Hollywood or Bust

As I wrote the three novels comprising The Evermore Trilogy and then my fourth novel, The Dreamer Never Sleeps, my mental back burner secretly courted Hollywood as it served up action sequences, character interaction, settings, plots and story lines that would be readily adaptable to the big screen.

I queried several script agents in 2003 and 2004 who seemed to take great pleasure in reminding me that they only handled scripts already adapted from traditionally published novels. I knew that meant that they weren't willing to look at the script after I wrote it and that was fine. I possessed novel manuscripts, not screenplays.

But their answers also meant that my novels didn't have enough unnecessary violence and that they lacked the proliferation of foul language and gratuitous sex required for attracting a wide audience. Because that's all Hollywood ever turns out anymore. I'd have had to turn my novels upside down and inside out in order to hammer out a formulaic screenplay with a run-of-the-mill story offering wide-audience appeal, the copycat cinematic fare that American audiences have been offered ever since the box-office success of Star Wars.

Hollywood only wants movies based on market research aimed at giving American moviegoers what they think they want, which is what the toy, clothing, video, and gaming industries also want and all that other Madison Avenue "bleed the consumer dry" hype. Well, I'm no prude, I told myself. I offer that kind of reality in appropriate measure but I minimized it because the real story is what's left. Besides, that stuff is just too darn easy to write. Well, there you go. No wonder I don't go to the movies anymore.