Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I was very motivated to write that book and very clear about the
story, the themes, the characters. It was also around the time that
Bridget Jones Diary came out and I read it and thought I can not relate
to this book. At all. This is not the way things are happening in L.A.
   At least not that part of L.A./Hollywood that I live in.    Also,
though the book is not about (producer) Don Simpson, it is an homage to
his spirit and to all of my favorite Hollywood Bad Boys. 
  

    

What is the title of the next book (if you know it)?  And can you tell us
what links the three books of this trilogy?  Themes?  Characters?
  

    
 Mr. Famous is the title of book three.   The main character is a
forty year old action-hero movie actor who essentially has to save his
own life.  The tone of the book is the same as that for Cigarette Girl
and Secret Celebrity.  And all the same elements are there: Humor. Sex.
Insider look at Hollywood.  In fact Elizabeth West, the main character
in the first book, who also makes a cameo appearance in book two, will
be back in book three.  However, what really links these three books
is the city - L.A.   Or more specifically, the Hollywood side of life
in L.A. 

As I've said before, there's no shortage of stories to tell about this
world.   I pick up information every time I go out. And most of the
stories  are wilder than anything I put in my books. 
  

    
Do you have any scripts in production right now?

This seems like an insecure life, living from project to project?  On the
other hand, I know a guy up here in northern California who has made quite a
bit of money writing scripts that never get shot.
  

    

As long as he got paid!

Does that happen a lot, Carol, that someone pays to have a script written, 
and nothing happens with it?
  

    
I think of the insecurity (and yes there's lots of it) as the cost of
doing business.  The script I've just finished is still in the
development stage which means I'm waiting for notes from the director
and producer. 

Most scripts don't ever make it to the screen,  so most writers adapt
to that reality and enjoy the money they make for writing them. If one
gets made, it's like a bonus.   But I'm talking about features here. In
TV it's different.  The writer is king in TV. Guys like Aaron Sorkin
and David E. Kelly have a lot of power. A hit series is the brass ring.
  

    
Have you written for TV?
  

    
Actually one of my favorite jobs was doing dialogue polish on thirteen
episodes of Jerry Bruckheimer's first TV show - Soldiers of Fortune. 
(1997)
Doing a dialogue polish is a great job. You have no responsibility for
the plot or characters . All you have to do is go through the script
and come up with up some better lines. This, by the way, is almost
never done in TV,  though it's done all the time in features.  But
Jerry Bruckheimer can pretty much call the shots on whatever project
he's working on.  He wanted to hire someone to punch up dialogue and
the people financing the show okayed it. 
  

    
And how did you happen to be the one he hired?
  

    
Because I worked for Jerry, and his then partner Don Simpson,
on the Will Smith/Martin Lawrence movie "Bad Boys" .  

In fact ninety percent of the work I've gotten in Hollywood has come
to me because the producer or director was familiar with my work or I'd
worked for them before.  In my case, agents serve more as deal makers
than job finders. 
  

    
How did you ghet started?  Where did you grow up, go to school, etc?
  

    
I grew up outside of Boston in a horrible factory town. When people
ask me what school I went to , I say I went to the University of Eric
Eisner.  He's a guy I met in my teens and eventually moved to L.A. to
be with him.  We broke up after years together but are still best
friends. He's very smart and taught me a lot. I'm a big believer in
mentors as the best education you can get. 
Eric was in the entertainment business so I got to meet a lot of
people through him. One of them, Ted Field, gave me my first job as a
screenwriter. 
  

    

carol, i loved secret celebrity.  also esp loved psycho girl.  she is such a
great character!
  

    

> Eric was in the entertainment business so I got to meet a lot of people
> through him. One of them, Ted Field, gave me my first job as a
> screenwriter.

Did you have any qualifications at all?

Did you go to any accredited school?
  

    
I love that people respond to the psycho girl character.  That
character is based on a few girls I know in Hollywood - only they're so
much worse than what I wrote.   I read interviews these girls have
given to magazines (they're actresses) and I wonder do they actually
think anyone believes what they're saying.  Or borrowing a word I got
off salon.com, the "spinsanity" is out of control. 

As for the question about my qualifications. I'm a good observer and 
have a good ear for dialogue . The rest I picked up from studying other
writers.  
  

    <scribbled by tnf Mon 5 Aug 02 12:42>
  

    

Carol, if it were to come to pass that you were writing the screenplay for 
the book, how would you deal with the fact that tons of the best stuff is 
internal? 

Wait, I'm not phrasing this clearly, I think. 

What I mean is, there's plenty of dialogue, but the lion's share of the 
best observations and the funniest stuff is a function of the narrator's 
character and her voice? How would you transfer that to the screen without 
relying on excessive voiceover? 
  

    

Carol, do you have any hints for how to capture dialog.  I always hear 
interesting bits of dialog but I will damned if I can remember them 15 
minutes later, let along create a character based on that.

I also have trouble reporting later on anything anybody said to anybody 
else, much to my detriment in the workplace, I've discovered.
  

    
I think limited voiceover would be part of a film adaptation. I would
also have more girltalk scenes which would allow me to get some of the
internal monologue out. Not unlike what they do on Sex in the City -
but also not too similar. If people are going to pay nine dollars or
whatever it is to see a movie these days, you've got to give them more
than what they can get for free at home. 

Linda, the easiest way to capture dialogue is to think like a thief.
Writers steal lines. We are always on the lookout for something of
value.   Once you start thinking this way, you'll start remembering
what you' hear.  It also doesn't hurt to write down the line as soon as
you hear it. I'm always scribbling something down on cocktail napkins.
  

    

And I fcarry a little notebook wherever I go.
  

    

Yes, if it weren't for my little notebook, I wouldn't remember ANYthing!

So I guess that writing things down is the only answer.  
  

    
Or you can carry those little tape recorders. Problem  with that is
then you have to transcribe the tapes. And who has the time for that? 

At the end of the day, whatever system, training, education you may or
may not have, I think writing comes down to finding your own unique
voice.   Writers like Joan Didion, James Ellroy,  Carrie Fisher,  Nick
Hornby - they all have very distict voices. 
And however you find that voice doesn't matter - you just have to find
it. 
  

    

There was another narrative device you used that I was curious about. 95% 
percent of the book is from one voice, but occasionally you pop into 
another character's voice. (I think it was always William, and I apologize 
if I'm forgetting someone else sneaking in there.) It certainly helps us 
get some outside perspective on the central character and some added info 
on other characters. (I'm actually thinking of one very specific moment 
that I won't identify.) 

But I was curious: it's very unusual, I think, to have multiple POV split 
on a 95/5 (or 90/10 or whatever basis). Which made me wonder whether you 
spent more time in that character's head and decided to cut it, or added 
those scenes in on a second pass, or whether it just came out that way. 
  

    
It was always part of the plan. I wanted William's voice in the book
because I'm interested in how guys look at things. I have a lot of guy
friends and in fact I sometimes joke that my fantasy is to be the
Shirley Maclaine of their rat pack. 
  

    
speaking of "voices," Carol, who would you say are you biggest influences as
a writer?