Literature's Zone of Silence by Poppy Gee

What “great literary influence” do you secretly think is overrated—but are afraid to say publicly?

I am afraid to publish the following thoughts. So here goes...

We are currently living in an era when the veneer of Western civility is permanently rusted and corroded by the decision of Western governments to ignore or assist in the carnage being inflicted on innocent people who happen to live in a place we call the Middle East. 

How writers choose to write about the world's first livestreamed genocide is interesting. Many will avoid it altogether. In my opinion, there’s space for that. Readers need rom-coms and fun thrillers, heartfelt love poems and transportive historical novels; reading is what will keep us sane in these terrible times. However, it's interesting to look at how the events in Palestine and Israel are finding their way into the literary canon. 

Two books by award winning authors that I recently read that relate to this were The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout and Howl by Howard Jacobson. Both novels left me disappointed. 

In The Things We Never Say, history teacher Artie thinks the world has gone mad. It's Trump's America and 'good people' like Artie feel unanchored, confused about his relationships with the people in his life. It's a compelling read, I gave it four stars on Goodreads. However, this is a book about a man reacting to the atrocities in the world, from Ukraine to Palestine. And yet, in the entire book, the author does not use the word Palestine once. The people from Ukraine are never described as being from Kyiv; yet Palestinian people being ethnically cleansed are only ever referred to as being from Gaza. 

The deliberate choice of wording has the effect of dehumanising a group of people by denying them a nationality. It gives Zone of Interest vibes: Let's pretend Palestine doesn't exist, it's just a group of unruly people in an enclave called Gaza. The fact is, the people who reside in Gaza are mostly refugees, or descended from refugees who once lived in villages on Palestinian land now called Israel. Strout’s authorial decision left me wishing the author had more clarity and courage, especially, and ironically, in a book that aspires to delve into the mysteries of 'the things we never say'. 

Howl is written by an award-winning Jewish author. I'm reluctant to criticise a Jewish author - the world is a tough place for many Jewish people right now. However, Howl was a book that left me cold. Howl is about a primary school headmaster, Ferdinand, who is preoccupied with the idea that October 7, and the world's reaction to the carpet bombing that followed it, stems solely from antisemitism. The character is understandly upset and heartbroken about Israeli suffering but, quite confoundingly to me, has zero empathy for any of the Palestinian people murdered or displaced. Their suffering barely merits a mention. In this book, anyone in the pro-Palestine movement is ignorant, uninformed, a likely lunatic, and unquestionably antisemitic. The author has no intention at any stage of interrogating this ludicrous idea. 

The most potentially interesting character is Ferdinand's daughter Zoe. Zoe is the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, and she attends pro-Palestine rallies. This is an interesting intersection for a character, especially as the daughter of a rigid man of limited empathy. And yet, Zoe barely gets any page time. We don't get to know her at all. Instead, the novel reads like a cold hearted rant. Howl is a good name for this book; but perhaps it would have been better to give it an empathetic rewrite and call it Sorrow. 

I recently read The Paradise Pact, an excellent, smart rom-com by Anita Heiss, in which the main character Abbey, a Wiradyuri woman, is searching for the man of her dreams. Notably, she's single because her relationship failed due to that particular man not caring about Palestine. This plot point is plausible, timely, honest and humane. Similarly, Hailstones Fell Without Rain by Natalia Figuero Barroso is about a Urguayan-Australian woman Rita who returns to her family's ancestral land. She's distressed about Palestine, and draws parallels between genocide in all three countries. Randa Abdel-Fattah wrote her novel Discipline about the consequences faced by an academic and a journalist for speaking up during Israel's bombardment of Gaza during Ramadam 2021. The Sunbird by Sara Haddad is about a Nakba survivor in her eighties, living in Sydney, reflecting on her childhood in Palestine before her family were expelled in 1948. These examples are recently published novels, that are not solely about Palestine, but portray a character who is explicitly aware of the profound moral failure that is happening in the the world right now. 

Why does it make me scared to write a blog about this topic? 

When a person speaks about this topic, there is a consequence. One small example of this, for me, has been 'unfollows' on social media from writer colleagues, family members, and even dear friends who attended my wedding. These are people who would, if they saw me in the street, cross the road and greet me with a hug... that was until I said, 'stop the genocide in Palestine'. 

When our current literature is studied in the future, readers will study absences and nuances. Just like how we ask: Why did Jane Austin only vaguely refer to the institution of slavery? How does antisemitism appear in The Great Gatsby? Why was Bertha hidden in the attic in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre? Most Australian university English Majors my age have read Patrick White's Fringe of Leaves, in which he has a white woman living with the Butchulla people who indulge in cannibalism, rape and enslavement - all horrendous things he made up, with no basis in fact. His work is now regarded as racist, colonial propaganda laundered with exquisitely beautiful prose. 

