Adapting Your Novel for Film

by Pauline Baird Jones

  Adapting Your Novel for Film

  by Pauline Baird Jones

  Published by L&L Dreamspell

  Spring, Texas

  Visit us on the web at www.lldreamspell.com

  Adapting Your Novel for Film Copyright 2005 by Pauline Baird Jones

  Revised and updated edition Copyright 2008 by Pauline Baird Jones

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except for brief quotations used in a review.

  ISBN- 978-1-60318-049-8

  Published by L & L Dreamspell

  Produced in the United States of America

  Visit us on the web at www.lldreamspell.com

  Table Of Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  FINDING THE FILM STORY IN YOUR BOOK

  CHOOSING YOUR FILM CAST

  SCREENPLAY BASICS

  CONCLUSION

  ADDITIONAL READING

  SCREENWRITING LINKS

  APPENDIX

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  INTRODUCTION

  If you’ve seen any movies at all, then you know that adaptations are a film industry mainstay. Everything from the latest New York Times best seller to old classics is fair game for the savvy screenwriter. Disney has even adapted two of its amusement park rides into film scripts—with one, Pirates of the Caribbean, an actual rousing success. In recent years we’ve seen various Harry Potter books and the mega-classic Lord of the Rings appear on the big screen and new film and TV adaptations of Jane Austen’s enduring classics.

  It used to be only NYT best sellers that made it to the big screen, but with the success of a slew of small, independent films, opportunities have opened up for mid-list and small press authors, who are getting noticed by production companies. Although some producers do option books, many prefer to deal with a script that has already been adapted or will ask the author to do the adaptation.

  Whether you consider the current crop of movie adaptations successful or not, there’s no question that the movies resulted in sales surges for the books these movies were adapted from. If you’ve read any of the books-to-films, then you already know that some adaptations are faithful representations, while others only have the title in common.

  I used to get really annoyed at what Hollywood did to a novel’s story line, but after learning more about the process, now I’m surprised when a movie is at all faithful to the source material.

  If you are planning to adapt your own material, you need to understand how it all works and why some adaptations go so awry. First, adapting your novel to film is actually a new way to tell your story. In a way, it’s like changing an apple into an orange. If you try to cling too tightly to the written word, you’ll quickly get bogged down or write a script that is fifty pages too long—and not suitable for either the big screen or television.

  A book and a movie are different mediums. This all seems very obvious, but you’d be surprised how many new screenwriters write all sorts of non-visual actions into a script. For instance, you can show someone thinking, but you can’t show what they are thinking. Yes, there is such a thing as the voice-over, but you do not want to go there unless you have no other choice. Take it from someone who has tried….

  Another thing to understand is that books are long. Scripts are not. If you actually want to sell your script when you’re done, it absolutely, positively can’t be more than one hundred and twenty pages—and less than that is even better. That sounds like plenty until you try to shoehorn a four hundred page novel into one hundred and twenty pages.

  You have to condense better than Reader’s Digest, which can mean losing dear-to-your-heart subplots, scenes, characters and themes. It means finding in your novel the visual, dramatic story. Script guru Linda Seger likens the process to finding “the delphiniums in a garden that includes one hundred different flowers.” For me, it’s like finding the skeleton, the bones of the story, within all the meatiness of a novel.

  Another thing to consider is the commercial potential of your story. Even if you plan to deal with an independent producer, they like to make money too, so they can make more movies. Just because a producer is used to losing money, doesn’t mean s/he doesn’t live in hope of actually making some. And you’d like to make some, too, wouldn’t you?

  Think about the movies that make money at the box office. These stories usually have broad appeal to some segment of the general public. You should know who your audience is before you start. If you want to sell in the U.S. and your audience is in France, well, Houston, you have a problem.

  To sell in the US, it’s important for a reasonably commercial film to have a solid, well-constructed visual story. Simplicity and clarity are unbelievably important because you’ll be dealing with people who don’t like to read. That’s right. Movie people, for the most part, don’t like to read. They pay other people to read for them. This is also a good reason to have a solid, yet simple premise for your film when you begin pitching, because the pitch is the first thing you must sell.

  When my film adaptation Do Wah Diddy Die was optioned, the president of the production company called to tell me how much they liked the script. I made the mistake of asking her if she’d read it. Don’t do that. Never ask anyone if they have read it. If they have, it will become clear. If they haven’t, that will also become clear.

