Literary LA LA

WHEN WILL IT BE A TELEVISION SHOW?

I think this might be the most common question I get about my novels. It’s a question that unites both long-time fan and perfect stranger. You write books: when will it be a TV show? I love this series: when will it be a TV show?

Or, sometimes: when will you make it a TV show?

I thought I’d demystify the process a little bit here . . . with the caveat that “the process” changes all the time and that I only see my corner of it. I’ve been getting calls from LA since 2008, when I was first published, and the landscape is quite different. I remember having calls with agents reminding me that author-involvement was rare and considered high-maintenance; currently, with the rise of social media and author branding, it’s the other way around—a reclusive, hands-off author is considered the bore instead.

(please note examples here are a composite of FIFTEEN YEARS OF A DOZEN NOVELS, not a single episode)

FIRST STEP: Hollywood Comes Calling

There are two ways to get a call from a Los Angeles area code.

The first is to be a big name author with a new release. The moment this hot book’s future existence is published in deal memos, LA book scouts pick up the phone to find out if the film rights are already optioned*.

*more on this in a sec

The second way is to have a film agent who pitches the project for you. Like literary agents, film agents’ value is attached to their network. Who do they have lunch with? What studio relationships have they built up over the year? Whose ear do they always have to talk about new projects? Some of this is nepotism and cliqueishness, yes (far more than in the literary world), but a lot of it is taste and curation. A good film agent gets a reputation for knowing what kind of project each executive likes, and doesn’t throw just everything at them. That keeps executives picking up a phone to accept a three-hour lunch date at some outdoor spot where you can watch hummingbirds sample nectar on the pergola and see pocket-sized dogs poke out of handbags. The price of any film agent, good or bad, is usually 10% of the deal (this is in addition to the 15% your literary agent will also take, the 5% your film attorney will nab, and your Guild fees).

Ok, now Hollywood is interested. Sold? Not exactly. Next step is:

PAUSE: The Rights

Let’s take a moment to talk about rights. When you sell a book, you aren’t really selling a physical object. You aren’t selling 400 pieces of printer paper with your words on it. You’re selling the right for a company to publish it for a selected period of time, in selected territories, in selected formats, in selected languages. That means when you say “I sold a book!” what you usually mean is that you sold English rights in North American territories—the publisher agrees to take on the burden of creating and editing physical versions and in return, you receive a percentage of the profits, called royalties (they usually works out to $1-2 a book depending on the format sold).

Other rights you might sell include foreign language, e-book, stage, audiobook**, graphic novel, merchandise and of course . . . film/tv. For most books, these rights won’t get sold (not enough interest from buyers), and those that do will usually sell for far less than the North American print rights. Subrights sales are usually thin gravy in an author’s financial plan, with ever-present notable exceptions.

**audiobook rights used to be negligible; they’re currently experiencing huge growth as readers flock to them

SECOND STEP: The Option

This is where Hollywood comes in. They place the call, they’re interested in the book, they want to buy . . . the option to think about buying. An option is a period of exclusivity with your film/tv rights (usually 12 to 18 months) where the option-holder "develops” the property for possible production. Written into the option language is the actual sale language, which the option-holder can trigger at any time during those months.

What does this look like, practically? Options can go for anywhere from $0 to $$$$$$$, but they typically hover at the very low end of that (free options are becoming very common). This means that Hollywood calls, says “we love it, let’s make it, it’s going to happen” (they always say this, optimism is Hollywood’s chief product), they write the writer a check for $4000 (minus the agent fees, attorney fees, guild fees) and work on the property for 12-18 months. The vast majority of these options lapse without ever going further. Some options are bad-faith options, too: the projects are simply purchased in order to keep them from competing with similar projects the studio or producer is also developing. You can imagine how this especially works during trends: if Hunger Games is the Hot Thing, for instance, then anything that a Hollywood exec who doesn’t read YA thinks is like Hunger Games will get snatched up to either sit on or develop rapidly into a copycat. This is how a series of trendy books will get made in identical form, to the exhaustion of readers who don’t find them similar at all.

If the book doesn’t get developed enough, the option lapses (sometimes it triggers a second option period, sometimes this is negotiated) and it’s back to square one.

Note! The option is the first place where things can often fall apart (there are many places TV/film can fall apart). Often studios and producers will want to bundle rights that the author doesn’t want to give up. They’ll ask to hold onto all rights (merch, stage, audiobook, etc) for 12-18 months while working on the TV side, which would prevent the author from selling those rights in hopes that the TV will come through and make the gamble worth it. In the meantime, the book’s “buzz” can wear off, devaluing those rights. Some authors choose to walk away from an option deal in lieu of taking that risk.***

***including this author, who has walked away from deals that refused to relinquish graphic novel rights, which is why we’re getting a Raven Cycle graphic novel.

