Now that Tom's actively interested in our adaptation again, I decided to fulfil a promise I'd given him previously. This was that if he obtained the rights, I would provide a treatment that he could use to generate funding. It's one thing to have a novel, but it's another thing to take that novel and adapt it.

I hadn't done this last fall because of the third party involved -- I had made no promises to her, and when she started to not follow through with her own promises, I realized that less is better for me. I'm glad that I did hold back. The treatment I would have drafted for her would have required more adjusting than the one Tom wanted. I saved myself several hours of wasted work by trusting my instincts.

Now that his friend is out of the picture, I sat down and wrote about 8 pages of how I think the final story could go. I then looked over my notes that I'd taken last year, and went back and adjusted the treatment accordingly. I then forwarded it to Tom with an admonishment to look at it critically, especially for story or character arc flaws that we need to address now, before sending it to the financeers.

Tom got back to me today and loves (which is putting it mildly) the treatment. It gave him a warm, fuzzy feeling inside that he compared to a woody. Whoa, Tom, TMI, OK? Regardless, the only flaws he found were a couple of typos. While it's nice to have such overwhelming praise, too much praise makes me suspect that he's not really looking at it critically enough. Am I a cynic for not thinking that I got it right the first time? Perhaps. The hard work was already done by the author -- he created the characters and story, so maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit. But in this case, I think I'm being a realist. The original novel had flaws in character arc and motivation. That's OK for a novel, but it won't do for a quality film. I don't want to write a B-grade movie. I want to make this B-grade novel an A-level movie! So I convinced him to have another person give it a look-see before he gives his final stamp of approval.

I'll look at the treatment again after we meet with the author (the meeting which takes place tomorrow -- he had to reschedule on us). After I get a feel for the author's take on the adaptation, I can tweak the treatment accordingly. I suspect that I could more strongly work two character's arcs, but I need a bit of time to let it simmer in my brain before tackling it again.