  Another immutable truth in Hollywood is that change is inevitable. If you’re going to write a script, you need to let go of your source material. Let your script become a new story. Begin to choose what to keep in and what to peel away. Unless you’re J.K. Rowling, you won’t have that much control over your material if you option it, so you might as well get used to letting go now. If you’re unwilling or unable to make hard choices for your film story, then you shouldn’t be writing scripts. And actually, you should be able to make bad choices for scripts, too. They are called “notes.”

  If you’ve ever seen a particularly bad movie, find out how many screenwriters get film credit—and keep in mind that not everyone who “helped” will get screen credit. It’s been my experience that everyone involved in the script will want to give you what they call “notes,” which are actually suggested changes, i.e. ways to mess up your story completely.

  Again, unless you are J.K. Rowling, there is nothing you can do about this. It’s just part of the business and why they, hopefully, pay you the big bucks.

  Repeat this to yourself a few times: Novels aren’t scripts.

  Scripts only deal with what you can show on film, with what is seen by the eyes or heard by the ears. We (the viewers) can’t get into the character’s heads or see the process by which they make a decision unless they tell someone or show us. When you write a book, you use words on the page to tell your story. You can go in and out of heads and spend time describing the setting or the characters. You’re only limited by your imagination, and maybe your publisher’s page count.

  Films can only use images and action and minimal dialog to tell the story. What do you say? Minimal dialog? Movie people talk all the time, don’t they? Actually, they don’t. Sit down in front of your favorite movie with a timer sometime and click it when people are actually talking. It won’t be nearly as long as you think.

  In Hollywood, success (or lack of) in an adaptation is defined very simply in dollars and cents, which isn’t much help in adapting your own script. That said, you can still examine adaptations that made it onto the screen and assess them for critical success (again, or lack of). If you’re familiar enough with the book,
you can also learn from the choices the writer made in their adaptation.

  One film that comes to mind for me is The Hunt for Red October. The book was one of those author stories we love to read about. Clancy gets turned down by everyone in New York, takes his novel to a small press, gets it out there and it sells like hot cakes. New York comes to him with handfuls of cash and he’s an “overnight” success.

  I read the book before the movie came out, but there was a gap between the reading and the movie viewing. I have a very good memory for plot (don’t ask me why, because I forget just about everything else!) and felt like I remembered it pretty well. When I saw the movie, I left believing they’d changed very little when adapting that script. I felt the same sense of delight I’d felt reading the book and dug it out to read again. To my surprise, there were a lot of differences, and a whole lot was left out. What the screenwriter had managed to do was hold onto the essence, the pacing and the feel of the story. In my opinion, this was a top-notch adaptation. Even though it was substantially different in many ways, the film felt the same as the novel in all the important ways.

  Conversely, when I saw both the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films, I had the opposite experience. I’d read both very recently and was very aware of what was different and what had been left out. Again, I felt that these adaptations stayed close to the essence of the books, but found some areas of disagreement over the screenwriter’s choices. Had I written the adaptations, there are some things I’d have done quite differently, even though overall I enjoyed the films. (Note that the word “choices” coming up again and again. Adapting is all about weeding your garden—to keep to the Seger analogy—until you’ve got only the flowers you need for your script.)

  One film adaptation that really surprised me was based on the novel The Boyfriend School. The author is given screen credit for making the adaptation, but the movie is wildly different from the novel, right down to the book’s essence level. The book was funny, but much darker. The book’s protagonist lived life just short of disaster and the humor was very ironic. In sharp contrast, the movie was light, occasionally drifting over into slapstick. The movie was released as Don’t Tell Her Its Me but has since been renamed to match the novel, possibly to tie it back into the book?

  Having gone through the process of pre-production and rewrites with the company that optioned my script adaptation of Do Wah Diddy Die, I understand a lot better what happened in the “writing” (and rewriting) of a script. That is one of the sad realities of Hollywood: what you put on paper may never end up on the screen or may not be recognizable if it does. Most scripts go through several rewrites—unless you have the money or the power to require some loyalty to your original concept. Or you can produce your script yourself.

  Another adaptation I found interesting was the HBO miniseries All the Rivers Run. I really enjoyed the series, so I picked up the novel when I ran across it. I hated the book, loved the miniseries. The Firm is another one where I felt the film improved on the book. I liked the film ending much better and felt it made more sense within the framework of the character Grisham created.

  The 2005 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice is also a good study. If you’ve seen any of the A&E miniseries, then you’ll notice the subplots have been severely cut in the recent adaptation. Again, in my opinion, the writers of the 2005 adaptation did a great job. They distilled the story down to the basic conflict between Elizabeth and Darcy, only bringing in other characters as they impact the Elizabeth/Darcy storyline.