THIRD STEP: The Development

After the option is signed, development work begins. The folks who purchase the option are usually producers, although technically, anyone can get an option. Studios, screenwriters, directors, actors—anyone who can convince the author they have the ability to put together a sellable package can offer an option.

Development has one goal: get funding.

There are a billiontymillionty projects being developed at any given moment, so funding is in short supply. So is talent. Everyone you’ve heard of is attached**** to a project already, so you have to be creative or book far ahead. Having a star attached is a good way to get funding, so they’re a hot commodity. You know what helps get one? An agent with connections. Luckily for Hollywood, connections are rife: a ton of actors, writers, and directors are all represented by a very, very few agencies, so they can just tap an agentmate and call in a favor. Sound nepotistic? IT IS. A slightly less grubby way of looking at it is as the world’s largest college theater program. You only want to make shows with your friends, right? It’s not fun otherwise. The only difference is a few million dollars and several million viewer eyeballs.

****Attached means that that they’ve agreed to be a part of the project, a truth that sometimes comes with a contract and money and sometimes just comes with grins and secret handshakes. If you have learned anything from this post so far, you have learned this is true of every part of the game.

There is no secret recipe to getting a green light and sale, but there are some important ingredients: a workable script, an attached big-name director, an attached big-name showrunner, an attached big-name actor. The more of these ingredients one collects during development, the more likely the cake is to rise. There will be even more metaphors in this post to come. I will likely not return to this one.

Many projects are announced at the option stage. It’s a good way for producers to show how passionate a fanbase is about a project and possibly use that passion to net funding. A lot of love in the RTs? Value add. Crickets or fandom wank? The project will be developed on its own merit, the producers assuming that fanbase will not be an important part of the final project.

OKAY, THE SCRIPT

This is a big place where things fall apart.

Adaptation is not transcription but rather interpretation. Anywhere there is interpretation, disagreements can arise. And oh, do they arise. At every stage of the tv/film game, more people enter the room, and they all have their own take on the property: the book. This is complicated by the fact that usually only two people have actually read it: the author, and the first person to acquire the option (the producer). Everyone else will have read a treatment, which is a very short summary of the project written by a frazzled intern or assistant, or will be operating off a twenty minute phone call pitch with someone who has read the treatment. Everyone wants the same thing: for this thing to get made. What’s it going to take to get it over the line?

Some changes, perhaps.

This element of the book doesn’t work on screen. This element is problematic on screen. This setting feels old-fashioned. This kind of magic is too hard for regular theater-goers to understand. This romance would be sexier if they were younger. This friend group could use another girl. This mother-daughter relationship is too strange and hard for people to understand, let’s simplify it. Tonally, we think people are looking for horror. Tonally, we think people are tired of horror. Are people really interested in the problems of young women? People would like to see more young women on the screen. Are they really looking for a Welsh king? That’s too strange. Can he be American? Can he be Timothée Chalamet? Can this all happen in Vancouver?

Change has to happen. Books are not TV. Prose on a page has different skills than actors on a screen. And adaptation is a great place to update or fix or punch up works.

But it’s also a place for things to go bonk, particularly as more people join the chat.

Possibly you are beginning to see how bad adaptations appear.

Author consultation is more common than it used to be, but that doesn’t guarantee fidelity to the source material; there are too many steps that happen after author consultation. Moreover, authors aren’t always the best judge of their own work. I’ve stared at the Raven Cycle so often, for instance, that I am not the most clever person to be objective about restructuring it for TV, particularly as I am a film-watcher, not a TV-watcher. Someone who knows the material in and out and knows TV form in and out is ideal. Authors are more likely to gibber, drool, and say “but the orange juice line is important.”

So what happens if things go terribly wrong and say, characters are given new girlfriends and bring champagne and boom boxes to St. Mark’s vigils and the author is displeased? What happens when discussion fails? If the option period is still in play, and the producers are able to get their funding, they can still execute the sale no matter how the author feels. The author gets a payday (for me, this payday is for less than if I simply wrote another novel), and the readers get a strange adaptation. If the option comes to the end, and the producers ask to renew it, the author can choose to deny their renewal, which stops the adaptation but also stops all conversation and undoes all the connections made. Everything has to go back to square one, only it’s sort of square -1, because the option has now been “developed,” and a virgin property is always the most exciting. If at all possible, the best way through is to just press on and hope conversation will fix things.

