Staying on the right side of the law

I'm looking to write a kind of Bill Bryson memoir of my year working in a coal mine. Can I just change the names of the people and not mention where the place was and be O.K.?

To be safe you should change names, places and identifying characteristics (don't just change a person's name, change their hair colour and height), and also make sure you keep a record of what you've changed and what the new name/place/etc is. Of course, I'm suggesting you do this on the presumption that what you've written is potentially defamatory, or may be construed as such, because that's the main reason to be nervous about using identifying details. But even if you're not defaming anyone else, it's often a good idea in a memoir to be vague about some of this information.

What intrigues me most about your question, though, is that fact that you're writing a 'Bill Bryson memoir' about working in a coal mine. My brain is trying to understand what that would be like!

Optioning for film - or not

There is an old, long-forgotten war memoir that I would like to adapt into a film. I should point out that I'm a far cry from being a successful film producer. Yes - a film I helped develop picked up 'Best Feature' at IndieFest ... but that isn't exactly much in the world of cinema.

However I'm also not going into this blindly. I've researched who the copyright holder is (since the original author has long died) and although the literary rights has changed hands a few times in wills, it turns out that the current owner is living in Perth.

I've spoken to her (and exchanged some letters) and she originally had no idea that her great uncle had ever written a memoir. She is an elderly lady in a retirement village and, to put it bluntly, she has zero interest in the memoir.

She has given me verbal permission to adapt it in an extremely informal 'I don't care - do what you want with it' way - but as you can imagine that isn't exactly sufficient to move forward with development. Certainly if I was just going to dump the original text onto a blog I'd be happy enough ... but verbal permission certainly isn't good enough for a film project. (Nobody in their right mind is going to put money into a film where the original rights haven't been locked down)

So I am in a curious position - I want to give her money ... but she simply doesn't want to get paid!

From her position, of course, her reaction makes a lot of sense. We all hear about scam artists preying on elderly victims ... so would you really trust a chap on the other side of the country who tells you that he'll give you money just for signing a contract you don't really have the inclination to understand?

My question is this - instead of having a literary agent represent an author and search for buyers - is it possible to get some kind of 'reverse literary agent' involved? Basically someone who can sit down with the author (or copyright holder) and get a sale on behalf of an existing buyer ?

I have spoken with a producer and his suggestion was to simply ignore this particular memoir and work with the other accounts of the events. So I suspect that the market value for this particular account isn't very high.

I'm in a position where I want to treat her fairly - and I also want to be in a position to adapt the memoir. What would you suggest someone in my position do? Obviously I can just wait another 15 years or so for the copyright to expire ... or 'file off the serial numbers' of the original story - but neither are satisfactory solutions.

**This question was quite a bit longer and contained some details about the proposed deal, which I've removed in the interest of brevity and also because it just didn't seem right to publish them.**

I believe the 'reverse literary agent' you seek is an intellectual property lawyer. This situation is already murky and could get murkier - the only way to make sure everything is clear to everyone is to get a lawyer involved and get it all in writing. The current rights owner may not be interested in the project but there's no telling who may turn up in future years, and you need to protect your interest in the project and any film that may result. And I know lawyers are expensive - but they're cheaper than lawsuits.

Alternatively, you could do as the producer suggests - you only need to option the rights to the memoir if you wish to adapt that account of the historical events. If there is primary evidence elsewhere, or there's another published account that you could option, that's a valid course of action. Just make sure you don't end up with a script that resembles the memoir.

As a last recourse, find another project. There's plenty of great stories out there.

Countries of choice

I’m Australian (Sydney), but living in an undeveloped part of the world which is geographically much closer to the UK and the USA, respectively. I’ll spend my life between here and Australia (my husband and our work is here). I’ll probably be in Australia when my manuscript is complete, but back here for the long term.

I have completed two travel memoirs about travel/life abroad. (Now in the drawer for fresh eyes in a few months.) Meanwhile, I’ve begun working on a YA (12-18) novel. It’s not set in Australia and it has no Australian characters. (Australia has become a rogue state.) Real world setting, a few years in the future, slightly dystopian, earth is on the brink of irreversibly warming. No magic (other than youthful creativity), no fantasy (other than inside minds) and no vampires (other than the duplicitous corporations). Think mystery—four young teen characters from four continents (with entwined destinies that they discover in the course of their quest)—and global consequences if they fail.

Which location should I submit to? Would Australia be advisable—location-wise and subject-wise? (I feel slightly caught in no-man’s land on where to query.) Or would I be better to try elsewhere? Is querying an unfinished manuscript at first draft (as I am now) acceptable or should I just finish and then query an agent?

Well clearly you haven't read many of the older posts on this blog ... if you had, you'd know that I regularly say NO FIRST DRAFTS!!! UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!! And an unfinished first draft is an even bigger sin. How can you know if you have something ready to submit until you (a) finish it and (b) read it over again to see what needs to be changed? Clearly you know about putting things aside, because your memoirs are marinating in a drawer somewhere ... So I'll overlook this little slip in regards to the YA manuscript and, thus, shall answer the rest of your question.

If your memoirs feature Australian settings, submit them in Australia (for the reasons discussed in the previous post). But the YA novel can be submitted anywhere. Of course, if you end up with an Australian agent and/or publisher for your memoirs then you'll no doubt want them to look at your YA too. You could always submit the YA first, overseas - I suggest to the US rather than the UK - and see how that goes. Just finish it first, and then revise it, and don't submit it until it's cooked.

If it looks like a duck ...

A writer friend of mine is excited because the publishing house she likes is accepting non-fiction. She's writing a memoir and I'm encouraging her to call it fiction because she has told me it would be a 'fictionalised memoir' with bits of it made up. She is a journalist who blogs about her life and I know that in her blog entries she has embellished - no, lied - to make things sound more interesting. That's not journalism and that's a whole other story. I've told her how angry and duped readers of A Million Little Pieces felt with vast portions turned out to be fabricated. How would you classify her manuscript - is it fiction or non-fiction?

If she's making up more than the odd childhood conversation and name of her favourite TV show - and some leeway is given to memoir writers because we all understand you can't remember all the little details - she's writing fiction. If her life isn't interesting enough to make a memoir that people want to read, she shouldn't try to get her memoir published. That doesn't mean she wouldn't write a great novel. And while it's okay to pretend it's true on her blog - she's the only one responsible for that - it's not okay to pretend it's true with her favourite publishing company's money and reputation riding on it.

A couple of other points to make:
1. I love it when people say they have a 'favourite publishing company' because this is usually only based on the books they've seen in bookshops, not on anything else they know about the company. And while that's fine if you're buying the books, what about when you're wanting to get published? What about the other publishing companies? Some of them may be just right.

2. James Frey's A Million Little Pieces was hugely controversial but there is a story - perhaps apocryphal - that it wasn't his idea to label it as a memoir. He apparently wrote it as fiction. And is now rumoured to be writing all sorts of fiction stuff under pseudonyms.