Colleen Hoover’s visit brings BookTok to Screenland ahead of new feature film

Author Colleen Hoover and director Vanessa Caswill // Courtesy of Allied Global Marketing

We’re living in the era of BookTok-topia—onscreen, not paper.

And by BookTok, I mean a sub-community of readers on TikTok. They’re from walks of all kinds, but the usual suspects are fans of stories that have become even more popular as shows and movies. Maybe you recognize titles like We Were Liars, The Summer I Turned Pretty, and Heated Rivalry. And I promise you, there are many more on the way.

Standing above the rest, though, is the work of Colleen Hoover.

She’s a romance novelist known for outselling the Bible or being a divisive Online Discourse Generator. But with two books-turned-movies under her belt, fans can celebrate that she’s got two more coming. One of them is Reminders of Him, and it’s slated for wide theatrical release on March 13. [You can read our review here.]

Film promotions brought Hoover and director Vanessa Caswill to a packed advance screening at Screenland Armour. The morning after, we sat down to talk the art of adaptation and to see if BookTok-propelled writers like Hoover approach stories with screens already in mind.

The Pitch: Colleen, I was curious since we’ve kind of entered a popular landscape of movie adaptations—especially romance—from contemporary novels, where do you feel like you stand in that landscape?

Colleen Hoover: I don’t know. I’ve been writing books for years now, and in the beginning, we hardly saw the adaptations from the contemporary novels. Now I feel like, left and right, I’m seeing all of the friends I’ve made along the way getting adaptations. And I feel like we have the readers to thank for that. The fact that I have four that are all coming out, and like the same two-year span, I just feel extremely grateful and grateful to BookTok for making this happen for so many authors. 

And with these movies in mind, and having multiple books of yours adapted, do you feel as if this has influenced the way you go about writing now? 

Hoover: Not really. I feel like most of my writing happened before the film started, like I’ve kind of slowed down because I’ve gotten into the film side of it. So that’s a hard one to answer, because I haven’t started a new story since being so involved on this side of it. So it’ll be interesting to see. I kind of wonder that myself, if I’m going to be thinking more about “well, how will I, how should I write this scene, because it’ll affect the film this way?”

Courtesy Universal Pictures

Do you feel like you visualize things in detail when you’re writing? 

Hoover: I don’t, because I tend to feel the emotion more than visualize like the scenery or what the characters look like. It’s usually something my editor comes back to when I’m finished with the book and it’s like, “Hey, you need to describe what this person looks like. We don’t know.” And I’m like, I don’t know either, because they’re just like a blur and a personality to me. So it’s been interesting to watch how Vanessa is very visual, and can see it in a way that I did not see when I was writing.

Vanessa, you mentioned at the screening that you listened to the audiobook for inspiration. Could you elaborate on what that process looks like and if there’s anything specific to the format that strikes you?

Vanessa Caswill: I think the reason I did both was that I was constantly reading the book. But if I were on the go and we were scouting locations, sometimes our drive would take an hour to two. So I’d either listen to my playlist or listen to the audiobook, because I think having it read to me, rather than me reading it, meant that different things would pop that I maybe hadn’t picked up when I was reading the book. And I would just make little notes and go, “Oh, you know, that reminds me of this,” or “that makes me feel that, or brings this image to mind,” or things like that. 

Lead Maika Monroe and Vanessa Caswill on set // Photo by Michelle Faye

Colleen, you also mentioned finding inspiration for the story as one of your siblings studied prison reform. How do you usually approach a topic and find a story there?

Hoover: I like to write my stories first and see where they take me. And then, especially with something like this, I tend to do a lot of the research on the topic afterward and send it to people who specialize in that. My sister’s boyfriend at the time is the one who got her into the subject, and he was someone we consulted because he’s an attorney in that area. So, I really kind of do it backwards. I want to get the emotions and this character’s journey right, because I feel like everyone experiences everything so uniquely and that there’s not really a wrong way to approach it when you’re coming from a character’s point of view. But I always do want to go back and make sure I’m doing it in the right and sensitive way. 

And going back to the film, Vanessa, what was it like to see Maika and Tyriq approach their roles with their own ideas versus what you or Colleen had envisioned—and how you negotiated and put everything together? 

Caswill: You know, I think that we were very much on the same page right from the very beginning, all of us. I don’t remember any moment between Maika and Tyriq, where we were really in different places. I mean, sometimes, I guess we would challenge each other to see it in a slightly different way. And I think that’s really helpful and healthy and great, like that’s the collaborative process. I also think that Maika and Tyriq both came in with a lot of their own life experience and wisdom, and had so much to offer in that regard. But fundamentally, I think the essence of the story is so clear when you read the book that all of us were on board with the vision I had for it.