‘Will Trent’ Author Reacts to Big Book-to-Screen Changes

Will Trent author Karin Slaughter has something to say about the big book-to-screen changes in ABC’s adaptation of her novels.

The bestseller is the featured guest on the latest Women in Entertainment podcast and was asked about what it’s like to see her book baby hit the small screen in the celebrated crime drama.

“It was great. I love Ramón [Rodríguez]. Let’s just accept: He is a profoundly sexy man, so he’s met the criteria there. It’s different from the books,” she said. “I mean, the books are the books, and the show is the show. But they captured the heart of the story, which is Will’s found family.”

She pointed to a couple of character relationships in particular that make her happy, saying, “I love his interactions with Faith [Iantha Richardson] and with Amanda [Sonja Sohn and that he’s quirky, and I love that they’re showing someone with dyslexia and how he navigates the world with this disability, and they don’t rely on it as a sort of a superpower trope. It’s very, very well done, I think.”

While she didn’t mention her particular feelings about Amanda’s controversial death in Season 4, she did give a status update on the upcoming fifth season, saying, “I’m super happy with it, and as we’re going into the fifth season, everybody’s coming back to Atlanta now to start filming it. The first scripts have come in, and I think it’s just going to be another terrific series.”

When asked if seeing the show impacts how she writes Will Trent in novel form, she said “no” and explained why.

“That’s one of the things that’s great about the show being so different from the books. I mean, it’s ABC, so the tone is much lighter. They couldn’t have Angie [Erika Christensen] be a heroin addict with scabs — light spoiler alert there — but when I was writing the second book that comes after Pieces of Her, Girl Forgotten, Toni Collette did such an amazing job on Pieces of Her on Netflix that she really defined the character, and I found myself sort of competing with Toni’s version of Laura and my book version of Laura, and I was just like, ‘You know what? She can’t be a big character in this book. I’m just going to have to put her in the background because I don’t want to write what they wrote for the television, I want to stay true to the character I wrote. So, with Will, I don’t have that issue at all because he looks so different, and the cases are so different, and the tone is so different. So, in a lot of ways it’s a gift.”

Disney / Matt Miller

Slaughter went on to reveal that she was well warned about the process of seeing what’s on the page adapt to screen, saying, “A long time ago, a friend of mine who had a TV adaptation, he said it’s like going to the dentist and he pulls all of your teeth while he puts money in your pocket. So, that’s why, for a while, I was very hesitant about letting my work go. But you have to, one, any author who complains about what’s done with their book, you really have the option to not let them do anything. You own that right. So, it shouldn’t be a shock if things change. It’s a very different format, so things have to change.”

However, she also revealed that she did have one bit of feedback about Will Trent when she read the first script for the series. “One of the comments I had when Liz Heldens gave me the script, the first pilot for Will Trent, was, ‘He talks too much.’ And she was so nice, she said, ‘Karin, it’s television. They have to talk.’ I mean, it’s just such a different format, so I think if you let someone take inspiration from your work, you should let them be artists and let them do what they’re going to do, and if you have a problem with it, shut up. That’s my take on it. And it’s probably easy for me to say because I’ve been so happy about the adaptations, but still, don’t whine.”

Check out Slaughter’s full interview, in which she also discusses the upcoming adaptation of The Good Daughter, below.

Will Trent, Season 5 Premiere, Date TBA, ABC