Possibly you are seeing even more why bad adaptations appear.

ALSO: REWRITES

You may have heard that WGA, the Writers Guild of America, is on a very rare writers’ strike. They’ve got many pertinent demands, and one of them is less free work. One of Free Work’s major hangouts is in the Rewrite Zone. This is where scripts spend a lot of their time. Remember that room I told you was filling up with executives, writers, directors, producers, actors? Every single one of them will want a rewrite of the script. They’ll make a light pass here, a heavy pass there. They will adjust tone, marketability, if that one character is not funny or cool enough. They will change the setting to Vancouver. Some of these rewrites are contracted. Others are done on spec, in hopes there will be a payday. And others are in-between; not heavy enough to be considered a rewrite, just heavy enough to ruin a writer’s weekend.

At this point, projects can chew through writers. If producers feel they aren’t getting across the line with one, they’ll fire them and bring in another do a rewrite of the previous draft. And another, and another. Sometimes that writer will be a beleaguered author.

The goal is always the same: get funding, get it made.

Things can still fall apart at this stage, even with a good script. Directors can leave, studios can be reorganized and projects canceled, competing projects can get greenlit, rendering this one useless in the marketplace (“Sorry, we already greenlit a cannibal movie this year”).

FOURTH?? STEP: The Pitch Meeting

This is technically still part of the third step, but it can happen at any point in development and doesn’t follow in a linear way, so I’m putting it by itself.

After producers have a package (script, director, actor, showrunner), they do another version of the LA call at the beginning of all this, only this is LA to LA: they’re pitching it to studios or network executives, hoping to get that coveted green light and sale. Sometimes this is simply the producers picking up the phone or lunching at that hummingbird restaurant. Sometimes this is a meeting between a showrunner who has a first-look agreement with a studio and said studio. More often, this is a process where the whole team holds arranged pitches in board rooms, painting a glorious word picture of the final project to eagerly nodding execs.

“We’ll call you.”

Sometimes these pitch meetings include a wide-eyed author waving her arms and describing the passionate fans, trying not to think about how nerve-wracking it is to pitch to, say, HBO or Netflix.

Sometimes.

In every case, the team is hoping the balsa wood airplane they’ve constructed has enough pieces on it to fly, and if it does not have enough pieces, that the executives have enough excitement about the project to fund and find the remaining pieces.

It is important to note there are very few pilots able to fly balsa wood planes in the LA area.

This is often where things fall apart.

FIFTH STEP: The Sale

IF the pitch meeting goes well, it’s green light time! This triggers a pay day. Like the option, this can be for $ or $$$$$$$, depending on the enthusiasm, competitive environment, and author fame. If any of my projects ever go from option to sale, I personally stand to see a payday less than simply writing another novel—film/TV continues to be a thin gravy for me, not a working part of my career, even taking into account the payments that can happen after, depending upon the success and distribution of the project and whether the agent was able to get the writer an executive producer or screenwriting credit.

Of course, a good adaptation can sell lots of books.*****

*****many authors are noting that weak adaptations or unfaithful ones don’t impact book sales, now that there are so many choices on the screen

The newly greenlit project can still go bonk! Casting can fail to come together, studio reorganizations can still happen, actors can do something wildly illegal. Competing projects can continue to come out (“did you see that great cannibal film with Whats His Face?”)

But at this stage, with money pushing things forward, it becomes increasingly likely the balsa plane will fly. If fans are lucky, a project is announced closer to this stage, and they can be look forward to a release date and a midnight party. If they’re unlucky, it’s closer to the beginning, and its flight is still uncertain. In that case, the best thing they can do is exactly the same thing the author has likely been doing for months, in secret, working on an unannounced project in development: scream with all their might.

THE END

The other day, I was watching LA Story, one of my favorite films: an absurd love letter from Steve Martin to the city of Los Angeles, a still-true look at a city that makes its own rules out of dreams and hope.

For the first time, I realized there was a deleted scene circulating on the internet. I clicked on it, watched Martin’s character meet up with a potential new agent, raised my eyebrows. It was fascinating to see the fury and frustration of the entertainment business distilled into one long, uncut scene, but it also didn’t belong in the movie. It wasn’t funny. It was just a raspberry-blowing sigh over how the sausage gets made, which doesn’t have anything to do with the experience of eating the hot dog.

Do I think movies are more fun knowing how they’re made? NOT A BIT. The best projects in any media disguise all the work that got them to that place.

So if you ever see a Stiefvater book on screen, I hope you forget everything you just read and enjoy the show.