Film Adaptation

Deal I

I am 26 years old, confident and self-assured. When I option film rights to my second novel to Warner Bros., giving them the right to develop my book into a film, I am ecstatic. In a year or so they’ll make the movie and I’ll join the ranks of the rich and famous.

Because the movie will be a phenomenal success, my novel will rocket to the top of the bestseller list. I will appear on all the big talk shows. My face will grace the cover of Esquire. Above all, the New Yorker will stop rejecting my short stories and recognize me for the brilliant talent that I am.

The novel is about three teenage brothers growing up in Los Angeles with their widowed mother. It’s called “Hot Wire,” and the oldest brother is an aspiring actor. The middle brother is a drug dealer. The youngest is a habitual runaway. They are poor kids, reckless kids on a collision course with life, and because I’ve lived this life, because I understand the story, I want to write the screenplay.

The producer and I meet in an air-conditioned bungalow on the Warner Bros. lot. He’s in his early 40s, fit and tanned.

“It’s a terrific book,” he says. “But I’m a little concerned. Novelists are too close to their own work to make the necessary changes.”

“What kind of changes?” I ask.

He waves his hand. “Nothing major,” he says. “We don’t want to lose your vision of the story.”

When our meeting is over I leave the bungalow determined to do a good job. I’m prepared to be merciless, to cut and chop. I work long hours, and in three months I’ve whittled a 300-page novel down to a 110-page screenplay. But the heart of the book is still there. “You certainly know how to write a script,” the producer tells me after he reads it. “But it’s too dark. I think we need a fresh eye on this.”

In short, I’m fired and a fresh eye is hired. In this writer’s version, the oldest brother, the aspiring actor, is now the lead singer of a rock band. The middle brother is the bass guitarist. The youngest, the runaway, is the drummer. They aren’t tough kids anymore. They aren’t even poor.

That writer is fired. So is the producer. The executive in charge of the project takes it upon herself to hire another writer. This one does a fine job, but by the time he’s finished the executive also has been fired and the woman who replaces her has her own agenda. Unfortunately, that agenda doesn’t include turning my novel into a movie, and it soon falls into that netherworld known as “turnaround,” a graveyard where once-promising projects are forever interred.

The option lapses. My phone stops ringing. My book mysteriously disappears from the bookstores, and a few weeks later I receive in the mail another rejection from the New Yorker.

Deal II

I am 35 years old and a little less confident. When I option film rights to my third novel, “The Second Story Theatre,” to a successful independent producer in New York, I’m excited but cautious.

In a year or two they might make the movie. Because it will be shot on a smaller budget, and because it will only be moderately successful, I can expect this novel to sell better than my last but by no stretch will it make the bestseller list. The New Yorker, however, will undoubtedly catch wind of this independent sleeper, recognize my talent and publish one of my short stories.

This time the novel is about an old man who runs a little theater out of a hotel in downtown Los Angeles, a hotel that’s slated for demolition to make way for a freeway. He and his friend, a young playwright, attempt to stage one last production before the building is razed, and time is running out. Of course, there’s more to it, a lot more, which is one of the problems with adapting it into a screenplay. But I’m willing to try. The producer flies in from New York and we meet at Starbucks in Brentwood. He’s an older, impeccably well-dressed gentleman, and he stands out in this crowd of mostly college students dressed in tank tops and flip-flops.

“You realize,” he says, “that there’ll have to be changes.”

“What kind of changes?”

He takes a sip of his coffee. “Don’t worry,” he says. “They’re nothing major.” The producer is an articulate, intelligent man, and he gives me several pages of notes, all of them insightful. I want to do a good job, and once more I’m willing to cut and chop without mercy. Within six months we have a strong screenplay with the original vision of the novel still intact.

The producer shops it around to actors, directors and studio executives. A year passes. No luck. The call comes from Vermont, where he’s vacationing, and I can sense by the tone of his voice that he has given up.

“You wrote a good script,” he tells me. “But they’re all saying it’s too soft.” The option lapses. My phone stops ringing. My book mysteriously disappears from the bookstores. I think it’s all over, and then out of the blue he phones again to tell me, in short, that I’m fired.

“What I think we need,” he says, “is a fresh eye.”

The new draft arrives in a manila envelope a couple of months later. The story, which takes place in downtown Los Angeles, now opens in the jungles of Vietnam. But I’m not shocked. I’m not angry. I set the script aside after reading a few pages and reach for the other manila envelope that also arrived in the day’s mail, the one with my own handwriting on it. It’s from the New Yorker, and I’m hoping, as I split the envelope, that someone has been kind enough to include a word of encouragement on the enclosed rejection slip.

Deal III

I am 43 years old and not so hopeful anymore. Maybe I’m even a little bitter. When I option film rights to my fourth novel, “Lucky Town,” to another independent producer, this one in London, I’m guarded.

Before the year is up I’ll deliver what I believe is a decent screenplay and then I’ll be fired. Because the movie probably won’t get made, and because my book probably won’t sell any better than the others, I’ll bank the money I make and be thankful I got it.

This is a coming-of-age love story about a son and his father and a former prostitute with a passion for crime. They’re on the run from the law, beginning on the banks of the Willamette River in Oregon and ending in catastrophe in Las Vegas. Of course, it’s more complicated than this, and capturing those complications in a script won’t be easy, but I’m ready to try.

The producer flies in from London and we meet at the Westwood Marquis hotel in Westwood. There we conduct our business over lunch under a cabana at poolside. Like his New York counterpart, he is intelligent and articulate, though considerably younger.

“It’s a terrific novel,” he says. “But I’m sure you understand we’ll have to make some changes.”

“What kind of changes?”

“Let’s have a drink first,” he says.

He orders vodka on the rocks. I order seltzer water with a twist of lime because I want to remain clearheaded. I like this man. He believes in my work, enough to invest his time and money, and it’s my responsibility to do the best job I can. I also know that I’m not getting any younger and these opportunities won’t continue to fall into my lap. Once again, when I leave our meeting, I’m prepared to cut and chop. The difference this time is that the producer has already interested an up-and-coming director in our project, and soon I receive pages and pages of notes from both of them.

I write a first draft. They like it and want me to do another. They are talking to studios, actors and finance companies. There is interest. There is buzz. I put in long hours on the next draft. I labor over every scene, every line of dialogue. In less than a month I finish and send it off.

The producer calls after he reads it. “I like it enormously,” he says. Those are his exact words, and I can still hear them echoing in my head when he phones a week later to fire me. “The director feels that it’s uninspired,” he says. “What I think we need on this is a fresh eye.”

Before he can hire a new writer, however, the director hits it with a big movie and wants nothing more to do with my story. The producer’s interest wanes. The option lapses. My phone stops ringing. My book mysteriously disappears from the bookstores, and soon another rejection slip from the New Yorker arrives in the mail.

It sounds like the same old story, but something has changed this time. Something about it feels brand new. Maybe it has to do with that third strike. Maybe it’s about the other close calls, too, the hopes they inspired and my coming to realize how few ever get the shots I’ve had.

I’m sure of one thing, though. It’s not about Hollywood anymore, and in some ways it never has been. This is about revision. Adaptation and acceptance. The drafts are endless, but it’s the writer, not the story, that undergoes the most important changes.

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James Brown is a professor of English at Cal State San Bernardino. This piece is an excerpt from his memoir, “The Los Angeles Diaries,” which will be published next year by Morrow/HarperCollins.