People who write books and people who turn those books into movies don't always get along so well.
It's far from uncommon to hear an unhappy - even outraged - author complain publicly about what has happened to his work when it was translated to movies or TV.But in the case of local author Ivy Ruckman, she's got no complaints about what the Family Channel has done with her book "Night of the Twisters."
"I think maybe the people at Family Channel have a different attitude. I've met nothing but the kindest and most gracious people. I mean, I thought I was going to see a little slime in connection with Hollywood myself," she said with a laugh. "I just like these people. They've been very open. Very kind."
And the folks at the Family Channel and its production company, MTM, have turned "Night of the Twisters" into quite a good TV movie, which debuts Sunday at 8 p.m. on the cable network.
"I'm just so excited to see it. They let me respond to every (script) revision," Ruckman said.
Which is also sort of unusual. Although Ruckman did not write the screenplay herself, she was consulted by the various writers who worked on the project. One producer came to Utah and spent the night at her house. And she spoke by phone with Chris Canaan, who penned the final version of the script, and was given a chance to respond to his drafts.
What emerged was a TV movie that's exciting - even frightening - and heartwarming at the same time.
"Night of the Twisters" is based on Ruckman's book of the same name. And she, in turned, based it on the experiences of her cousin, whose home in Grand Island, Neb., was destroyed when a series of tornadoes hit the town in 1980.
"It was my cousin's experience that tied me in emotionally, besides the fact that I grew up right there locally," Ruckman said. "Her experience just raised goose bumps on my arms and legs when she finally reached me."
The movie casts Devon Sawa ("Casper," "Little Giants") as 15-year-old Dan Hatch. In addition to the normal travails of growing up, Dan isn't quite sure that he's loved by his stepfather, Jack (John Schneider of "The Dukes of Hazzard").
"One of the most attractive things about this script for me was an opportunity to play a stepfather because if there's one thing I've had to learn how to do over the last couple of years, it's how to be a stepfather," Schneider said.
His wife had an 8-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son when he married her, and the Schneiders have since added another daughter to the family.
"This is a story about a tornado, but it's also a story about a stepfather and a son who come together through this kind of adversity and are closer," Schneider said. "The whole family is closer because of it."
The Hatch family is just one of hundreds whose lives are literally torn apart when a series of freak tornadoes hit the town. Young Dan is at home with his baby brother and a friend while Jack goes to try and assist his mother (Helen Hughes). Dan's mother, Laura (Lori Hallier) is at work.
Dan finds himself in a house that's being ripped apart by a tornado. He's got to save his baby brother, then crawl out of the wreckage and try to find his parents.
The effects are superb. The twisters themselves are a combination of actual footage of tornadoes and computer-generated effects.
Even the weather in Toronto, where the movie was shot, was cooperative.
"We had some terrible weather that just happened to have occurred while we were filming the movie," Schneider told TV critics. "It was unusual because we were looking out saying, `It's an awful day - isn't this great?' "
Actually, the family aspects are played up more in the movie than in the book. But Ruckman isn't complaining, althought she admits to some trepidation when she sold the rights to her book.
"I think everybody does," she said. "I was worried about whether they'd keep to the spirit of the original. And I think they did. They really tried to.
"If I'd been directing it or if I'd been writing the script, it would certainly have been different. They kept some good things that I wouldn't have thought of. They have some transitions that work."
Not that the process was completely smooth.
"I had to really lobby to get them to keep the title," Ruckman said. "They had two or three other titles and they were really quite generic, like `Tornadoes.' And I couldn't imagine why they would choose that one when the book was already so well established. But, finally, they changed it and went back to the title of the book and I was very pleased about that."
And the movie is set in the fictional town of Blainsworth - although the names of the smaller towns surrounding Grand Island were unchanged.
"I don't know why the movie didn't use Grand Island."
But, mind you, she's not complaining. Ruckman has spent the last couple of years turning another of her books, "No Way Out," into a screenplay, and she knows it's not easy.
"The book is not the movie. It's a different medium," she said.
Most of all, Ruckman is simply glad that "Night of the Twisters" have finally been translated onto film.
"I'm very glad they did it, because I've had I can't tell you how many letters from kids that asked for a movie. From the beginning. And it's been out 12 years now," she said.
The book itself is still a phenomenon. It's required reading in a number of school districts in the Midwest and Southwest. It's been anthologized several times, and it has won a handful of awards from various states as children's book of the year.
"I knew it was going to be a book that would hook kids and I knew it was going to be a popular book because it was such an engrossing book to write," Ruckman said. "The sales just continue. There's never a dip."
She also still gets "tons of letters" from young readers.
"I would say 50 percent of the letters say, `This is the best book I ever read.' Well, I don't get letters like that on my other books," she said with a laugh. "So I knew that it would be an engaging movie."
Not that she was thinking of either movie possibilities or getting her book into schools when she wrote it.
"I had entertainment in mind and making some statements about how we can survive crises, about how important your family is to you," Ruckman said. "That everything else can blow away, but what's left is your family."