From Books to Film and More: Inside the Mind of Alex Flinn

Ever wonder what it takes to go from book to film? Where were those writers before their books were movies? Join us for a live chat  with #1 New York Times bestselling author Alex Flinn to discuss this and other topics tonight at 5 p.m. EST in the inkpop forum events. In the meantime we caught up with Alex to ask her a few questions about her work.

How did you come up with the idea to adapt Beauty and the Beast into a modern day fairy tale?

I read a lot of fairy tales with my kids, and I became interested in the part of the story you don’t hear about as much – the Beast.  How did he become a beast?  Why was he all alone in the woods?  Where were his family?  I thought a lot about his loneliness and desperation, and that’s why I decided to write a book?

What was it like seeing your characters lifted from the page and brought to life on the screen? Were there things that the film did that you were unable to do in your book and conversely were there aspects of the book that were unable to translate to film?

Book and film are very different media.  I didn’t expect the movie to be exactly like my book.  What the movie does that a book can’t is, it provides a visual and also, music.  What the book did that the movie couldn’t was that it was longer and way more detailed.

Since Beastly you have created adapted another fairy tale into a modern retelling. What does it take to adeptly do these sort of reinterpretations? Are there limitations or things that you have to keep in mind when adapting these tales?

The hardest thing about adapting a fairy tale is deciding what the characters know about the existing fairy tale.  Has Kyle seen Beauty and the Beast on film, for example?  Also, do the characters believe in magic and, if not, do they come to believe in it based upon the circumstances of the story.  Since we are used to NOT believing in magic, this can be a hard transition.

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Your debut novel, Breathing Underwater, is now coming out in a new paperback edition. What have you learned since publishing Breathing Underwater in 2001?

What I’ve learned since publishing Breathing Underwater is more about being published than about writing.  The main thing I’ve learned is that not every reader is going to like every book.  Even with my own books, I have books that will appeal to different readers (The reader who likes A Kiss in Time is not necessarily going to be the same reader for Breathing Underwater).   When you first get published, you want everyone to love everything you write, but a book that appeals to all may not deeply touch many.  Now, I write each book for the reader who will like it.

Want to hear more? Join us tonight at 5 p.m. EST in the inkpop forum events for a live chat with author Alex Flinn

Two Chats Are Better Than One

Tis the season to be charitable. Since we receive so many good and interesting questions about plotting and character creation, we decided to try to tackle both of these questions in one week. Join us for a live chat today with Amy Huntley at 5 p.m. EST in the inkpop forum event to discuss creating complicated plots.

Amy Huntley is the author of The Everafter, a story told through memories of a deceased teen. Through moment like her first kiss, a trip to Disney World, Madison Stanton is slowly piecing her life together. Through the pieces she explores the truth about the life she lived and her untimely death.

 

 

Tomorrow we will chat with Jessica Gruner about character. So join us on Thursday November 11th at 5 p.m. EST in the inkpop forum event. Gruner is the co-author of Emily the Strange. Emily is an iconic figure of the counterculture. Her strange philosophies and and cultural observations made her a cult figure. Through her novels she became a character unto herself. Find out how.