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Well, the medium of film is so different than a book that just by bringing it into visual storytelling is to change it up. I think in a book, in any book, you can have a reactive character. Some of the great novels of all time have had that, but in a film you can't do that.

I read a blog about this young filmmaker in the Philippines who made a short film, and one of the characters in the film reads my novel and then starts discussing the novel with someone. The idea that my book can inspire another artist and be part of that other artist's work... that's the reason I write.

The beauty of cinema is that it can do some things that novels just can't.

Beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, film has been a shadow thrown over the minds of all novelists. Ever since, novelists have strained to make themselves more relevant and, whether consciously or not, novel-writing has been influenced by cinematic doctrines - by turns, embracing and defying it.

Like every novelist, I fantasise about film. Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from, and they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader.

I think books, novels and autobiographies have a power to touch people far more personally than films do, so there's a bit more of a responsibility when you then dramatise it.

I never see a novel as a film while I'm writing it. Mostly because novels and films are so different, and I'm such an internal novelist.

Writing has certain advantages; film is another way to tell a story. An experienced filmmaker will take what she needs from the book and leave out other things. With adaptations, you never get the texture of the writing: it's a different mode.

A book is one kind of an art form and a film is a different art form. I think as a writer you just have to say, well the book is one thing, and the film is a completely different one.