Lost In Translation

Why do so many attempts to turn books and short stories go from bad to downright unwatchable? How does the good intention of bringing something from page to screen so often result in total disaster?

I understand books and movies are different media with their own rules and regulations, but that doesn't stop the pain when I witness a story I love, and therefore have a lot of emotional investment in, turned into a complete dog's breakfast.

I would hope the people who write, produce and direct big screen versions of best selling and/or much loved books want to do a good job, but too often something goes awry. Why, for example, would anyone change the ending of My Sister's Keeper? Jodi Picoult can't have been too pleased about that. I wouldn't be if it happened to something of mine.

My knowledge of the movie business is limited, and I'd appreciate some insight into the thought process. More adaptations than I can count seem to me like they've read the blurb on the back cover of the book, spun a whole new story off it and made the movie from that. If you're not going to respect the source material and the people who created it, why bother? Why insult them and their readers with something that misrepresents the story they know?

Prose writers can and often do use the classic Hollywood three act structure in their work. I've tried it myself and it's very helpful when plotting, so there goes that hurdle. Writers also like to be as involved as possible when bringing their work to celluloid, but very few of them have that chance.

Look at Stephen King and Ray Bradbury, both great writers who've had far too much of their hard work turned into terrible movies. Why does this happen? They can't be so hard up financially that they'll sign any old contract to help them pay the gas bill. Why don't they, or their estate in Bradbury's case, have more say in who does what and how?

After he got burned a couple of times, Clive Barker was determined for this not to happen again and he took the director's chair himself. The success of Hellraiser proved him right for a while, until the studio suits and the MPAA set their hearts on turning Nightbreed into a travesty, then blamed him when it failed.

I am both a control freak and a shocking collaborator, so it's very unlikely any of my stuff will ever make it to the small or large screen. Having said that, I might one day be very tempted to sell the rights to my work to the highest bidder. My namesake Gabrielle Lord, who I've met twice, made enough out of the movie version of her debut novel Fortress to flee a failed marriage and make a new start. Changed ending or not, a similar arrangement might just help fund my long held dream of disappearing for a while and wiping the slate clean.