Vernon Downs/World Gone Water/Garden Lakes/We're So Famous

Every novelist dreams of selling their work to Hollywood-and reserves the right to decry the results-even those of us who write books that don't intuitively translate to the screen. How did they make a movie out of that? is an old party game writers indulge in, their hopeful hearts filled with secret jealousy.

But the answer to how a film is made from what would outwardly seem like a plotless novel reveals the truth that every novel has a narrative structure a seasoned screenwriter can borrow, or choose to work against, or well-drawn characters that the hired gun can drop into circumstance. Hopefully both.

For these screen adaptations of the standalone novels in my trilogy featuring Charlie Martens-Vernon Downs, World Gone Water, and Garden Lakes-I was interested in something else entirely: a thematic adaptation of each that captures the essence of the novels while completely reimagining them plot-wise. The challenge was the catalyst for wholesale invention and between fits of despair and inspiration, I was able to find my through the material in a way that honored the books, but also reinvented them.

If nothing else, these are my best answers to that old writerly party game. --Jaime Clarke