Back to the question, what great literary influence is overrated? I think it’s when award winning authors get attention for publishing books that are intellectually and emotionally lazy, or reckless, in how they address the issue. As educated readers and writers in 2026, we all know better. And when you know better, you have to do better.

 

11. Ignore Elmore Leonard, by Catriona

 What “great literary influence” do you secretly think is overrated—but are afraid to say publicly?

completely gratuitous pic of boxset
because I love it.

Right then.

I've got a problem with "overrated". It either means "too many people like this thing I don't like" or it means "the people who like this thing I kinda like like it more than me, which is too much". 

The second one is bonkers. The first is worse. If someone's going to mount a serious argument that fewer people should like something, I want a list of names. I want an alphabetical list of the people who should disdain the thing instead of holding it in esteem. And then I want an orderly explanation of how come the list maker is in charge of these strangers' preferences.

There's an exception, mind you. I don't think people should be rated at any level at all as Great Literary Influences, if they fall into this category. I'll explain. One - maybe the only - drawback to hanging out at lovely gossipy Harrogate last week was finding out which celebrities have put their names on crime novels despite not writing them. So annoying. I'm not listing them here but I will say that Richard Coles, Graham Norton and Sir Richard of Osman himself DO write their books.

There's one other Great Literary Influence I think is overrated, in that it does actual harm to people's creative life. I hinted at it in the title. If I can use "hinted" to mean, shone a klieglight on it and drew arrows. It's Elmore Leonard's 10 rules of writing. You know what I mean. "Don't start with the weather". "No adverbs". "No prologues". Pfft. Do what you want, I say. Learn to do it well. 

And I'm not alone. Nick Hornby has views on rules about writing. He speaks kindly but firmly about the fetishisation of cutting, to end up with lean prose, in particular. "That clinking noise you hear" he says, "is a class full of creative-writing students hitting bone". Then he slyly points out how improbable it would be if every story really was perfectly itself, peak and pinnacle wise, at 80K. He suggests that 80K being the sweet spot for a literary novel might - just might - be a factor. He doesn't say everyone should wind their necks in and/or get over themselves. That's me.

The truth, I reckon, is that brilliant books start with weather, adverbs have their place, prologues are absolutely fine (although I personally like short ones). And when it comes to "omitting needless words" as Strunk and White command . . . pfft again. For every Claire Keegan, there's a Donna Tartt.  

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Let It Grow by Eric Beetner

 What “great literary influence” do you secretly think is overrated—but are afraid to say publicly?

It’s been a fascinating thing to watch my two daughters navigate through high school and see what the reading assignments were. I was dismayed to see that the standard curriculum hadn’t changed much since I was in high school in the mid-80s. 

I had to hear endlessly about how bad The Old Man And The Sea was. How The Great Gatsby was “meh”. How To Kill A Mockingbird wasn’t as good as the movie.

It becomes a slippery slope when discussing literature of any kind because I feel the need to acknowledge that books written in the 1800s simply don’t have the relevance to readers in the 21st century, while at the same time accepting the universality of certain story tropes and themes and basic human emotions in those same books. I think everyone should have a decent working knowledge of Shakespeare, if only because so many cultural reference still abound about his works. Do I think they have the same impact, as written, in 2026 as they did back then or even a hundred years ago? Not even close. They’re nearly impenetrable with a Gen Z reader.

Language evolves, and it should. More often than not those who lament over changing grammatical standards or newly invented slang creeping into common usage will also cling to the language of their youth, ignoring that their version of "correct" language is a product of change. If you tried to go around speaking in iambic pentameter because you felt that was the truest expression of the English language, then you would miss out on language’s primary goal: to be understood.

All that is to say, I think most of the “great” novels that are still studied and handed out to students in both the high school and collegiate level are overrated. You will still find young readers identifying with Holden Caulfield, but they would also love The Perks Of Being A Wallflower. Jane Austen fans would probably also love Wolf Hall. Frankenstein can be a slog, but if you want horror than it relevant than look at the work Stephen Graham Jones is doing these days, or recent Pulitzer winner Daniel Kraus. 

Any number of 21st century novels can claim just as much literary relevance as something 200 years old, and will likely speak more to a young reader’s experience and therefore make them more invested than, say, hunting for a white whale in 1840.

