Thursday, November 08, 2012

A Conversation with Screenwriter and YA Novelist Leigh Dunlap

Omnimystery News: Author Interview
with Leigh Dunlap

We are delighted to welcome screenwriter — and now young adult novelist — Leigh Dunlap to Omnimystery News today, courtesy of Kelley & Hall Book Publicity.

Leigh's debut novel is the alien thriller Halifax (Publish Green, August 2011 ebook format).

We recently had the opportunity to chat with her about the book, screenplays versus novels, and her love of baseball.

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Omnimystery News: Halifax is the first in a new series. Tell us a bit about it and the characters and how you see it all developing.

Leigh Dunlap
Photo provided courtesy of
Leigh Dunlap

Leigh Dunlap: Halifax is a sci-fi book centered, initially, around a mystery. I intend for the story to span three books following the same five characters. They each have their own particular journey to go on through the series and they each grow in their own way. The leader of the five, "Farrell", will go through the most and I've always intended for him to change the most. He is strong and smart and a leader, but has so much to learn from the others. I love having the space, so to speak, to think about a character for more than one book. Even as a writer, I want to know where they are going and what happens to them beyond one book. All the characters are important to me and they take on a life of their own. I hate the idea of leaving them behind.

OMN: Did you write yourself into any of the characters?

LD: Well, let's see. There are some things I can't deny. My book is set in the San Fernando Valley and I'm a Valley Girl! I grew up there (totally!). The main characters are teenagers and I was once a teenager. And I guess I still act like one. More seriously, I think the general emotions of the characters are things I relate to or have been through whether that is a strained relationship with an ill mother or being in love or wanting to protect someone. I have had absolutely no interaction with aliens whatsoever but it's fun to imagine what that might be like. Even though the book revolves around aliens I still feel the heart of it is really about the relationships between the characters and they are all relationships I have experienced to some degree in my own life and probably a lot of the actions the characters take in that regard are the way I would have handled the same situation. I don't think I'm clever enough to stray too far from what I know emotionally. The interesting part is putting myself and my own history and reactions in a setting I have never (and will never) encounter in my own life.

OMN: You're also a screenwriter. Did you approach writing Halifax from a different perspective than you would a screenplay?

LD: I'm very big on outlines. I call them "maps". After a fairly long period of just thinking about things, I start out with note cards and literally write out everything that happens and every little idea I have and organize the cards into the story. Then I set out to make the "map" which, in the case of a screenplay, entails writing a script that may just have locations or the ideas for scenes or bits and pieces of dialogue. Then I begin to fill it in. A whole scene may just be "big action sequence here" or it might say "missing dialogue". But I get the pacing of it and can judge the length and see what's missing or what doesn't feel right and I just build and build until the "map" is all filled in. Halifax started life as a script, so that script became my "map" for writing the book. When I started working on the second "Halifax" book, I quickly realized I couldn't write it as a book unless it was a script first. That's just how my mind is organized. So Halifax 2 will be a script before it's ever a book. I'm working backwards!

I found the process of writing a novel a real challenge. With screenwriting you have to be brief and convey a lot with a little. I was a bit confounded at first when I sat down to write a novel and realized I was going to have to really describe things. And explain them. And make the reader feel them. Expanding, rather than contracting, was a real chore for me but it was a job I learned to love. When your precious script is turned into a movie you tend to watch all your hard work flushed away. What you write bears little resemblance to what is made after all the people from studio executives to re-writers to actors get their hands on your script. That's the process, though, and a script is not a book. It's a different medium and there's a lot of benefit that comes (most of the time) from having it be a collaborative process. It was very satisfying to write a novel, though, and have it end up being exactly as I wanted it to be, for better or for worse.

OMN: It's probably natural then to think about Halifax being filmed at some point. Any thoughts on who might be in the cast?

LD: Halifax started life as a script and at one time there was funding to make the film. In both cases, while writing the script and the book, I had always imagined an actor named Chandler Massey as the lead "Farrell". He stars in a movie I wrote and produced called 16-Love and just won an Emmy for Days of Our Lives. He's a great actor and a really great person. It made it so easy to envision everything with him in mind. Usually working in movies, though, I tend to keep a really open mind with the characters I write. I don't want to define their looks too much because you want to leave room for a director or casting director to cast whoever works best, not just a certain physical type. So unless it's really important to the story, I try not to describe characters too specifically. I think the same is true for novels. I would rather the reader filled in the blanks in their own mind rather than having me define a look too much.

