Book
publishing is collaborative. But it's nothing compared to making
feature films.
I
got a great lesson in the history of both in 1939: The Making of
Six Great Films from Hollywood's Greatest Year by Charles F.
Adams (2014, Craven Street Books).
I'm far from a film buff, but I gleaned
some interesting tidbits about the creation of:
● Gone With the Wind
● Stagecoach
● Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
● The Hound of the Baskervilles
● The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
● The Wizard of Oz
Can't imagine anyone else playing Scarlett O'Hara or
Dorothy? The producers did.
Wonder how the screenwriters condensed Gone
with the Wind to 222 minutes? The process
wasn't pretty.
Mostly interested in books, I appreciate how Charles F.
Adams digs into how each original book or short story came to be
written. I never suspected Oz originated in L. Frank Baum's weekend
storytelling sessions with his own children and others from the
neighborhood. Testing your tales with a focus group is nothing new.
Sometimes the best ideas spring spontaneously. Adams
reports:
This morning, one of them asked
a question several of them had wondered about: What was the name of
this strange land? Baum didn't have a quick answer, but then he
happened to glace over at his filing cabinet. The top drawer was
labeled “A-N.” The bottom cabinet said “O-Z.” “Why,” he
said, “this story took place in a land called 'Oz'!”
If it's not true, it should be.
Whether you're a methodical plotter or an impulse-driven
pantser, these vignettes into the writing of Peggy Marsh, Ernest
Haycox, Sidney Buchman, Arthur Conan Doyle, Samuel Clemens, and L.
Frank Baum should prove entertaining and instructive.
Just don't try to submit a stack of 1,200 marked-up
manuscript pages missing the first chapter and featuring a heroine
named Pansy O'Hara.