I find counterculture novels fall out of relevance quite quickly since they speak so much to the times in which they were written. Sorry, On The Road. Similarly, Hunter S. Thompson was fun to read when I was 20, but even then it was a relic of the past. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test seems like a cautionary tale these days and not a call to action. And Howl is just too damn long and someone should have said it back then.

And maybe, just maybe, we shouldn’t put quite so much stock in writers who were being paid by the word. Dickens can get a little wordy, and there’s a reason. Or writers who had literally nothing else to do during a long Russian winter except muse about War and Peace for 1200 pages.

Just as writing evolves, language changes and reacts to a dynamic world and different times, so should our examples of “great” or “Important” writing. To exclude modern-day writers is to cheat readers out of that one book that will make them fall in love with words. Talk to any high schooler and they’ll tell you in florid language how much and how often assigned reading killed any love of reading. And when you kill it young, it often never grows back.

Literary Heresy, Cheerfully Committed

 

  

What “great literary influence” do you secretly think is overrated—but are afraid to say publicly?

 

Here’s my career-limiting confession.

 

I don’t think the most overrated literary influence is Shakespeare. Or Austen. Or Joyce.

 

I think it’s the idea of the canon itself.

 

Not because the canon is full of bad books. Far from it. But we treat it as though it descended from Sinai engraved on stone tablets rather than assembled, revised, argued over, marketed, anthologized, and taught by generations of critics, professors, publishers, and readers.

 

I came to that conclusion because of crime fiction.

 

People often lump Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler together because both wrote hard-boiled detective novels. That’s like saying Hemingway and Keats both wrote in English.

 

Hammett is to Hemingway as Chandler is to Keats.

 

Hammett strips language to the bone. Every sentence earns its keep. Chandler revels in metaphor, rhythm, and lyricism. One reports. The other performs.

 

Or, to borrow from journalism, Hammett is Jimmy Breslin while Chandler is Pete Hamill. Both wrote about the same world. One chased blunt force; the other chased music.

 

That, to me, is influence.

 

Hammett gave writers permission to be lean, unsentimental, and ruthlessly economical. Chandler gave them permission to be lyrical without sacrificing toughness. One proved detective fiction could achieve power through restraint. The other proved it could aspire to poetry. I mix both in my own writing.

 

Those influences matter to me far more than whether someone has a permanent reservation in an English department.

 

Which is why I admire plenty of canonical writers.

 

I just don’t worship them. Some leave me cold.

 

Moby-Dick? Half novel, half encyclopedia on whales.

 

Ulysses? I respect it more than I enjoy it.

 

Dostoevsky makes me want to open a vein.

 

If Tolstoy spends one more page describing a wheat field, I’m going to turn into that fellow inside the The Scream painting.

 

And yes, I once announced in a university classroom that Whitman was overrated—and something of a marketing genius. He self-published Leaves of Grass repeatedly, kept revising it, and famously “borrowed” Emerson’s private praise as promotional copy.

 

That’s not just poetry. That’s branding.

 

For the record, I do think Whitman is America’s great poet of death. Greatness and sainthood aren’t the same thing.

 

My professors were… less amused than I was.

 

That experience taught me something.

 

We often mistake fame for influence, influence for quality, and quality for whatever appears most often on a syllabus.

 

The bestseller lists of a century ago are mostly forgotten. Marketing fades. Fashion changes. Literary reputations rise and fall. Yet we’re remarkably confident that today’s canon represents objective truth rather than generations of critics, teachers, publishers, and institutions deciding what deserves to survive.

 

Education ought to teach us to argue with evidence. Too often it teaches us whom not to argue with because it is heretical to question indoctrination. Literature isn’t a religion.

 

It’s a conversation, and not a contest as to what deserves the capital L in literature.

 

Genre suffers in this false hierarchy. We still talk as though “literary” fiction occupies a higher plane than crime, mystery, fantasy, or science fiction.

 

I don’t buy it. Genre isn’t a lesser form. It’s simply a framework of rules. Violate them at your peril. The artistry lies in what the writer accomplishes within its rules.

 

Here’s another small heresy.

 

I genuinely enjoy Jane Austen, but I have ‘issues’ with Miss Austen. She largely erases the human cost of the Napoleonic Wars. Officers in Persuasion and Pride & Prejudice discuss prize money. Empire hums politely in the background without criticism. That’s a perfectly legitimate artistic choice, but it reminds us that every writer—even a canonical one—has blind spots.

 

Which brings me back to the question: What’s overrated?

 

The notion that the canon is beyond questioning.

 

The older I get, the less I am interested in inherited opinions and the more I am interested in discovering my own.

 

The book that changed your life at sixteen may disappoint you at fifty. The one you ignored for decades may suddenly become indispensable. Perhaps you weren’t ready to receive it. That’s not inconsistency or a flaw. That’s growth.

