From the big screen to paperback

The Truth, It Lies started life as a movie about a movie that would never be seen. Now it’s a book about a movie and nearly became the book that would never be seen.

Why Hollywood?

The Truth, It Lies was the title of a short movie script I wrote for a course I was doing back in 2002.  At the time I wanted to pursue script-writing rather than novel writing. I had an idea for a movie about a movie and as Hollywood is the epicentre of the movie industry this naturally brought Los Angeles into the story. The script was set between the present day and the past. A very difficult thing to achieve in seven minutes! The main character was researching a movie star who had fallen from grace and died in mysterious circumstances. 

Why the 1950s and the witch-hunt era?

In looking for an era in which to place the movie star character the early 1950s jumped out. The Communist witch-hunt turned the movie industry against itself. McCarthyism became a byword for the era. Fear was a very potent emotion at the time and it seemed like a good idea to drop a character into this situation and see what happened.

From big screen aspirations to paperback, why?

I spent the next couple of years writing and re-writing treatments to turn that short script into a feature length movie. However, I was never able to find the right formula to make the jump between the two timelines work. Then in late 2004 the opportunity arose to turn the script into a book instead. In re-plotting the book I stripped away a lot of the story and set it all in the 1950s. The book was written, edited and a cover designed by early 2006. However, by this time I had severed my relationship with the original publisher due to circumstances beyond my control and decided to publish it myself using a subsidiary press.

Why publish a new edition independently?

The book was published in late 2006. It sold a few copies but not enough to get it noticed. In the meantime I started work on a follow-up Hollywood novel and completed an MA in Creative Writing, as well as starting work on a further two books. But over time I became unhappy with how The Truth, It Lies turned out. The large format of the book was too big for a book of about 250 pages. Also, I was unhappy with the writing itself. In late 2008 I decided to give it an overhaul and rewrite it. Once finished I found a new editor and after some further plot alternations it was finished. By late 2009 the revised book was available to the public. But I had developed a sense that the subsidiary press wasn’t a user-friendly solution to my printing needs. So after some research I decided to set up a new company to publish the new edition myself. I had used the name engano books informally for some years but now it officially existed. Crucially the printer allowed me to select a smaller print format which suits the book better. At the same time I made the decision to give it a new cover, which ironically enough was a cover that I rejected during the initial design process five years ago.

The new edition of The Truth, It Lies will be published by engano books in 2010. For more information visit www.enganobooks.com