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The Wenches


  • Mary Jo Putney

  • Patricia Rice

  • Susan Fraser King

  • Anne Gracie

  • Nicola Cornick

  • Andrea Penrose

  • Christina Courtenay

In Memoriam


  • Jo Beverley
    Word Wench 2006-2016

  • Edith Layton
    Word Wench 2006-2009

Word Wenches Staff

Wench Staff Emeritae

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June 2023

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Wenches Statistics

  • Years published: 164

    Novels published: 231

    Novellas published: 74

    Range of story dates: nine centuries (1026-present)


    Awards Won:

    • RWA RITA

    • RWA Honor Roll

    • RWA Top 10 Favorite

    • RT Lifetime Achievement

    • RT Living Legend

    • RT Reviewers Choice

    • Publishers Weekly Starred Reviews

    • Golden Leaf

    • Barclay Gold

    • ABA Notable Book

    • Historical Novels Review Editors Choice

    • AAR Best Romance

    • Smart Bitches Top 10

    Kirkus Reviews Top 21

    Library Journal Top 5

    Publishers Weekly Top 5

    Booklist Top 10

    • Booktopia Top 10

    • Golden Apple Award for Lifetime Achievement


    Bestseller Lists:

    NY Times

    • Wall Street Journal

    • USA Today

    • Waldenbooks Mass Market

    • Barnes & Noble

    • Amazon.com

    Chicago Tribune

    • Rocky Mountain News

    • Publishers Weekly

Books

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Comments

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talpianna

tal sez:

Mary Jo, have you ever read F. Scott Fitzgerald's THE LAST TYCOON? There is a wonderful scene in there in which the title character, a studio head, calls in the hot new writer from NYC (read: FSF himself) and explains exactly why his screenplay won't work, because it doesn't take into account the fact that film is a VISUAL medium. A course in screenwriting in one scene!

As for having control, the late Olivia Goldsmith (who wrote THE FIRST WIVES CLUB and knew whereof she spoke) said that selling the film rights to a book was like giving a child up for adoption--you just have to let it go. In her THE BESTSELLER, one of the characters has written a charming little novel which Hollywood wants to change radically, and a friend advises her to let them change her busload of middle-aged Englishwomen into a space capsule full of orangutans if they want--just take the money and run! (Both these books are a lot of fun, and FWC is MUCH better than the movie!)

talpianna

tal sez:

Mary Jo, have you ever read F. Scott Fitzgerald's THE LAST TYCOON? There is a wonderful scene in there in which the title character, a studio head, calls in the hot new writer from NYC (read: FSF himself) and explains exactly why his screenplay won't work, because it doesn't take into account the fact that film is a VISUAL medium. A course in screenwriting in one scene!

As for having control, the late Olivia Goldsmith (who wrote THE FIRST WIVES CLUB and knew whereof she spoke) said that selling the film rights to a book was like giving a child up for adoption--you just have to let it go. In her THE BESTSELLER, one of the characters has written a charming little novel which Hollywood wants to change radically, and a friend advises her to let them change her busload of middle-aged Englishwomen into a space capsule full of orangutans if they want--just take the money and run! (Both these books are a lot of fun, and FWC is MUCH better than the movie!)

Nina P

MJ, this is awesome! Congratulations. China Bride is a beautiful, captivating story. My favorite next to KOF.

Cathy

Mary Jo--

CB would make a great movie. I do respect your groundedness, however. An author, aspiring author, half-way there author, and anyone at all, should master groundedness. Keeps me sane and cuts down on the tears.

Having said that, I fully expect a Hollywood producer to make your movie, if he/she is smart. Heck, I would love a TV miniseries, like CROSSINGS.

Cathy

Mary Jo Putney

Tal, I've not read THE LAST TYCOON, but I have read Olivia Goldsmith (I miss her books) and talked to writers who had their stories filmed. One talked about how weird it was to read the shooting script and seeing characters with the names she'd chosen, but significantly different from her story. (Hers was a TV mini-series.)

She concluded what all smart writers do, which brings us back to "take the money and run." :) Print and film are profoundly different. A good movie-maker can translate to soul of a book to movie effectively--I thought the Lord of the Rings trilogy was brilliant--but books and movies are different beasts, with different challenges and rewards.

Mary Jo, staying grounded :)

SKapusniak

__
One of those questions that authors hear with some regularity is “Why don’t you make a movie out of one of your books?”
__

I read that and immediately had visions of people expecting you to *personally* make the movie, hand cranking the camera with four of their closest buddies dressed up in bedsheets or something. LOL. ;)

...or as Machima maybe. 'The Marriage Spell' acted out with World of Warcraft avatars, or (warning video!) Battlefield 2:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4396069753768297433

or (yes video) The Sims 2:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8780839490163796425

or (more video) TES:IV - Oblivion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyHiIeBsc9E

Really, really sorry guys :)

margaret

My favourite film about the film industry, an object lesson in the Hollywood mindset, is The Player.

