How a Novel Came to Be, Part One

Four and a half years ago, I was approached by the Director of Development for Gil Netter, who won an Oscar for ‘Life of Pi’.  For those readers who do not know the film industry, a development director (DD) plays an enormously important and complex role.  First of all, they choose the stories or scripts that could potentially be shaped into new projects.  Once this process is complete and the screenplay receives a green-light from the board, the DD then handles all preliminary casting and contracts.  Once everything is in place and the stars align, the DD passes the project over to the chief producer and newly hired director, and they start principle photography. 

Like I said, a big job.

This DD contacted me to say he had become a fan of my work; did I have a concept that was big enough, and original enough, to become their next feature?

The answer was yes, maybe, I had a new idea I was playing around with that might fit the bill.  Even so, it took me almost a month to respond. 

The very idea of pitching a story to someone in his position was terrifying.  Finally my wife put her foot down and ordered me, then and there, to make the call. 

She knew if I waited I would successfully manage to delay things another month.  Or year.  This was my first-ever contact with top-tier Hollywood.  I’ll never forget that moment when the phone started ringing…

We were seated in our car in the central-England market town of Witney.  Rain pelted the roof.  Five o’clock on a Friday afternoon, nine in the morning LA time.  A perfect moment for him to not be available.  Which of course I was desperately hoping would happen.

Instead, he answered.  And to make matters worse, he said he had time to hear my pitch.

With my wife listening over the car’s speakers, I laid it out.  Tried to keep my voice steady by keeping a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. 

I described an alternative world where magic was real, and Interpol was tasked with the global policing of Talents – my word for people with magical powers.  The word Talent worked because, except for a very small group of Adepts, wizards generally possessed just one magical ability. 

These Talents loathed Interpol.  The very idea of wizards being policed by the mundane, their powers kept in check by the same laws and principles that were applied to the ungifted, drove them to a constant and never-ending fury.  They used all the money and power at their disposal to have Interpol disbanded.

And then rumors began to surface, of a centuries-old power that had been relegated to the realm of fables, now whispered to be both real and available.  Spells which granted the user the ability to go back in time, remember everything from their previous existence, and change the course of events.  Reshape the global order. 

Two agents were tasked with tracking down the rumors.  Risking their own lives in the process.  Keeping the spells out of the hands of renegade Talents and government agencies who might seek this ultimate weapon for themselves. 

My pitch lasted seven minutes. 

When I was done, there was a long moment of silence, then the words that every author on earth, every artist, dreams of hearing. 

WOW.  I LOVE IT.

He probably didn’t shout the words.  But that was how it sounded inside my head. 

Isabella pried one of my hands off the wheel and pulled it over where she could hold it with both of hers.  We listened to him take this feeble pitch and turn it into something concrete – in his words, a mature fantasy for adults, one that avoided the multitude of cartoonish super-hero stories and the current wave of zombies and vampires.  He urged me to write the novel first, let him go through it, then together we would shape the script. 

Needless to say, the sun came out during our conversation.  No, really.

Further deliberations and long conversations followed, first with Isabella (my wife) and then including my literary agent, Chip MacGregor.  Together we decided it would be best to hold back on pitching the novel, for two reasons.  First, the book’s final shape should fit the actual movie, because the Development Director saw this as the first of several films.  Having the two stories move in tandem was crucial.

Second, we wanted to do what had only happened a few times in history – have the publishing campaign for a new novel work in tandem with the film’s publicity machine.

Only this created a problem.  Because I was already under contract for other books, I needed to somehow squeeze this writing into an already full schedule.

Fourteen months later, I called the film company with the happy news.  The book was completed.  Ready for their first read.  So excited, so utterly thrilled. 

Only there was a problem.  The director, my advocate in the company, had moved on.  And the new director was completely and utterly disinterested in my project. 

I was new to this game, but I’ve since learned this is a common tactic in LA.  Projects started by an ousted executive are almost never taken on by their replacement.  The new guy wants to imprint his or her vision on the group.  Continuing with an early-stage project means burnishing someone else’s image. 

All those hopes and dreams.  Gone. 

Come back tomorrow for the rest of the story.

Davis Bunn’s novels have sold in excess of eight million copies in twenty-four languages.  He has appeared on numerous national bestseller lists, and his titles have been Main or Featured Selections with every major US book club.  In 2011 his novel Lion of Babylon was named Best Book of the Year by Library Journal.  The sequel, entitled Rare Earth,  won Davis his fourth Christy Award for Excellence in Fiction in 2013.  In 2014 Davis was granted the Lifetime Achievement award by the Christy board of judges.  His recent title Trial Run has been named Best Book of The Year by Suspense Magazine. Lately he has appeared on the cover of Southern Writers Magazine and Publishers Weekly, and in the past three years his titles have earned him Best Book and Top Pick awards from Library Journal, Romantic Times, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus. His most recent series, Miramar Bay, have been acquired for world-wide condensation-books by Readers Digest. Currently Davis serves as Writer-In-Residence at Regent’s Park College, Oxford University. Until Covid struck, he was speaking around the world on aspects of creative writing. 

Watch an excerpt from his new book The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane here.

Learn about his new home at Blenheim Castle here.