 

There are more books than any of us could read in ten lifetimes.

 

Read widely. Read recklessly. I say, read outside the syllabus or in the internet chatter.

 

The greatest instrument of literary rebellion has never been a banned book.

 

It’s a library card.

Over and Over Again

 

How do you avoid repeating yourself? Do you reinvent your approach to storytelling, or do you lean into what already worked and risk creative stagnation?

I’m working on what I hope will be my next novel, I have had to confront this issue quite a bit. What I found is I have a love affair with the weather in my writing. To be fair, it might actually be an obsession. Not the horrible Toxic Love Story kind of obsession. More like, I really love this character and want to write for them always, obsession. And that’s fine, I think, but I ask you, how many ways are there to describe the menace of a sudden winter storm racing down an icy mountain top to ravish an unsuspecting victim clinging desperately to a frozen branch to survive a wind that has suddenly grown sharp teeth? A lot, apparently. And it’s my job, as the writer, to explore every single one of them. If I want my writing to stay interesting. But how?

I find that when my writing feels a bit stale and moldy, like that loaf of bread that keeps dying on the top of my fridge, it’s time to switch it up. Time to get outside and let myself become refreshed by the conversations flowing around me. Sometimes plucking an interesting or funny turn of phrase from an overheard conversation, or song, or even the gentleman at the end of my street, who has been enjoying a one-on-one conversation with the air for as long as I can remember. Is that stealing? I don’t know, but public transportation has been a well of inspiration for many a character in need of a refresh.

And finally, I found inspiration in, no tomatoes please, television and movies. I am a visual person. When I write, I am writing what I see in my mind. When my mind is covered in fog, my writing follows. But, somehow, seeing the scenery in a show in a fantastic location, like Shetland or meeting a cool, interesting character like DCI Carl Morck from Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Dept Q, shoots a spark directly to the center of my creative spirit that pushes me back on course.

Reading, listening to music, yoga, breathing, a walk on the beach, there’s so many ways a writer can jumpstart that creative spark when it grows dim, but the one thing I find I cannot do is read in the genre I’m writing. Mainly to avoid any unintentionally thievery, if you will, but also not to psyche myself out by engaging in unhelpful and often false comparisons.

I wonder if I’m alone in this practice? Do other authors limit what they are reading while writing in the same genre? Or am I alone on Paranoia Island?

From what I’ve seen, writers have as many rituals as athletes when it comes to getting that book from t brain to paper. Some we’re aware of, some have become so ingrained we don’t even notice anymore. In the end, it all comes down to whatever works!

Happy Endings by Faye Snowden

Do you prefer endings that solve everything neatly, or ones that leave moral or emotional questions unresolved—and have you ever changed an ending because you were afraid of reader backlash?

In 1983, Margaret Atwood published a short story called Happy Endings, a meta tale about the craft of writing where readers are allowed to select the type of ending they want. Think of a choose-your-own adventure story. Happy Endings begins with these words. 

John and Mary meet.

What happens next?

If you want a Happy Ending, try A. 

Choice A is the shortest most boring of all with John and Mary both falling blissfully in love. They marry and buy a charming house and live happily together for a long, long time. Atwood ends Choice A with these words. “Eventually they die. This is the end of the story.”

John and Mary: Happy, but boring.

Choice A is one many readers, including me, would skip. Who would read 300+ pages about a happy life? Tell us about the time the roof caved in during a storm, or when Mary backed over the family dog while trying to escape the house after John confronted her about her habit of drinking three whisky sours before dinner, and red wine until she passed out after they ate whatever pabulum their hired cook sat on the table. We don’t read for happy endings. We read for drama and angst and bloody complications. In crime fiction its chaos and murder compelling us to turn the page. 

Now the other choices in Atwood’s story! That’s where the real fun begins. In Choice B John and Mary meet but it’s a one-sided love affair. Choice C tells the story of a May-December romance where Mary sleeps with John because she feels sorry for him. Her decision eventually leads to a twisty and brutal outcome. There are more choices in Happy Endings, but every single one refers the reader back to Choice A where John and Mary eventually die. As Atwood states, A is the “…only authentic choice…John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.”

So, it’s not the ending that matters in writing, but the plot which Atwood describes as the what, and what next, the how, and the why. In crime fiction, the ‘what’ or primary story consists of the crime (usually a murder) and the victim. There are clues and a villain to catch amid complications and reversals. The writer is obligated to ‘play fair’ so the reader has a chance to figure out the killer before the end of the book. When I write genre fiction I don’t leave loose ends in the ‘what’ because I want my reader to have a shot at winning the game.

