Last time I was having a look at William Goldman, both his screen and novel writing. You can see the whole post here, but for my review of my top ten movie adaptations, I’d like to repeat what Goldman says about writing screenplays: Here is one of the main rules of adaptation: you cannot be literally faithful to the source material. Here’s another that critics never get: you should not be literally faithful to the source material. It is in…
Lately I’ve been looking at adaptations, both novel-to-movie, and novel or movie to TV series. I been talking about them in terms of what I thought was successfully done, and occasionally pointed at my favourites. In their comments people observed that while they agreed, for the most part, with my suggestions, they had suggestions of their own. All of us had to admit, however, that we were sometimes unfamiliar with either the source work, or the adaptation, or even both….
Not long ago I posted about my top ten novel-to-movie adaptations, (see here) and it spurred a flurry of opinions and alternate suggestions. Today I’m thinking about TV series and the difference here is that TV are just as frequently adapted movies as they are from novels. The requirements of this kind of adaptation are different from those of novel-to-movie. For one, the source material has to provide an ongoing story line, what’s called “series potential.” Obviously, that’s most easily…
Here at Black Gate, we take great pride in our meticulous research, passionate reporting, and thoughtful analysis, especially on fantasy writers who are being criminally overlooked. None of that stuff gets read, of course. What does get read? Articles like Nick Ozment’s “An Experiment in Gor: What Are John Norman’s Books About, Really?”, the runaway most popular post at Black Gate last month — by a wide margin. We love our readers, but boy, are you ever predictable. (Also: Ozment! Five…
Anyone who’s been paying attention to anything I’ve written here at Black Gate over the last few years knows how much I love William Goldman and his work. His death last week was a solid blow, for me, my husband, and our best friends. Not because we expected him to produce any more work, after all, the man was 87, but because the world is a smaller, colder place without him. His body of work does mean, however, that he’s…