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 by Jean Marie Pierson
My main character, Geri O’Brien, does not fall far from my tree. No Good Girls is the story about a frustrated screenplay writer who works in the marketing department of a major children’s publishing house in New York City. My first five years in Manhattan were spent much the same way although I worked in the contract department (still do) and had a boss that looked and smelt nothing like Hedda. Even though I worked with books, my degree at Penn State was in Film and Video production and coming out of school I didn’t think I was old or wise enough to write a novel. When I pictured a novelist I did not see me. I saw older women with glasses and a gray skunk stripe or men who looked like Ernest Hemingway. They smoked pipes, drank brandy and considered Ulysses a beach read. That’s who I thought a novelist should be. My passion and education was in writing screenplays so in the course of five years I wrote three of them. It wasn’t until I realized that my stories might not see the light of day if I kept them in screenplay format that I decided to try my hand at writing a novel.
 When I originally wrote Geri’s story, it was a screenplay entitled Doing Time. People are used to hearing about books made into movies but in this case, this was a movie made into a book. Although a film script is one the best outlines you can ever work from to write a novel, I found that I needed to add some major plot elements to fill out the story. Doing Time was a bit on the darker side of “watch what you asked for” but by the end, everything seemed to work out for the best. The father and mother, the scenes with the Muntz jet, and the love interest with the neighbor were never in the original script. All of those major points were added in later. Looking back at it, I can’t imagine this story without Geri’s family history or Todd but I soon found that novel writing allows for greater freedom. My characters really had the space to spread their hearts around and love harder and, consequently, hurt deeper than in the script. In short, more like real life.
However, the thrust of the story and the sequences of the major events remained the same. The first scene of the movie had the three main characters sitting around a diner table discussing how they would want to be portrayed in Geri’s next screenplay. A screenplay that would be about them…only cooler. The final scene was Geri alone in the same diner finishing her script. Now I’m a huge fan of O’Henry endings and in the script, I wanted to plant the smallest seed in the audience’s mind that what took place in this story may not have happened. Was this a story Geri made up to satisfy each of the girls wishes (Maria in an action film, Emmy in a romance, Geri in gritty reality) OR did it really happen and therefore became the basis of Geri’s next screenplay? The audience would ultimately be left to decide. I wanted to keep this aspect of the story in the book so when I turned the script into a novel I integrated the first and last scenes of the screenplay.
 What you see in the trailer you call follow along in the book as pages 5-10 of No Good Girls are the first 5 pages of the original screenplay. For people who are not used to reading screenplays, I thought filming it would be a wonderful compliment to the book as it would act like a bonus feature much the same way interviews are bonus features to DVDs. But the scene itself, which may seem like an introduction to the characters is really a foreshadowing tool for the story. Meaning, pay close attention to what each character says as you might see it happen in the book.
When you are finished with the book, watch the scene again and see if you can pick up anything you missed. (Hint, there is something in the beginning of the scene that answers a question in the epilogue).
Here are few fun facts about the trailer.
- Over 500 actresses sent in headshots when the casting call for No Good Girls went out. We auditioned 100 actresses for the 3 title roles.
- Out of all the 500 headshots, Monica Hulken was my first choice for Emmy.
- Amanda was not scheduled to audition but arrived when a slot became open at the end of the day. She was the only person to nail the part of Geri.
- In the book, the diner scene takes place in springtime on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. We shot the trailer in Brooklyn at The New College Diner on a cold and rainy December 9th (the day after my 35th birthday.)
- Because it was so cold, Monica (Emmy) wore jeans under her dress after we filmed the wide establishing shot so that she wouldn’t freeze.
- The woman sitting in the booth behind Maria is Marianne Allen; my best friend and police officer who inspired parts of the Maria character.
- The sound of the director’s voice is that of Mark Kaufmann, the man who is responsible for making the whole trailer happen in the first place.
- The fries Jenna Carra (Maria) eats in the scene were seven hours old.
- The waiter walking past is our Director of Photography, Luca Fantini. Because of his wonderful accent we had him say “Eat me” about 10 times to find the one we liked best. If you wait until 5 or 6 seconds after the end of the credits you’ll hear him again.
- The “hipster patron” is Bob Troia, a friend from Penn State and bassist for the band Hot Seconds. (Their very cool song goes over our credits)
- The woman you see with the fuchsia back is Zareen Jaffrey, co-author of Hex Education while the jogger at the counter and the woman sitting by Zareen are both interior designers.
- Finally, the waitress carrying the plates across the diner is yours truly.
My book is about the New York minute. How a city can change your life on a dime if you have a bit of faith in yourself and the people around you. For where ever my career as a writer takes me, I had more than just a New York minute. Manhattan, a great group of friends who work for Thai food and a hug and one dedicated Kaufmann gave me 4 minutes and 41 seconds of it. I hope you enjoy both.
Click Here to Buy No Good Girls
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