Imagining your hero

When I see a novel adapted to TV or film, I sometimes wonder how closely the lead actor on the screen matches what the author imagined. Especially for the more closely adapted works.

Sometimes there are obvious liberties. Lord Vetinari, the Patrician in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels is usually depicted in official art as being extremely thin and having black hair. Yet when Going Postal was made, Vetinari (played by Charles Dance) is clearly blonde. Some fans did not like the change.

Onion Rings Revisited

I’ve posted before about story structure. It is the sort of thing that writers used to either take years to learn or intuitively know. Well, even if you know about it, it is not an easy thing to learn how to do.

My current work in progress is an attempt at building a much longer story on the basics of the short story I mentioned in that post. After that little encounter, the main protagonist and his wife have a place to go and someone to chaperone them there. It’s just not very far away and it’s not what he expects. This means he has to figure out What To Do Next. Unbeknownst to them, I’ve also got a much bigger story arc in mind: one that will take him far far away from humble beginnings as a farmboy.