book is the theater of the mind, and so you always face that.
I'm not setting out to adapt books and work with books, but when really amazing stories come to you in that form, it's really hard to turn away from that.
If you've really loved a book, or a movie for that matter, really loved it, what you want is that same book again, but as if you've never read it. And when you get something unfamiliar, you feel betrayed.
I don't often reread my own books, unless I am going into another in the series and need to refresh my mood when originating the concept.
I guess my approach to adapting books is to treat them with a deep respect on one level and at another level part them to one side and go, 'I'm doing something completely different here.'
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