There are many lovely romance novels by current authors I often think I'd enjoy seeing on the screen. But I well know the real thing wouldn't be as enjoyable as the movie I see in my head as I read!

Having worked in the film/tv industry, I've seen how bizarrely limited the creative imagination can be in that realm (due to the chronic bottom-line mentality.)

IMO, original screenplays nearly always work better on screen than adaptations of books, or plays. For whatever reason.

Wylene

I am always ambivalent when I hear that a book that I love is being made into a movie. On one hand, the idea of the characters springing larger than life onto the big screen is exciting, and I am pleased that a writer I value has been recognized. On the other hand, I know that the movie will never satisfy my vision of the book. The only movie I have ever seen that I thought measured up to the book is To Kill a Mockingbird.

Patricia Rice

From Pat Rice:

SK, you really better be sorry! Off with their heads in dominos and scarfing and burping in Syms, and like an idiot, I'm sitting here watching the whole danged thing and grinning when I have two tons of better things to be doing!

Wouldn't it be cool if we could do that with our books? Our very own screen plays...

LorettaChase

From Loretta:
Goldman's a favorite of mine. I mean, he wrote THE PRINCESS BRIDE. I have a quote from WHICH LIE DID I TELL posted near my monitor. Two other wonderful books about Hollywood are Julia Phillips's YOU'LL NEVER EAT LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN and John Gregory Dunne's MONSTER: LIVING OFF THE BIG SCREEN. They were eye-openers for me.

talpianna

There's a better movie about Hollywood than SUNSET BOULEVARD???

talpianna

There's a better movie about Hollywood than SUNSET BOULEVARD???

talpianna

Hey! Blogger is doing this! I swear I only posted once!

Mary Jo Putney

I believe you, Tal--everything in cyberspace hiccups now and then!

Thanks to all for the interesting comments and suggestions for supplemental reading--there's lots of cool material available people who are interested.

As to making movies from books--I invariably find that it works better for me if I see a movie and like it well enough to dig up the book rather than if I love the book and then see the movie. If I see the movie first, the book is usually a lovely expansion of the story. IF I read the book first, the movie always seems too thin.

LOTR is something of an exception, but I read the books so long ago that all I retained was the general plotline and characters, so the movies seemed just fine.

Mary Jo

talpianna

tal sez:

Can you think of any movies that were BETTER than the book? All I can think of is the A&E miniseries of LORNA DOONE. I read that book when I was about 14 and adored it; tried to read it again when I was in grad school and it was like trying to chew my way through a two-by-four!

AgTigress

Good books are often (usually) made into bad films, but bad books can also be made into good films. There really is very little connection, because the book is the product of an individual mind, and the reader interacts directly with the author, applying her own experience and interpretation to that 'pure' concept. A film is the product of a large team, a committee project, that is pre-interpreted and pre-digested, as it were before the filmgoer sees it. The viewer has to take it or leave it as it is.

I think this is far, far more important than the standard 'verbal as opposed to visual medium' argument. Some of us read visually, not verbally, in any case. But the book is 'author direct to reader', while the film is author to scriptwriter to editing committee to director and producer to actors to cameramen to sound-engineers to special-effects people, with the financial people and the sponsors... well, it isn't author-to-viewer, that's for sure.

An example that comes to my mind of a film that was actually better than the book on which it was based is the original film of 'The Manchurian Candidate', with Lawrence Harvey and Frank Sinatra. At least, I thought the film was better at the time. I haven't either read the book or watched the film for several decades.

talpianna

tal sez:

I think the reason for LORNA DOONE being better as a miniseries is that it has a terrific STORY, which survived the transition; but the actual PROSE of the Blackmore novel is awful.

I too think the Frank Sinatra/Laurence Harvey version of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE is wonderful, but you can't not mention the superb against-type performance of Angela Lansbury! I haven't read the book or seen the remake of the film, but I can't imagine anyone else in those roles.

AgTigress

Well, I didn't mention Angela Lansbury, but yes, I agree with you, Tal. The whole film managed to make a completely insane, indeed, ludicrous, premise seem convincing - at least, at the time. This was why it was better than the book, because I found it impossible to suspend my disbelief when reading the story.

I find it hard to imagine why anyone would even wish to remake the film, because the whole concept was so firmly based in a particular paranoid phase of history that it cannot possibly have made the transition to another and retained any kind of cohesion or integrity.

shscott21

Tal, I LOVE Sunset Boulevard, too. It manages to be weird, touching, hard-boiled, and oddly romantic all at once -- there's so much more to it than that final "Ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille" line. This week it's been on TMC twice without commercials, much to the dismay of my family....

Mary Jo, I wish they would make China Bride into a movie. I know all the logical and logistical reasons why they won't, but I still wish they would.

Sandy

MJ i love your books and i really hope that someday A Kiss of Fate which is my favorite book does become a Hollywood movie, if not my second favorite book Stolen Magic

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