The Breakdown - Week of 8/24/20
Well, hello there! We’re back with The Breakdown!
Sorry for the delay. Responsibilities kept me from being able to dive into the newsletter until now.
Part of those responsibilities involved a writers panel on Friday. As much as I hate being on video, if you want to learn a little about me or about writing on Wattpad from me (Paula Gill) and three fantastic Wattpad authors, then I do suggest giving the recording a view.
And P.S. - You don’t have to be Black to get a lot out of the panel…just sayin’ 😁.
Now, a little housekeeping.
I’m about halfway through our next Writer’s Workshop, so if nothing collapses or goes awry this week, I should be publishing it next wee. However, I reserve the right to delay publishing the post for an additional week. I want to stay on schedule, but you know…life.
Prompts
These prompts are from my book, What Would Your Character Do? They’re designed to give you some momentum if you ever find yourself stuck in a scene. If these five prompts don’t work for you, hang tight! You’ll get another five in a week, or you could just buy, or check out, the book to pick from over 500 more!
If you're stuck in a scene, try to have your character:
1. Leave the room suddenly
2. Discover someone's weakness and use it against them
3. Offer support to someone in pain or in trouble
4. Find that something is not where it should be
5. Interrupt a conversation
Give those prompts time to marinate, and if they’re not doing it for you, you’ll get five more next week!
News
(Click title links for the source articles)
Book Deals: Week of August 24, 2020 - Publisher’s Weekly
I’m listing the link for the book deals published in Publisher’s Weekly this week above, but honestly, from an “actionable insights to learn more about the industry” perspective, they’re rather dull announcements because the author is either a veteran author, or highly specialized in their profession, or outright famous.
So instead, we’re going to look at some of the book deal announcements made in Publisher’s Marketplace, which is a subscription-based service. Now, I’m just plucking a few to share with you, but I’m going to do so from the perspective of a film/TV development executive. This way, you can get a sense of how this optioning process often works in real life. So, in addition to the books that I’d be getting from lit. agents and book scouts as a development executive, I’d probably scan the deals list frequently and have my assistant arrange to get pre-publication copies of the books for our production company or studio.
When the ARCs came in, they’d go to an in-house, or more likely freelance, Reader for coverage. I might have my assistant do the coverage if they had the bandwidth and I trusted their taste.
So, here are a few of the books I’d request and why (and yes, sometimes a development executive’s notes are just this brief.)
**Paula’s Picks from the Publisher’s Marketplace Deals - Week of August 24, 2020:**
(NOTE - These all presume pre-COVID budgets and greenlighting. Few of these would be feasible with the increase costs of COVID-mitigation)
Amanda Jayatissa's MY SWEET GIRL, about a young woman who swears she saw her roommate's murder and fears it's tied to her childhood in Sri Lanka, even as authorities question whether her roommate ever existed in the first place, to Jen Monroe at Berkley, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, by Melissa Danaczko at Stuart Krichevsky Agency (world).
— I like that it’s a YA mystery with an international, possibly #ownvoices angle. Could be a Co-Production for Netflix, if we can get a really good English Dub.
Erin Bledsoe's QUEEN OF THIEVES, pitched as a gender-bent Peaky Blinders meets Ocean's 8, about London's first female gang—a group of high-stakes shoplifters who robbed the city's classiest department stores in the 1920s—and the woman who comes to rule it, to Addi Black at Blackstone Publishing, by Carrie Pestritto at Laura Dail Literary Agency (world English).
— Love this! It sounds so fun, so fresh, I love the comps, and #girlpower to boot? And it’s a period piece…yes, please!
Author of the forthcoming THE LAST GARDEN IN ENGLAND Julia Kelly's THE LAST DEBUTANTES, about three of the final women to be presented to Queen Elizabeth, each of whom navigate a changing London society in 1958, to Kate Dresser at Gallery, in a two-book deal, by Emily Sylvan Kim at Prospect Agency (world).
— I love the 3-POV perspective on a fading aristocratic tradition. And it gives us more of “The Crown” without its budget.
Columbia MFA graduate Adam White's THE MIDCOAST, about two families in small-town Maine, one of whom rises from lobstermen to inexplicable wealth, while the other wonders—jealously at first, then suspiciously—how it all came to pass; in an interrogation of class, privilege, and the American Dream, pitched as similar to Ozark and Richard Russo's EMPIRE FALLS, to Jillian Buckley at Hogarth, in a pre-empt, by Kirby Kim at Janklow & Nesbit (world English).
— I immediately thought of Empire Falls after I read the first sentence! The lobsterman-underworld angle is fresh, Maine is under-done as a setting (but could be expensive to film), and the built-in mystery and underlying message is great!
Okay, well, that was fun! But more importantly, was it helpful in understanding a bit more of what makes a book or property appealing to film & TV execs?
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AI And Creativity Update: A Voice Double Conversation Featuring Joanna Penn And Mark Leslie Lefebvre
In 2020, we have seen an acceleration of AI with the release of GPT-3 for natural language processing and generation, as well as the development of ever more sophisticated voice recognition and creation. In this episode, Mark Leslie Lefebvre and Joanna Penn share a conversation between their Voice Doubles and their thoughts on the ramifications.
