GERMAN-INTERVIEW FROM DEWEY DARKO WITH SUSAN MAC NICOL & NICHOLAS DOWNS.

 

DARKO: Wie kam es zu der Zusammenarbeit? How did the cooperation come about?

 

MACNICOL: I was lucky enough to interview Nicholas for Divine Magazine, where I’m Editorial Manager. We kept in touch, I watched his films, he read my books. When he told me he had a script he’d written and would I like to read it, I said Yes Please! It was a wonderful story, with a lot of human interest, and it was then we decided the script was good enough to write a book around the script and then try translate the book to film. This is where we now find ourselves.

 

 

DOWNS: Susan really put it in a nut shell. She’s one of those special people in life you just connect with, sometimes you don’t even know why, it just happens. And we have not even met in person, yet. Like she said, once I read her stuff I felt my original story would be perfect as one of her books. It just seemed like the right fit and it was.

 

 

 

DARKO: Wie ist es zu der Erstehung der Geschichte gekommen? How did the story come about?

 

 

MACNICOL: I can’t comment for Nicholas’s script, but certainly the novel story came about as a result of both of us throwing ideas around and decided we’d make a good team to work together. Nicholas gave me carte blanche on the novel development, something I needed, and while the story has been fleshed out a lot, the integrity of Nicholas’s ideas still remains.

 

 

DOWNS: For me, the original idea came when thinking about what would happen to a relationship if something tragic happened to one of the people in it. I had a group of people I knew at one time and I would ask them, ‘what if something happened to the one you love?’ ‘what would you do?’ I found it intriguing that some of them could not answer the question. I really wanted to bring that story to life. To show what would happen to a relationship and even friends if something life changing occurred. I felt that Susan totally understood that from the beginning so I had no worries about her taking the reigns with the book version. We were in sync.

 

 

 

DARKO: Woher kamen die Inspirationen zu den offenen Dialogen? Where did the inspiration for the open dialogues come from?

 

 

MACNICOL: Nicholas initiated first contact around this lol. He said he liked my writing and the way I developed my characters and it appealed to his thoughts on how he could bring this book to the film market eventually.

 

 

DOWNS: Yes, after reading a few of Susan’s book, I knew it would be a good match, my original story and characters and her talent. It just all felt very organic.

 

 

 

DARKO: Gab es schwierige Momente beim Schreiben? An welchen Stellen? Were there any difficult moments in writing? Where?

 

 

MACNICOL: There’s always difficult moments when writing, when you begin to doubt yourself or can’t figure out what the next steps are. One of my biggest challenges was not only writing as a blind man, but writing a story set in another country. I’ve visited the US before, but writing a relationship story set wholly in one is a different thing. I had to use all the resources at my disposal- i.e. Nicholas and my publisher- to ensure the words I used were American enough to make the story realistic, and enlist help on the geographical elements of the book.

 

 

DOWNS: On the screenplay side, I think the biggest challenge is creating a story that falls into the template and size of a screenplay. You really only have a certain amount of pages and such that you can tell your story in and keep the audience interested. We have plans to now re-adapt the book back into a screenplay that we both are currently working on together. Having the story strong and really thought out definitely makes the screenplay process smoother.

 

 

 

DARKO: Was ist für Sie das Wichtigste aus dem Buch? Welcher Teil der Geschichte und wieso? What is most important to you from the book? What part of the story and why?

 

 

MACNICOL: The way Nate handles his blindness and his determination to get on with his life.  I thought hard about how I wanted to portray Nate in this book. I see so many stories with a similar theme where the injured character gets depressed, morose, shoves away his friends and family and feels sorry for himself until some other life changing event happens to snap him out of it. I didn’t want this to be my Nate. There are plenty of people out there who suffer something and don’t allow it to get them down to this extent. They are positive, and after the initial shock, they pick themselves up and get on with making the best with what they’ve got. I’m like that myself so it made sense to have Nate do the same.

 

 

DOWNS: I really agree with Susan. I think the most important thing was to make sure Nate wasn’t constantly feeling sorry for himself and always throwing a pity party for himself. Of course, he’s going to go through ups and downs and feel the hardships but rather than feel sorry for him, we feel his struggle, we are there with him and going through his emotions with him, not watching or observing him.

 

 

 

DARKO: Wie würden Sie selber die Geschichte zusammenfassen? How would you summarize the story yourself?

MACNICOL: I think my publisher said it best- It’s a gripping tale of lovers fighting against the odds and a story of universal appeal about rejection and acceptance and finally finding what is real and true.

 

DOWNS: How can I top that? I do think that is very true. It’s ultimately about love and how love can and will prevail.