It’s the ‘why’ part of the story that’s up for grabs. The ‘why,’ tightly entwined with the ‘what’ consists of my character’s internal struggle, their unmet desires, and vocal demons. This psychological darkness drives the plot, compels the ‘what next.’ The ‘why’ is where I place the most ambiguity. Will Raven, my detective protagonist, ever be able to live her own life without being tortured by the ghost of her serial killer father? Will she ever learn that she can’t run from herself? These questions aren’t neatly answered, but don’t worry. If you ever want to know the end of the story, refer back to Happy Endings. Run your finger down the page; stop when you reach Choice A. 

Put a Bow on That from James W. Ziskin

Do you prefer endings that solve everything neatly, or ones that leave moral or emotional questions unresolved—and have you ever changed an ending because you were afraid of reader backlash?

 

 

Thinking about this week’s question, I came to the realization that lots—if not most—of novels leave elements unresolved. Gone are the days of “they all lived happily ever after.” Unless you’re talking about a series, most books leave questions at the end.

Take Gone with the Wind. “After all, tomorrow is another day” is hardly a pat conclusion. It suggests that there’s more to come for Scarlett, and we’re not sure how things will turn out for her.

The Grapes of Wrath ends not with the Joads settled into a new life, but sheltering in a barn with a starving old man. What happens to them when the rain lets up? We’re left wondering if their wandering will ever end.

But why do novels leave us asking questions? Because it’s smart. It’s art imitating life. A story only truly ends if all the characters are dead. Nothing more to see here. I mentioned the happily-ever-after endings above. There was a time for those, but the post-modern era isn’t it. Just as we no longer gambol around the maypole to the lute and viola da gamba. (Except at Renaissance fairs.) Remember when bell-bottoms were in fashion? Tastes change, and book endings aren’t immune.

Which brings me to the endings of my own stories. Since the Ellie Stone books are a series, the endings are neatly tied up The questions related to the crimes are resolved, even if Ellie might have issues remaining in her own arc. Bombay Monsoon, on the other hand, ends with a major teaser and lots of questions. You’ll just have to read it.

In less than a week (July 28, 2026), my ninth novel, THE PRANK, hits the shelves. It’s Christmas in July! Here’s the set-up: A middle school teacher is accidentally killed by a prank carried out by his students, setting in motion a series of fateful events that threatens to tear a community apart. 

You might be tempted to think I was inspired by the recent tragedy in Georgia involving a high school teacher killed accidentally by a student prank. (Truth is stranger than fiction.) Yes, that’s the same inciting incident that sets my story in motion, after all. Not a typical opening for a crime novel. And yet, the horrific story from Georgia happened four years after I started writing this book. I remember telling my students about it at the time. They loved the idea, and all wanted me to name the characters after them.

So what about THE PRANK? Does it end with everything tied up in a bow? I’m going to plead the Fifth. You’ll have to read it to find out.

**********

THE PRANK…enigmatic and unnerving. The pace never flags for a second. This is some masterly plotting. I loved it.”

—Liz Nugent, author of Strange Sally Diamond

 

“The Holdovers meets The Bad Seed,”

THE PRANK. A picture clipped from Playboy magazine, a missing Swiss Army Knife, and a prank gone terribly wrong conspire to make Christmas 1968 a deadly holiday to remember.

From two-time Edgar Award finalist, Anthony, Barry, and Macavity award-winner James W. Ziskin, THE PRANK releases July 2026.

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Loose Ends Dangling

Do you prefer endings that solve everything neatly, or ones that leave moral or emotional questions unresolved—and have you ever changed an ending because you were afraid of reader backlash?

By Dietrich

There’s something satisfying in the neat endings in those classic detective novels: the villain gets his comeuppance, the hero grows, justice prevails, and we close the book with a contented sigh. The loose ends are tied, the emotional arcs resolve, and the moral questions get answered. It seems natural to crave resolution.

Yet some of my favorite stories refuse to give easy answers, written by authors who don’t write tidy endings. They write character-driven stories where lines blur, justice gets messy, and endings often leave the reader with lingering moral questions. Unresolved endings invite the reader to keep wrestling with the ideas long after the last page. 

I haven’t diluted an ending because it might upset somebody. Pandering can backfire, and readers can smell inauthenticity. The stories that endure are the ones that stay true, even if they push a few buttons. I like to think of it as staying artistically committed. Changing course mid-stream in anticipation of appeasing squeamish readers risks creating something bland, and that satisfies no one.

If a story is meant to be hopeful, a more resolved ending might be the best choice. If it’s dark, leaving questions open is often the way to go. Integrity to the premise is what counts, not the fear of an angry mob.

