Trish J. MacGregor's "Apparition"

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Trish J. MacGregor is the author of 36 novels and as TJ MacGregor won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for original paperback in 2003. Apparition is the third book in the Hungry Ghost trilogy, and takes place in the mystical city of Esperanza, Ecuador, high in the Andes.

Here MacGregor dreamcasts an adaptation of Apparition:

For both Esperanza and Apparition, my male protagonist, Ian Ritter, is George Clooney. He is described as a Clooney lookalike. Tacky, perhaps, but unless you live under a rock, you know exactly what the character looks like.

Tess Livingston: Gwyneth Paltrow. She’s about the same age as Tess, is blonde like Tess, and I enjoy watching her on screen.

Ricardo, the brujo: Graham Greene, who played Arles Bitterbuck in The Green Mile. He is one face of Ricardo. But in the course of the book, Ricardo has several human hosts. Johnny Depp could play one of those hosts, doing one of his oddball roles, and Denzel Washington would be perfect for Ricardo’s final host as a brujo who finds redemption.

Wayra, the shape shifter. He’s one of my favorite characters in this trilogy. In Quechua, his name means wind and he is certainly as ephemeral as wind, but also as powerful as wind can be (think cat 5 hurricane). In the 14th century, when he was the young son of a shepherd, he was turned by a shifter. That meant he would outlive everyone he knew and loved, that his blood could heal others, and that his alternate shape was that of a black lab.

Johnny Depp could play this role to the hilt and it would be weirder than his role in Pirates of the Caribbean.

Maddie, Tess’s redheaded niece. Maddie is a continuing thread in the trilogy. At the end of Esperanza, when everyone believes that Dominica and her tribe have been annihilated, Dominica seizes and possesses Maddie and forces her to flee to the U.S. Ghost Key is Maddie’s story and Deborah Ann Woll from True Blood is perfect for the role.

Here’s an interesting synchronicity about this movie category. Since I last wrote a post for Ghost Key here on My Book, The Movie, a screenwriter friend and I have completed a script for Ghost Key, a new venue for me. My co-author added a new character, the plot took a new and really intriguing turn, and I learned that what works with the written word doesn’t necessarily work visually. In a script, as in an outline, every piece must fit. I also learned that you must look forward, be flexible but not wimpy, and above all you must know what you want from your story and your characters. If you don’t know, no one else will, either!

Learn more about the book and author at Trish J. MacGregor's website.

The Page 69 Test: Esperanza.

My Book, The Movie: Esperanza.

The Page 69 Test: Ghost Key.

Writers Read: Trish MacGregor (September 2012).

--Marshal Zeringue