Had a meeting today with a client who is up for a rewrite job. The story is a strong one and a true one. I was interested to see how she would deal with the problems of adapting a true story. I think a page-one rewrite is, in effect, an adaptation.
She is being considered because she is good at dialogue and can do emotion: the script lacks both good dialogue and emotion. Out of the blue she suggested a major change that completely altered the pivotal relationships in the story.
That is one of the joys of being an agent: being surprised. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I guess there are two answers: I am not a writer or a woman. I think it took a female sensibility to come up with that idea.
Which raises the question: should producers choose writers by gender for particular jobs. I have usually argued against that but in this instance the choice has paid off.
Actually the writer does not have the job yet; that meeting is later next week. She has to sell herself but the initial rehearsal today was convincing. Of course the producer, who is drawn to the story partly because it is a true story, may not like the fictionalising of these real people.
But as Aristotle said (after a fashion): a credible impossibility is preferable to an incredible possibility, that is, believability is better than truth. There is a kind of truth when something in a story is believable. It has less to do with facts and more to do with our irresistible need to identify with the characters, especially when they have suffered some undeserved misfortune.
The key seems to be to put the character/s into a situation in which we are both surprised and can think of no real alternative. We must then know what is going to happen next. That makes the job so good.
Tags: adaptation, Aristotle, rewrites, true stories