Sometimes endings can do a bit of both: provide enough emotional closure for the core arc while leaving bigger philosophical or moral questions open. The protagonist defeats the immediate threat but carries the scars and doubts. The romance works out, but we sense the characters will face a few complications. 

The best stories don’t just end—they linger. In its final scene, The Sopranos cuts to black mid-scene. Books like The Remains of the Day leave you haunted by what wasn’t said or decided. 

Here are a few classic crime tales that satisfy that craving for a neat ending where justice prevails and every loose end is tied up: the whodunits of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers; locked-room mysteries like The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr, or early detective classics like The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Modern crime tales can deliver that sense of a neat ending, combining contemporary settings and high-stakes tension with the orderly resolutions of classic Golden Age mysteries. Example: Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Mysteries, The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith, The Winter of Frankie Machine by Don Winslow and Cop Hater by Ed McBain.

Then there are books that shift away from the neat ending— stories where lines blur, justice is messy, and endings leave you with lingering moral questions. They capture that balance of gripping crime and complex, open-ended resolution. Examples include The Turnaround by George Pelecanos, Mystic River by Dennis Lehane, and The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy.

One book I’m looking forward to is Lisa de Nikolits’ That Time I Killed You. It proves that getting away with murder is just a game. Janis Wheeler survived her abusive past by burning it down, but sixteen years later, the ashes are blowing back over her perfect suburban life. It's a dark comic noir where the murder might feel resolved, but the domestic fallout is only just beginning.

Tidy vs. Messy

 

Terry here with our question of the week: Do you prefer endings that “solve” everything neatly, or ones that leave moral or emotional questions unresolved—and have you ever changed an ending because you were afraid of reader backlash?

I think when you’re writing crime fiction, you have to admit that there will always be unresolved questions. Most mysteries, from cozy, to thriller, to suspense involve murder. The question is not just who committed the crime, but why. Someone will (usually) be found guilty, with a good assessment of what drove them to murder. But even a solved crime leaves behind family and community victims who suffer from the perpetrator’s actions. Emotional and moral questions are often left unresolved. What will happen to the family of the man who killed a colleague? What will happen to the friends of the woman who killed her lover in a jealous rage? How will they cope? What will their lasting scars be? No matter how tidy the resolution is, there are those unresolved issues. 

 In my latest Samuel Craddock book, at the end the chief faces a dilemma. If he arrests the person he knows committed the crime, there will be shock waves throughout the perpetrators friends and family, and others will be at risk. Craddock has a dark night of the soul, realizing that he and his deputy maybe be targeted as well. He doesn’t know how to resolve the issue, not because he fears for his own life, but he fears for those who will be targeted because of their proximity to the guilty party. 

In the book, the dilemma does get resolved, but I sometimes think I pulled punches with the solution. I didn’t do it because I was afraid of a reader backlash, but because it seemed that the reader was owed a solution of sorts. I liked the solution, but I was still intrigued with the idea that if I had ended it differently, the book would have been open-ended. That is, the people who were at risk would have remained at risk. There would have been no resolution. 

I think unresolved issues are a matter of the ambiguity of justice. Craddock usually understands why someone committed a murder, and may even feel empathy for the perpetrator. But justice demands that the killer must pay society for what he or she has done. However, justice may not always be satisfactory. Someone who commits murder may leave behind a family facing loss of income, loss of nurturing parent, loss of status in the community, and an uncertain future. He may leave a community shattered because they held the killer in high esteem, and were shocked by his crime. There’s no resolution to this outcome, no matter how satisfying it may be for the reader to find out “who did it.” 

 As for the second part of the question, no I have never changed an ending for fear of reader backlash, and I never will. Nor will I ever not write about something because I think it might offend people. I’ve written two books on difficult subjects—dog fighting, and abortion. I knew some people would have trouble with both. I had trouble writing them. I wanted to give the characters full recognition, while acknowledging the feelings of the characters on more than one side of the issue. I still had reviewers that weren’t happy, but most readers, regardless of their thoughts on the subject, wrote that I had been fair. 

The only reason I’ve ever changed an ending—and this has happened often—is that my agent said she thought I wasn’t “done.” In two cases I can think of, I actually changed the identity of the killer because I realized I had “pulled my punches,” pinning the crime on someone more palatable as a perpetrator. I was hard when I recognized that I was shielding someone I didn’t actually want to be guilty.

Film v Book by Poppy Gee

What is a film adaption that you believe is actually better than the original novel and why?

