Drum roll please!
The American premiere of the movie version of SPEAK has been changed. The film will be shown on both Showtime and Lifetime cable channels on Monday, September 5th, 2005. Yep, this is Labor Day. (Don’t have a time yet.) The Powers That Be in the film world say that this kind of simulcast has never been done before. Whatever. I’m am just thrilled that it will finally be shown!! Many thanks to Annie Young Frisbie, co-producer and co-screenplay writer, for passing on this great news!
If any of you are going to have SPEAK viewing parties, let me know here, OK. Not that I want to crash your party, but it would be fun to know the details. I can’t wait to hear what you guys think about the movie itself.
Here are some links for the curious: film details on IMDB and my web page about the movie (don’t have corrected dates on it yet).
One of my most faithful correspondents, Max, has been anxiously awaiting the film. In honor of his patience, I’ll pull his latest note from the mailbag today. (BTW Max, you get the award for asking the best questions!)
Max writes: This may sound like a dumb question, but do you think a lot of dialogue is required in a book? Do you think that dialogue should be a huge chunk of the book, or are some books better off with more descriptions and personal thoughts? Sometimes, I just start writing dialogue but then later, I feel it would might have been easier to get my point through by just writing what she thought instead of a whole conversation. I also want to ask you about the revision process. Is there a certain way that you revise your books that really works for you?
There is not an easy answer here because it depends on the needs of the book and the character. There is not a lot of dialog in SPEAK because a major plot point is that the main character doesn’t talk much. There is much more dialog in PROM because that main character has a busy family and friends, so it makes sense that she has to talk a lot.
The book I’m writing now seems to be going this way: Step 1 – develop a scene that has a long, long chunk of dialog. Step 2- Fret about length of dialog. Step 3 – Cut dialog. Step 4- Fret that scene is missing crucial elements. Step 5 – Write new dialog. Step 6 – Finally figure out character motivations and the point of the scene. Step 7 – Develop actions that will remove the necessity of some dialog (SHOW DON”T TELL). Step 8 – Trim back dialog again. Step 9 – Vow not to look at scene for a week or so. (a week later) Step 10 – Trim dialog even more. Less is always better, IMHO.