REEL VS REAL VS PRINT
On the April 20th episode of “As The World Turns,” Lisa (Eileen Fulton) was furious with Nancy (Helen Wagner) about how the latter portrayed Lisa as a teenage wannabe unable to dress or act her own age in the pages of “Oakdale Confidential.” (Lisa is in her 70s and the soap opera genre’s original Bad Girl. Before there was Erica Kane, there was Lisa Miller).
(Actually, Nancy is only pretending to have written the book as a cover for the real author, Katie… but that’s daytime drama intrigue for you).
Most interesting for me was the fact that, if Lisa was upset (on-air) with how she was described in “Oakdale Confidential,” I can only imagine how Eileen Fulton feels in real life about it… since they do look quite a bit alike. ;)
See, that’s another thing about writing a tie-in novel. With an original work, all character descriptions come straight from the author’s imagination. Sure, you can borrow a hairline from you uncle, your old boyfriend’s sense of style, and your best-friend’s quirk of chewing her cuticles to the bone. But, in the end, there isn’t an actual person there to feel offended.
Not so with a tie-in. And believe me, I worried about that.
I worried about it when I had teen Maddie lamenting her lack of cleavage. What would Alexandra Chando, who plays Maddie, think about that?
How would actress Maura West feel about me describing Carly as sometimes possessing an angry expression harsh enough to scare away children and small animals?
And how would Mark Collier, who plays Mike, enjoy Katie (actually me) comparing, in print, his physical attributes to that of her former husband, Simon (played by Paul Leyden), when the attributes in question also belonged to the men themselves?
I expect I’ll be finding out shortly. All the actors have my phone number....
(Actually, Nancy is only pretending to have written the book as a cover for the real author, Katie… but that’s daytime drama intrigue for you).
Most interesting for me was the fact that, if Lisa was upset (on-air) with how she was described in “Oakdale Confidential,” I can only imagine how Eileen Fulton feels in real life about it… since they do look quite a bit alike. ;)
See, that’s another thing about writing a tie-in novel. With an original work, all character descriptions come straight from the author’s imagination. Sure, you can borrow a hairline from you uncle, your old boyfriend’s sense of style, and your best-friend’s quirk of chewing her cuticles to the bone. But, in the end, there isn’t an actual person there to feel offended.
Not so with a tie-in. And believe me, I worried about that.
I worried about it when I had teen Maddie lamenting her lack of cleavage. What would Alexandra Chando, who plays Maddie, think about that?
How would actress Maura West feel about me describing Carly as sometimes possessing an angry expression harsh enough to scare away children and small animals?
And how would Mark Collier, who plays Mike, enjoy Katie (actually me) comparing, in print, his physical attributes to that of her former husband, Simon (played by Paul Leyden), when the attributes in question also belonged to the men themselves?
I expect I’ll be finding out shortly. All the actors have my phone number....
1 Comments:
When reading the book, I realized some "errors" that didn't fit consistently with the story (e.g. where is Jack's kid, isn't Henry from Michigan not Louisianna). However, I just remembered that "Katie" wrote the book and she doesn't always get her facts straight or include all pertinent details. Not only does it make it easier to write the book by not overexplaining every small detail, I think these "errors" add to the perception that it was written from the point-ofview of on characters who would not be overly concernced with the minutia of another characters life.
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