  My mom didn’t like this adaptation as much as I did. She felt it strayed too far from the story. Obviously you can’t please everyone, nor should you try. But if you go into the process with unrealistic expectations, you will be disappointed.

  This is a good time to think about why you’re interested in adapting your novel to script and if you can take the heat of this particular kitchen. Hollywood has very little respect for writers, though there are exceptions to this, particularly among independent producers. There are two very good reasons to adapt your book: a) promotion for your novel, and b) money. Even an independent film has the potential to earn the author more than a standard book contract advance from a major publisher. And if you’re lucky enough to get a Writer’s Guild contract, with their minimums and protections built into the contract…oh my!

  But beyond the promotion and the money, I found a lot of pleasure in revisiting my stories from this different direction. For one thing, I’ve (hopefully) grown as a writer and was able to bring some of that maturity to the process. Screenwriting also allows me to exercise some different writing muscles.

  I found that adapting Do Wah Diddy Die helped me to write a stronger novel. It forced me to answer some questions I was struggling with in the writing of the book and vice versa. I love the freedom of the novel, the ability to get inside heads and describe action and setting, but I also love how spare a script is, the story reduced to essentials. That lets me see the action framework very clearly—important because I write suspense, which should have lots of action and a strong plot framework.

  Some of the books I’ve read proclaim the incompatibility of novel and script writing, claiming that tackling one will inevitably ruin you for writing the other. It does require you to change brain settings, but I utterly dispute the notion that you have to choose. I find the two forms complement each other and with any luck, you will, too.

  I hope you aren’t feeling too discouraged—and that you’re still intrigued by the thought of adapting your novel and are anxious to get going.

  One excellent way to get started is to identify two novels you’ve read which have been adapted for film, one you feel was successful and one that wasn’t. Watch the films, noting the choices the screenwriter made and your gut reaction to those choices. It will help you begin to develop the analytical tools needed to be able to assess your own material.

  FINDING THE FILM STORY IN YOUR BOOK

  In a novel, the visual story is usually hiding among all your carefully crafted characters, theme, descriptions, subplots, etc. You know your story inside out and upside down. This is both your strength and your weakness.

  Because you know the story so well, you’ll probably find it hard to let go of chunks of story and will try to get it all in. On the upside, because you know the story so well, you should also know what is absolutely critical to keep.

  Your film story should have a direction. It needs to move smoothly from the inciting incident toward a clearly defined climax. So it is important to know your story—and it will help you market your finished script to those non-reading producers.

  This is a good time to reduce your novel to a one or two sentence logline. A logline tells us who is doing what and why in one, or possibly two, sharply focused sentences. Someone has to do something or something will happen. It’s a short statement of what your script is about.

  The logline for Do Wah Diddy Die’s adaptation is:

  Luci Seymour—sexy & free spirited—returns to steamy New Orleans in search of the father she’s never met. She finds murder, mayhem, love and adventure when her timing puts her directly in the sights of an elderly hit couple and a con man’s last scam.

  You don’t really know if your logline works until you try to sell with it. This one worked very well for me. I got many requests and an option from this logline, so I can conclude it worked. Could it be better? Probably.

  Your logline should also telegraph the script’s genre. The above logline clearly shows mystery and humor.

  An example of a one-line, suspense logline is:

  An author must script her own survival when she’s targeted for death by a hit man.

  This is the logline I use to pitch The Last Enemy and it also got me many requests to read the script. Unlike the first example, you can see this example telegraphs danger, not humor.

  If you can get to the core of your story, you’re on your way to finding your script story. You use it to keep you on track while you are writing.
A logline should always be active, vigorous and hint at what kind of story you are telling. You can play with your audience, like I did with the one for Luci, but to start you may just want to write: Someone needs to do/not do something or something will/or won’t happen.

  In the links section I’m including some articles about writing log lines. I found them with a simple google search. If you’re feeling stuck, don’t be afraid to jump online and find out what other writers have to say on the subject.

  I also subscribe to any free scriptwriting newsletters I can find. If a website offers an email newsletter, I sign up. Most of them have articles or links to articles about screenwriting, and some have producer leads as well.

  One thing I suggest when beginning your adaptation is to print out a copy of your book and then go through it, page by page, highlighting only the parts where visible action occurs. In other words, mark the parts of your story that you’d see if you were watching a movie. No thinking. No descriptions. Don’t even highlight dialogue yet. Just the stuff that can be seen on a screen.

  Once you have identified the action, you need to look for what scriptwriting guru, Syd Field and others call the key plot points. (I use a mix of his, and playwright Sam Smiley’s techniques, for writing a synopsis of my novels, btw. It helps me keep my focus tight and concise.)