Welcome Jason Starr!

by KJ Howe


It's my pleasure to welcome thriller author Jason Starr to the lair. Jason is here to share details about his fascinating new novel, THE FOLLOWER, a story about dating gone wrong. Has he landed on the right blog or what? Okay, Jason, take it away!


HOW CHEESEY IS TOO CHEESEY?

"Every guy stalks his first girlfriend."

A writer friend of mine had this comment after reading my novel Tough Luck, in which a young man has an obsessive relationship with this "first love." My friend was exaggerating, of course, but I think there was some truth to the observation. I think when people are young and inexperienced with dating, they don't really know how to behave yet. They can easily misjudge situations and miss signals, and they don't know how to handle rejection. Most people don't become actual stalkers, but they may get obsessive and go overboard to try to impress their dates.

For me, the most enjoyable part of writing a suspense fiction is exploring that "what if?" factor. I love taking normal situations that everyone can identify with, and then pushing them to the extreme. In THE FOLLOWER I tackled the darker side of romantic love head-on. Katie Porter has moved to New York after graduating from Wesleyan her life is consumed by work and dating. She has a job she hates and boyfriend she's not sure she really likes. Then—apparently by chance—she runs into a guy from her past, Peter Wells. Initially she sees him as a friend and confidant, but he sees her as much more.

THE FOLLOWER is written in a very close third-person style. I wanted to get into the heads of each character to create suspense, but I also wanted to explore how men and women often have such widely divergent perceptions of the same events, and how easily they can misinterpret each other's motives. Peter, for example, considers himself to be a great romantic. He's obsessed with Jane Austen—he knows the film versions of Pride and Prejudice practically by heart and he practices "the Mr. Darcy look" in the mirror every day. He also likes to, well, pleasure himself while watching the BBC version of the film. In addition, he has seen just about every cheesy romantic comedy, and part of his delusion is that he envisions himself as a lead actor in these films. Katie, meanwhile, has a completely different impression of Peter. She sees him as a nice guy, but kind of awkward, and she doesn’t understand why he’s going so overboard to impress her.

One of the pivotal scenes is Peter and Katie's first date. Well, at least it's a date as far as Peter is concerned. Determined to sweep Katie away, he's gotten the best flowers, the best wine, and the best gourmet food for their picnic in Central Park. But from Katie's point of view the date is a total train wreck and for the first time she starts to suspect that something is seriously off about this guy.

While I've never gone as far as Peter does to impress a date, I've been guilty of the occasional excessive dinner or excessive gift (it never seemed to work). What's the most overboard thing someone has ever done to try to impress you on a date, and was it successful? And what's the most overboard thing that you've done to impress someone else?



KJ back...great questions, Jason. I once had a guy sing "You've Lost that Loving Feeling" to my voice mail because I didn't want to go out with him after one date. Definitely creeped me out, so I'd say it was a losing proposition for him. I can't wait to hear about everyone else's experiences.

JASON STARR is the Barry and Anthony Award-winning nine crime novels which have been published in ten languages. His latest thriller from St. Martin's Press, THE FOLLOWER, is on-sale this week in a new mass market paperback edition. Visit http://www.jasonstarr.com/ and sign up for Jason Starr's newsletter for a chance to win a 50-dollar Amazon gift certificate, and other exciting prizes. Newsletter subscribers will also be eligible to win free advance copies of Jason Starr’s next thriller PANIC ATTACK, which will be on-sale in August, 2009.
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The Book or the Film?

by Anna Sugden

There has been a lot of controversy lately with the new Bond film 'Quantum of Solace' (where do they get these titles?!). For those of you unaware of the issues troubling Bond fans, it's all to do with the last two (Daniel Craig) movies.

You see, they go back to the beginning and tell the story of how Bond developed into the character we know today. The purists believe that this is the only way to see Bond and that this is as close to the James Bond of the Ian Fleming books as we've seen, since George Lazenby. Film fans, meanwhile, are horrified that some of the classic Bond-isms eg 'Martini, shaken not stirred' and Q, are missing from these films. It doesn't matter (much *g*) who plays Bond, but the Bond-isms have to be there.

All of which got me thinking about the problems with turning books into films.

Think of the controversy about the Harry Potter films. Though it's obvious to anyone with an ounce of common sense that turning an 800-plus page tome into a two hour film is just the teensiest bit tricky, die-hard fans get quite upset that chunks of the story have had to be left out. They don't see why it's a problem to capture all the depth of characterisation and complexity of plot, without seeing that the end result would be a major bum-numbing epic!

They had the same problem with Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code'.

Similarly, the recent version of 'Pride and Prejudice' (once you've got over the horror of anyone other than Colin Firth playing Mr Darcy!) raised hackles by straying from the well-known and much-loved story.

That's not to say that any of these films is bad - they're just not 'as good' as the book. Personally, I think they're very entertaining and enjoy them for what they are ... but that's just me (except for 'Pride and Prejudice' - which I didn't like!)

You only need to speak with authors like Lisa Gardner about the adapatations of their books to know how they feel about what was done with their beloved stories.

On the other side of the coin, are the movies that are better (in the viewer's mind) than the book. The one that stands out most for me, is 'Practical Magic' (starring Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman and the drool-worthy Goran Visnij and Aidan Quinn). While Alice Hoffman's book is very good, the film has much more charm.

And then, there are the multitude of TV adaptations (Thank you, BBC) and movies that are really good translations of the printed word to the screen. The Colin Firth version of 'Pride and Prejudice', 'A Town Like Alice' (the Bryan Brown TV series) and Inspector Morse are just a few examples.

I've seen a number of debates about potential movies made from popular series. Who would play Eve Dallas and Roarke (pause to drool) if they made the JD Robb '... In Death' series into movies? What about Ranger, Joe Morelli and Stephanie Plum from Janet Evanovich's series? It's a brave director and producer who take on such feats - because you know you going to irritate a bunch of people no matter what you do!

I know that the fabulous Robert Crais has sworn not to allow his books to be made into movies or TV series, because he wants the reader to have their own interpretation of Elvis Cole and Joe Pike - not one fashioned by Hollywood.

So, what do you think? Do you like books being converted to films? Which do you think have been done well and which badly? Have you read a book which inspired a film and been disappointed? Does it matter if book and film don't match exactly? Are there books you would love to see turned into movies? We all dream of our books being optioned, but how would you feel if the only recognisable element was the title?!

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