I’m linking to this podcast because when I heard the conversation that Joanna and Mark had, using their voice doubles, the reality of how GPT-3—the most advanced AI language available—may come to impact storytelling of all sorts, really hit home for me. It all sounded so eerily realistic, you just knew that we’d hit a turning point. Throw COVID into the mix, and the way we create and tell stories is going to change fundamentally and fast, so I’ll be talking more about this in upcoming newsletters, and hopefully, in an Industry Deep Dive.
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AI Storytelling Game May Expand Publishing’s Horizons
Interactive storytelling took a quantum leap forward this year, as a video game called AI Dungeon has served more than 18.5 million customized text-based adventures to more than one million monthly active users, according to its creator, Nick Walton. Powered by an artificial intelligence text generator, the video game can be played on smartphones or computers, offering players a choice of five genres: fantasy, mystery, apocalyptic, zombies, or cyberpunk.
At the beginning of each game, the AI generates the first lines of a unique and genre-specific adventure—prompting players to type in their next actions. Players can type whatever they want, and the AI storyteller responds and adapts the adventure. There’s even an audio function, in which an AI-generated voice narrates the story as it unfolds. Though AI Dungeon’s storytelling powers are still evolving, it has the potential to change the way video games and other kinds of intellectual property are developed.
“The fundamental problem with traditional games is that the developer has to handcraft every single piece,” Walton explained. “That really limits what kind of characters, quests, or worldbuilding you have. If you have to write a whole new version of the world for every different major decision a player can make, that just becomes too expensive. But when you have an AI that can fill in all these details, suddenly a whole new set of possibilities opens up.”
I’ve added this piece to compliment the one above.
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Buzzfeed Inks First-Look Deal With Universal TV; Sets First Project With Jenna Bans & Erika Green
Buzzfeed is making an expanded push into television, signing a first-look deal with Universal TV, in which the studio will produce scripted content based on stories and original reporting published by the tech-powered media company.
The two entities have set their first project under the pact, with Jenna Bans, creator/executive producer of NBC/Uni TV’s Good Girls and writer Erika Green.
Written by Green, the project is inspired by Bim Adewunmi’s 2018 BuzzFeed News story “Meet the Women Who Are Building a Better Romance Industry”. It focuses on Black women who are trying to change the romance industry from the inside by challenging the old, predominantly white narratives of who gets to fall in love.
So, I always end up giving these “news” website IP deals with studios a bit of the side-eye. Mashable tried this a while ago, and even optioned a story called, “No Capes,” off of Wattpad for a digital series, but to my knowledge, nothing came of that and then Mashable abandoned their scripted content strategy altogether. (Luckily, the author got a book deal from Wattpad for another property, so all was not lost in the end.)
In any event, yes, web-based news sites can technically be a good source for film & TV IP, but I’ve yet to see it work, at scale unless there’s a podcast in the mix as a part of the source IP. We’ll see…
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‘The Society’ & ‘I Am Not Okay With This’ Canceled By Netflix Due To COVID-Related Circumstances
Netflix has reversed its Season 2 renewal decision for The Society. The YA drama, whose production was impacted by COVID-19, has been canceled and won’t film a second season. Additionally, Netflix has opted not to proceed with a second season of another coming-of-age series, I Am Not Okay With This.
While there had been no official renewal, word is that the comedy-drama I Am Not Okay With This had been quietly picked up for a second season, scripts were written, and it was fully on track to go into production.
The Society was renewed last summer for a second season, which had been slated to premiere in late 2020. Word there is that the delayed season had been eyeing a potential start of filming next month.
Okay, so this is old news by now, but it’s pretty significant. Both shows had plans of one sort or another for a second season, had been pretty well-received, and from third-party assessments, were well-viewed. The fact that they’re shows aimed squarely at a key, younger demographic makes the announcement all the more shocking—to fans, cast & crew, and the producers.
I’ve been reading quite a bit about the new safety regulations that have to be put in place in order for Hollywood to open up and start filming again, and with what I’ve been reading an announcements like this, there will definitely be an impact on the kinds of development that will be happening for a while.
Aside from the obvious—smaller casts and fewer locations—there are other impacts that might affect the kinds of stories you’ll want to write if you’re interested in getting your work optioned. I need a bit more time to synthesize what I’m learning (and hearing from those working in Hollywood), so keep an eye out for more on that later.
Final Thoughts
I’m going to keep this short because I plan to delve more deeply into the topics raised here.
COVID is having a profound affect on the entertainment industry, the likes of which we won’t know—in full—for some time. But there are immediate effects that I’ve discussed here and will continue to review and analyze in future editions.
The topic of AI is far too big a topic to cover in the news roundups, so a deeper analysis will have to wait until we have the bandwidth for a more specialized report. But the stories in today’s episode signal that these changes, enabled and enhanced by AI, are coming fast to both publishing and entertainment.
It’s all scary and exciting at the same time, but we’ll try to make sense of it, here at The Breakdown. If you have thoughts, please do share. And if you find the articles in this newsletter helpful, please consider supporting it once your gift subscription ends or sharing it with a friend or colleague. Either gesture goes a long way towards enabling what we’re trying to do.
Until next time!
~ Paula