Book to Movie: Strange and Wonderful
Alexandra Bracken is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson's film adaptation of her book The Darkest Minds is now playing in theaters.It's a strange and wonderful thing to see your story through someone else's eyes.
When The Darkest Minds was first optioned in 2011, I could not have been closer to the story. I had just spent over a year writing and revising the book in a bedroom that barely had enough room for a forever-broken IKEA dresser, let alone space to dream. As I wrote, I envisioned the world of the possible film: I pictured every scratch on the minivan the characters drive; daydreamed about scenic Virginia; imagined the classic rock soundtrack kicking in at certain moments.
Time has created some emotional distance. It's seven years later and the movie adaptation looks almost nothing like how I'd pictured it... and I think that's fine.
I love the book and its world, but I've also come to really appreciate the flexibility of storytelling--that a plot can twist and condense to fit a new medium and others' visions.And there are many others: I wish I'd known from the start how many people touch a film before it ever hits theaters. There's the screenwriter, of course, but the studio, director and producers all weigh in extensively before filming begins. Not to mention the cast and the rest of the crew--the set decorator, the costume designer, the cinematographer and so on--who bring their own ideas to the shoot.
It's difficult to let go of an image we've held onto and embrace something new, but there's a real reward in being open to it. The film team created a collaboration that let me enjoy my story in a whole new way: filtered through the imagination of others. Best of all, it retains the thematic heart and honors the characters in a way I know readers will love.
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The other side of isolation is that Kya is self-reliant and independent, and that grows into wonderful things. She educates herself, she has ambition and she's determined. Even though Kya is in extraordinary circumstances, there is some of Kya in all of us, and that's what I wanted readers to feel. She's one in a million, but she's also all of us.
V.S. Naipaul, the novelist and Nobel laureate of Indian ancestry born in Trinidad, died last week at age 85. Much of his work involved scathing critiques of colonialism and the British Empire, but also harsh judgments of subjugated or formerly subjugated peoples themselves. He was also known for his difficult temperament and instances of misogyny--both in his fiction and in his personal life. After a childhood in Trinidad, Naipaul received a scholarship to study at Oxford University in England, where he lived for the rest of his life. His debut novel, The Mystic Masseur, was published in 1955 to some acclaim. His next novel, A House for Mr. Biswas (1961), achieved global success.