I’ve just finished watching Off Campus which is based on the books by Elle Kennedy. The series is brilliant. I haven’t read the books and probably won’t, only becuase they’re YA and I’m not the target audience. But the show is fantastic. Romantic, very funny and addictive romance tropes? Tick. A gorgeous, hedonistic cast of diverse characters? Tick. Relationships and friendships that empower? Tick. A male heartthrob whose attractiveness is anchored in the fact that he embodies trust, consent, kindness and thoughtfulness? Tick.

But the online comments are not all positive about the film adaptation. The Off Campus books series have die-hard fans and passionate fans aren't shy in expressing their frustrations at inconsistencies. Gripes include new characters being added, characters being cut, characters having different hair styles to what they do in the books, sex scenes being too hot, or not hot enough, and even Garrett’s tattoos being different. There are sweetly smug Instagram tiles circulating saying things like: 'The people who only watched the show will never know why Garrett hates Halloween'. When a reader falls in love with a book, they become a deeply faithful lover. 

One of the best movies based on a book I’ve seen is Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain. One of the reasons that this beautiful, despairing love story about two cowboys on a Wyoming mountainside works so well as a film is because the original Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx is not novel length. It was first published in the New Yorker in 1997 as a short story. Later, Proulx published an expanded version in a collection of short stories called Close Range: Wyoming Stories.

There isn’t a lot of dialogue in the book, and most of it appears in the film, which is satisfying. The dialogue is tender and devastating, with haunting lines like:

“I wish I knew how to quit you.”

Set in 1963, it’s a tale of despair, yearning, loneliness, love and masculinity. Two nineteen-year-old ranch boys get jobs herding sheep on Brokeback Mountain. They fall in love in an era when people were murdered for being homosexual. They decide to keep their relationship a secret and they both marry women. The story becomes about the endurance, power and the devastating price some people pay for love.

“We don’t really have a relationship. It’s just Brokeback Mountain.”

Annie Proulx has said that she “might be the first writer in America to have a piece of writing make its way to the screen whole and entire”.  Her evocative descriptions of rural Wyoming are beautifully realised on the screen. Wide plains, snowcapped mountains, wild forests and small-town rodeos and bars… watching this movie is like seeing your imagination laid out before you in magnificent technicolor.

Director Ang Lee doesn't need to cut anything from Annie Proulx's work. Pleasingly, he adds emotional depth and sublime visuals, he fleshes out the side-characters of the two unhappy wives, and he uses music to heighten our emotions. Adapting short stories is how, in my opinion, much-loved prose can be adapted to film in a way that will satisfy even the most ardent fan. 

I forgot about Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation! by Catriona

What is a film adaptation that you believe is actually better than the original novel—and why? 

I quite like films. I watch one every Saturday night (movie night, right?) when I'm not out, and I try to go to the pictures every week. Usually manage it too: there's an independent cinema plus a Regal in town; a bigger indie in Scaramento that shows classics and Live from the Met (which doesn't count as a movie though); plus with a bit of planning there's the Roxy in San Francsisco.

It helps that I don't mind going to the pictures on my own if none of my movie-watching buddies fancies what's on. I couldn't persuade anyone else into The Zone of Interest, and I watched Petit Maman alone too, for different reasons. One drawback is the large category of horror films too scary for everyone else and too scary for me to watch without someone to clutch. I've missed a lot of bangers because of this.

All of which is to say that it's not because I'm not into movies that I've found it so hard to come up with answers to this question. It's just that I love books. Apart from anything else, books get cut to make movies* and - as a lifelong Stephen King fan - I believe more is more. So, even when the film is great - Trainspotting, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Name of the Rose - I'm usually going to think the book is better.

*To make good movies they do. I think the problem with the recent adaptation of The Thursday Murder Club is that the adaptor didn't do this. They snipped and trimmed away around the edges of the book and ended up with something that wasn't a functioning complete movie. Unfortunately one of the elements that got pruned with nail scissors until it collpased was character. It would have been far better, I think, to carve away whole subplots leaving a well-shaped cinematic piece. And then people could have scampred off to the library and found more to love.

My first choice of three movies I think is better than the book it came from (finally!) relates to this. 

84 Charing Cross Road is a very short book and most of it gets into the film, so the only extra treat when you read it is the epxerience of reading. Ordinarily that's enough but this book is epistolary and the letters make it into the film where they are read by Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. Those voices! Even if you don't eat popcorn there's no contest. 

