Part 2: Adapting books for the screen and stage

Before you start, get some tips from the pros

In 2017, I went to the Emirates Festival of Literature and had the pleasure of hearing Andrew Davies and Kathy Reichs (hosted by Fiona Lindsey) give a talk titled ‘From book to screen: Getting adaptations right.’
 
Davies adapted House of Cards, Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice (1995), Bleak House and War & Peace into screenplays. He is THE man to look to for advice when adapting historical fiction for the screen. He shared the tips and tricks he uses to defeat a blank page and get words down.
 
Top tips

• Read and re-read the text (listen to it on audiobook). Copy the best bits!
• Pick and choose: What’s going to work well on screen? Is anything missing?
• Think visually!
• Pacing is concentrated.
• Keep description to a minimum.
• Make dialogue short and snappy! Practice saying it out loud. Avoid mumbling!
• Character is the most important aspect: the story comes from what they want and what fate throws at them. Get in their shoes, get in their heads.
• Be organized or be doomed.
• Pay attention to the details!
• Letters should be flashbacks!
• You can show a character thinking, but don’t linger!

 
Keep the above list handy because you’ll keep referring to it when you need to make a decision but are wavering between A or B. This list will remind you what matters.  
 
Fiction considerations

• A great writer may have forgotten something.
• Viewers need something extra for the screen than what a novel provides.
• There will absolutely be compression and distilling of the text. But how do you decide what to condense? The answer is: Trust your reaction to it.
• There must be balance to the point of view(s).
• Stories and characters must evolve.

 
These are self-explanatory, so I’ll let them stand!

Know thy audience
When writing a book, knowing your audience is vital. The same is true with writing a script. But you have to acknowledge that the film will never be the book, and it shouldn’t try to be. It’s going to be the amalgamation of several different people’s (script writer, director, set designer, costume designer) imaginations.
 
Davies and Reichs had some nice soundbites! My favorite was: ‘A good adaptation isn’t necessary faithful to the original. It’s not criteria for it.’
 
It’s important not to get hung up in making every audience member happy. You’ll never accomplish that. The goal should be to tell a good story that happens to have already been published. It’s a new version of that same story.
 
Stay realistic
Davies and Reichs said be wary of how things will work once your script is acquired.  Scripts get changed! Budgets play a huge role in how a film is created. The actor you want is unavailable! etc. The actor that was hired can’t deliver. (Some actors can deliver, some can’t.)
 
Timing
You’re limited on time!

• Films can be anywhere from 90 to 120 minutes or beyond!
• BBC shows are usually 60 minutes.
• A TV screenplay is 40 to 45 minutes. If it’s a TV adaptation, you need 3 story levels for each episode!

 
The tech side
Things can get more technical than this, but you can still have the basic writing tools and be just fine!

• Final draft is screenwriting software
• Get scripts at SimplyScripts
• You can set up Word Styles in Word to help with formatting if you go that route.

 
A typical workday
Andrew Davies says this is his typical workday. (He was eighty-years-old in 2017!)

• At desk at 9 a.m.
• Sit for most of the day.
• Lucky for two hours of real work
• Write four pages in a day.

 
Script accepted and ready to roll? Know this!
On set, the writer is the only person without a job! You’re there to consult, but that’s about it. Many of the key factors are out of your hands at this point. Don’t be too upset when lines get cut, or rearranged. The director is doing their best to make it work visually.
 
In my next post, I’ll go into detail about my process for adapting a manuscript.