Some of Tim's Stories by S. E. Hinton

wrote Francis a letter, telling him
The Outsiders
was their favorite book and asking him to please make it into a movie. Francis was intrigued—he really does love kids—and had his producer get in touch with me. For years I’d had people calling me, saying they were interested in doing
The Outsiders
, but I was afraid it was going to end up being
Ponyboy Meets Beach Blanket Bingo
. So I was reluctant to hand over
The Outsiders
to anyone until I realized I was talking to Francis Coppola’s studio. Just a couple months before, I’d seen
The Black Stallion
, and had thought that if that movie had been based on one of my books, I would have been thrilled.
    Since you were such a fan of Coppola’s work, were you nervous at all about meeting him
?
    Francis was holding huge casting calls all over the country, one in downtown Tulsa, and I went to the auditorium. I was nervous about meeting him, and as I walked down the aisle, I realized he was kind of nervous about meeting me. So I walked up, shook his hand, and told him, “Mr. Coppola, I do have a problem with your doing
The Outsiders. The Godfather
is better than the book, and
The Black Stallion
is better than the book. Are you going to do that to me?” He laughed—and relaxed. So did I. After I drove him around some Tulsa neighborhoods, he decided he wanted to shoot on location. He asked me to help with the script and with the wardrobe. I was going, “Yeah, I can do this; I’m experienced.”
    How well did you and Coppola work together when you actually started developing the screenplay? To borrow Ponyboy’s phrase again, you’d pretty much “loned” it as a writer
.
    Francis took a copy of the book, outlined the introspection in one color, the action in one color, the dialogue in one color. Then he cut it up and literally pasted it on sheets in the form of a screenplay and had someone type it up that way. By the time he handed it to me, it was the size of a phone book, and he asked if I minded cutting it for him. I hadn’t done any writing on the script for
Tex
, except once in a while, when Tim would say he needed transition lines. But I’d learned a lot about movies from watching what Tim did with the script. He always said you cannot have actors saying more than three sentences or it sounds like they’re giving the preamble to the Constitution. So I was interested in keeping
The Outsiders
moving.
    You were in your thirties when you were working on the screenplay. How did it feel coming back to your story as an older writer
?
    I had learned to accept a lot of the book, partially because of the response to it. But I couldn’t help coming up with better lines and dialogue. Francis had no problems with anything I cut, but if I changed a line, he’d ask if that was how it had been in the book. And I’d say, “No, but it’s better.” Then he’d remind me that we were making the movie for the readers and needed to keep it like it was.
    Many of the film stars—Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, Diane Lane—went on to become show-business superstars. Did you see that potential in them as you watched them on the set
?
    I don’t know what virtue there is in being able to see talent in front of your face, but it was obvious that they were going to be great. I actually got Francis to ask Matt to read for Dallas, because I thought he would be perfect for the part. After Matt’s first reading, Francis told him to go home, and Matt thought he’d blown it. He didn’t find out until later that Francis was saying, “You’ve nailed it; go home!”
    You’d also worked with Emilio Estevez before, on
Tex.
    Emilio was very professional, but he was so good at improv. The whole scene in
The Outsiders
where he looks like he’s going to help Ponyboy clear the table but takes the chocolate cake and a beer and sits down in front of the