From paper to screen: Professor rewrites book in hopes to make movie

By Jessica Pickens
pickensj@thejohnsonian.com

Mass communication professor, Lawrence Timbs, with his father Lawrence Timbs, Sr. The WU professor helped rewrite a book his father published in 1980. Photo courtesy of Larry Timbs.

Love, murder and deception.

That is what mass communication professor Larry Timbs immersed himself in this summer.

With the help of writer Michael Manuel, Timbs re-worked a book his father self-published in 1980 called “Tragedy at Old Fish Springs.”

“When the manuscript was handed to me, it was bare bones,” Timbs said. “I put flesh on the bones.”

Books to movies

Larry Timbs Mass - communication professorManuel came across the novel, which Lawrence Timbs, Sr. wrote.  He brought the book to Timbs to rewrite it for publication.

Eventually, Manuel hopes to make the book into a movie with the help of screenwriter Belle Avery.

The book, renamed “Below the Surface: Voices From the Grave at Fish Springs, T.N.,” is historical fiction and is based on a community now under TVA Lake in Tennessee.
 
The storyline takes place during and after the Civil War and is a love story mixed with murder, Timbs said.

“I had forgotten about the book until it was brought to me,” Timbs said. “The ‘below the surface’ part of the title is because the community is now under water. It also is a theme with the characters in the book. People are mysterious.”

Manuel wrote a screenplay based off the book but wants to get the book re-published, Timbs said.

Fact vs. fiction

This summer, Timbs worked on the book about 50 days in a row, starting May 15 and finishing 28 chapters in late July.
 
After working as a journalist for 30 years, he had to adjust to fiction writing.

“I had never written fiction before. I had never created dialogue before-I just report it,” Timbs said.  “It was liberating from journalism, and everything I had ever done as a journalist helped.”

He met the challenge of having to write about the Civil War era.

“I had to become a student of the Civil War era and use their resources. I have never been a historian,” Timbs said. “The Internet was very helpful.”

Timbs talked to “old timers” in the community and used the slave narratives recorded in the 1930s.

Waiting game

Now that the book is finished, all Timbs and Manuel can do is wait until they get it published.

“My dad always said, ‘Any dummy can write a book, but it takes a genius to get it published’,” Timbs said.

Timbs’ 89-year-old father was happy with the rewriting of his book and thought it was better.

“He is not easily pleased with writing,” Timbs said. “I didn’t do it for the money I did it mainly for my dad.”