OMN: You mentioned that you grew up in the San Fernando Valley and that Halifax is set there, too. How true were you to the setting?

LD: It has the general feel of the place but I definitely took a few liberties. There is no quaint "Cahuenga Village", which is a very important setting in the book. The private high school the kids attend is also fictionalized. The rest of it, though, is fairly accurate. It would have been nice if it were set in London or Paris, some place with really recognizable monuments and neighborhoods, but it's not. So the Valley it is! — and I think the relative sort of anonymity of the Valley is good for the book. It would be both an excellent place for aliens and alien hunters to hang out incognito.

OMN: Halifax is a sci-fi thriller. Are these the types of movies you enjoy at well?

LD: I love a range of films, from comedy to drama to indie to sci-fi and sports. I have to say, though, I've always been a big picture, inspirational, heart-felt movie kind of girl. At film school all the other students were into Woody Allen and I was obsessed with Steven Spielberg. I love a movie that tells a story and tugs at your heart at the same time. Like E.T. for example. It's funny and exciting and fantastical but also so human and heart-warming and emotional.

OMN: Does that interest extend to books as well?

LD: Yes, but from a different perspective. I am a sports book nut. That is almost all I've read for the past few years. Mostly because I'm just a sports nut in general. I think stories about teams and athletes are often so inspirational. There is almost always an element of the underdog and some kind of triumph and there are always interesting characters. My favorites are Moneyball and The Blind Side by Michael Lewis and Luckiest Man and Opening Day by Jonathan Eig. There's also a book called The Soul of Baseball by Joe Posnanski that's downright beautiful. I'm also reading a book on George Steinbrenner and R.A. Dickey's autobiography right now. Both are very interesting. I guess I like reading about the real world because that makes it easier for me to disappear into my own fantasy worlds.

OMN: Give us a Top 5 list of science fiction, fantasy, or horror television shows.

LD: 1. Falling Skies: It's filled with great characters who actually look like they battle aliens on the edge of apocalypse. The new show Revolution bothers me so much because everyone looks so clean and healthy. Falling Skies also conveys heart and some strong themes about familial love and support.

2. Game of Thrones: It's bloody and gruesome with some truly loathsome characters, but told with humor and intelligence and a strong current of good vs. evil.

3. True Blood: There is no show on television that has more fun with what it does. Every episode is a crazy, messy joy ride of wrongness.

4. Doctor Who: I'm a particular fan of the David Tennant years, but you can't go wrong with any of the Doctors. It's about all that is good on Earth and out in the universe.

5. Lost: Just ignore the second season and the final episode and you'll be enthralled.

OMN: What's next for your?

LD: I have a couple of pilots I'm trying to develop for television and I'm working away on the second (of three) "Halifax" book. I'm also raising a great kid who's shaping up to be quite a pitcher and will one day, no doubt, run a big league baseball team. So it's all good!

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Leigh Dunlap is the screenwriter behind the hit movie A Cinderella Story starring Hilary Duff. She also wrote Spy Girls, based on the popular teen book series, for producer Lawrence Bender (Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting) and Camp Rockaway for Sony Pictures and producers Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher (Gladiator, Stuart Little). Her project 16-Love starring Lindsey Shaw and Chandler Massey recently finished principal photography. Halifax is Leigh's first novel and combines two of her favorite things to write about — Science Fiction and Romance. Leigh is a graduate of the USC School of Cinema-Television and lives in London, when she can, with her husband and son.

Learn more about Leigh and her work on her website, Leigh-Dunlap.com.

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Halifax by Leigh Dunlap

Halifax
by Leigh Dunlap
Publisher: Publish Green

When the Halifax siblings arrive at Lexham Academy, they don't seem any more or less odd than any other students. They have more important things to do, however, than take exams or find dates for the prom. They have aliens to kill. With the help of his sister Izzy and brother Rom, Farrell Halifax has to stop an escaped alien and save the Earth — though that's hard to do when the captain of the basketball team is after you and you're falling in love with his cheerleader girlfriend — who may or may not be an alien herself. Halifax is a teen Torchwood meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer — with a little bit of The Breakfast Club thrown into the mix.

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