How to Adapt a Novel Into a Screenplay
More than half of what we see in the theaters or watch on TV are adapted from books, graphic novels, video games, and more. Which begs the question: What makes an adaptation good?
(Author Advice from 2023 for a Better 2024)
Is it being 100 percent faithful to the source material? Is it making necessary updates to literary classics? Is it including the author in the adapting process? In this episode, Writer’s Digest’s editor-in-chief Amy Jones and content editor Michael Woodson sit down for a chat with Script magazine’s editor-in-chief Sadie Dean about what makes a good adaptation, what makes a bad one, and the times when the adaptation was better than the book.
From the Episode
“I saw the film (The Hours) and I loved it so much that after it was over, I drove across the street to the Barnes & Noble, and the book was on a display table right there with Mrs. Dalloway (by Virginia Woolf), and I bought them both, and it literally changed the course of my life. That’s something I didn’t think about with adaptations—it introduced me to a writer that I wasn’t familiar with before, and it made such an impact on my life.”—Amy Jones
“It’s such a different beast in the TV and film landscape, especially in what you’re allotted on the page. With a novel, you get 300 pages, 500 pages. With a screenplay, we max out at 120 pages, and there’s not a lot of text on that page. You’re only given a limited amount of time and space to really tell that story. So, as an author, you know, ‘I really wish that we could explore Jimmy’s arc here.’ Well, Jimmy’s really not that important in my version of telling this story, but we could take Jimmy’s arc and maybe put it into Sally’s arc and combine these characters. So, that’s the kind of thing you just have to be open to. I think it just makes you a better collaborator, and storyteller, too.”—Sadie Dean
“If a book that I loved gets made into a movie that is so good but so different than the book, I don’t care usually. They get to be two separate things for me that I get to enjoy. I think where people get a little bit caught in, ‘They should have never done this, it can’t be as good,’ … these are two different mediums. If [the adaptation] draws people to the book, that’s awesome. I don’t care that it’s different. It’s being adapted.”—Michael Woodson