Hear me out! I adore Austen's Sense and Sensibility. I adore all six of her completed mature novels. I adore her juvenalia and could weep for what she was writing and would have written next when she died so young. But. Emma Thompson's adaptation of S&S is a masterclass in axe-wielding and in brio. She gets rid of big characters - Lucy Steele's pointless sister, the dull lady Middleton - and she gives purpose to Margaret Dashwood, who comes tumbling off the screen in a way she never did off the page, and turns Mr Palmer into a hoot. Then there's the casting. Marianne Dashwood, put off hunks for life after what that scoundrel Willoughby did, still marrys Colonel Brandon but in the film he's Alan Rickman. I put it to you that there's not a straight woman or gay man in the world who'd rather be coming out of that country church with Greg Wise.

And then there's Die Hard, which is in the I-never-knw-it-was-a-book zone mostly. It was a workaday action thriller in the 70s, then in the 80s it changed action thrillers forever. Since Die Hard, every decent thriller has humour. Since Die Hard, everyone has a favourite Christmas movie, because people who always hated Christmas movies have Die Hard now. Since Die Hard, every man who loathes dressing up has a Halloween costume he's happy with. 

We won't talk about the sequels, eh?

Cx

Page to screen by Eric Beetner

 What is a film adaptation that you believe is actually better than the original novel—and why?

Let me preface this by saying emphatically that I am not one of the “the book is always better” types. They are two different mediums and should be judged as such. Complaints about all the stuff that gets left out of an adaptation or disagreements with casting of roles is a futile and unworthy discussion. 

But you can judge the two mediums against each other. Is one more satisfying? More impactful? Does more with the core concept?

Two big ones are The Godfather and Jaws. Both massive best sellers in their day, both excellent stories at their centers. Both got film adaptations that surpass the source material.

The Godfather became more focused and personal once we could see the subtlety in the faces of the performances. What verged on caricature on the page, became nuanced and more human on screen.

Likewise with Jaws. A rather simple potboiler in novel form, the film version heightened the frights and the family in equal measure. 

Sometimes the drastic changes that can occur between source material and the screen can kill a movie version, or it can elevate it. John Carpenter’s The Thing is an adaptation of an adaptation and becomes the most successful of the trio. The original short story, Who Goes There? By John W Campbell Jr., is a fine and complex science fiction tale, but gets a rather radical overhaul on screen. The original adaptation, The Thing From Another World (1951) already takes liberties with the story and creates an effective thriller by 1951 standards. Carpenter’s reinterpretation is more paranoid, more intense, bloodier and bolder than the story, while retaining several key set pieces (the blood testing, the unexpected thaw of the creature). But if you’re seeking maximum thrills, go to the 1982 movie before the story.

I’m sure I won’t be the first to cite The Shawshank Redemption as a highly effective adaptation of a perfectly fine short story by Stephen King, but not one that hinted at the truly excellent film that would come of it. King has had more adaptations than any other modern writer and has a pretty low average of quality material, but when they work, they work exceptionally well. A few are also that rare case where they stand on equal footing, like Misery. Great book. Great film. Both tense and thrilling, both leave you fully satisfied. 

I think Jurassic Park edges out the novel by the sheer scope of it. Crichton likes his science talk and that can never compete with 80 foot dinosaurs lunging at us out of the darkness. And everything is made a little bit better with a John Williams score.

Oftentimes a dramatic interpretation of a non-fiction source can elevate the more academic prose of a historical account, say, into high drama that reaches more people. Take Band Of Brothers, the HBO series about WW2. Reading the true story is harrowing enough, but seeing it play out over a limited series with a sprawling cast brings it to life in a way most people would never get from a written account. Homicide: Life In The Streets let writer David Simon expand on his own true-life account of the street-level view of a crime-ridden city into something more expansive and dramatically complex.

Likewise Orange Is The New Black takes the true story of its protagonist and spins out an ensemble series that is larger and more satisfying than the book upon which it is based.

There are also examples of a series running past the plot of a novel and moving into original territory, with middling results. See The Handmaid’s Tale’s later seasons once they’d run out of book.  

The obverse of that trap is when the source material is merely a jumping off point. Elmore Leonard has had his share of film and TV adaptations, but none more successful than the series Justified which is based off a short story that doesn’t seem on its face to be enough to spin out into 6 seasons (and a reboot 7th season). By having the simple setup and open-ended possibility, it turned out to be the perfect property to adapt and gave us one of the all-time great TV characters and shows.

People will always take issue with this or that (“Cruise is too small to play Reacher!”) but even among the complaints you will find dedicated fans of adaptations. Die hard Harry Potter or Lord Of The Rings fans will find quibbles with the films, but still own the box set and show up opening night for the next installment. 

Just remember, they can both exist independently of each other. Your love of one doesn’t diminish the quality of the other. It’s possible to love both for different reasons. And above all, don’t be a jerk about it. Let people love what they love.