Part 3: Adapting books for the screen and stage

How to adapt a text into a script

I’ve adapted two historical novels into scripts. One went on the stage, the other is locked in a drawer, but I learned many valuable lessons from both!
 
Structure
Writers rejoice! The structure is just like your novel!

• Act I needs to set up everything that’s going to happen: the character’s goals, motivations, what’s at stake.
• Act II then needs to put the characters through trial after trial: everything they know and love is at risk of being lost. Act II has to vital plot points: the midpoint (when the character must make a life-altering decisions) and the black/crisis moment (when the character faces the worst possible situation they could ever imagine).
• Act III needs to wrap everything up and resolve the story question and show the character in the new world they’ve created.

 
Script 1
When I was teaching English at a high school in Istanbul, as the newbie English teacher, I was given the job of staging a play in English.
 
Lord, how did I get through it?  Luckily, the other newbie teacher was into drama and could actually act! So I got the job of script writing. We chose The Three Musketeers because it was in the public domain, was a story I knew, and has lots of characters.
 
Surprisingly, we had a huge group of students who wanted to be in this club.  (I wonder if they thought they’d just goof off? I think they found themselves surprised to be acting on stage, in costume, in English! at the end of the year!)
 
How I adapted a book into a manuscript.

• I went to Project Gutenberg to get the text.  
• I copy/pasted it into Word and I set up Word styles for Act and Scene numbering, a character list, dialogue, and stage directions.
• As I read the text, I cut out narrative and applied the styles to the text I kept. This took weeks. The process started in early October. I spent every evening after work combing through the text. I had a working script by the end of December to send home with the students.
• The challenge I faced was how and where to cut. The first to go were the long bits of narrative. If it contained important information, I wrote it as dialogue and squeezed it in between Dumas’s original dialogue. I put words into the mouths of Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan! Even Cardinal Richelieu didn’t escape!
• Since these were teenagers, I had to clean up (and cut) many of the vital plot points—that are revealed before, during, or after sex scenes in the book—this resulted in several subplots getting cut.
• As we rehearsed, sometimes the students would stop and ask, “Why am I doing/saying this?” This is a valid question: if the actor doesn’t understand the why behind what they’re doing, it means neither the text nor set directions has revealed the motivation, goals, or stakes for their character. Most tweaks involved adding a line of dialogue, adding a set of stage directions, or cutting the original line. (I’ve saved the best bits about how the play for the end. See * below!)

 
So you will finish your script, but you’ll still be tweaking and making changes up to the minute of production! It’s one of those “It’s not over ’til it’s over” scenarios.

Script 2
In 2018, I had an idea: what if Jane Austen’s books had been multicultural? I could adapt an old book into a screenplay and with a super cast list as my inspiration.
 
I followed the same process as above: I got a book from Project Gutenberg (not an Austen novel, in the end). It was a story I wasn’t familiar with, which made the process much more difficult.
 
(Spoiler, I was halfway through when Bridgerton was announced. They beat me to it! Let’s just go ahead and give them a round of applause. Bridgerton is freakin’ awesome.)

1. If you’re adapting a story that isn’t yours, read it two or three times. If it’s your novel, move to step 2!
2. Write the major plot points down (in a Word/Google doc, on note cards, Post-it Notes, however you like). This will act as your map. You have to fill in the gaps.
3. Start your first draft by take the existing dialogue and copy/pasting it in.
4. Place your major plot points in between the dialogue. (I use bullet points at this stage. It makes them easier to spot.) There should be a shape to the story now. Sit back and think about what’s missing.
5. Go back to the text and start looking at the good narrative bits: can you use some as stage directions? Setting? Will you have a voiceover narrate anything? Take it from the text!
6. Start looking for good places to start breaking the story up: I like to have three acts and then however many scenes within each act that are necessary.
7. By this point, I find the text overwhelming, so I start to outline. I use the bullet plot points as s starting point, then write a sentence summary for each scene. (It’s a good idea to have a column for notes, too!)
8. Once the acts and scenes are set, it’s time to read through it. Choose a time when you have two hours when you won’t be interrupted! Set a timer and start reading, saying the dialogue and stage directions out loud or using the Read Aloud feature in Word. One of two things will happen: it’ll be awesome, you’ll get through the whole thing and have an idea of the run-time. Or, you’ll find yourself starting to stumble and struggle to get through because you have thoughts/ideas because you’ll see what isn’t working. If that’s the case, pause the timer and jot your thoughts into the notes column in the outline. Then restart the timer and keep going. At the end of this session, you’ll have the notes you need to go back into the script and tweak the small bits. You’ll also see where you’re going to either cut/rewrite/write more.
9. Go back to the script and use your notes to fix the flaws you found.
10. Take a break! Get some time away from it by having your writing group critique it! Get a beta read or any feedback you can to see how it’s shaping up.
11. Once you’ve had a break, use that feedback to redraft and you’ll be at draft two!

 
This is where my advice really ends because I’ve not gone past this stage. But stay tuned! I’m going to the Historical Novel Society Conference 2024, where the theme is From the Author’s Page to Screen and Stage. I hope to come back with all kinds of good advice on what to do once your script is finished!
 
In my final post, I’ll wrap up my suggestions for adaptions and give a list of resources that I find useful.
 
PS Here’s how the rest of The Three Musketeers went!

• The dress rehearsal was okay. We didn’t get to stage the final 15 minutes of it! So of course we had major issues during the two performances (one for the school, one for the parents).
• I’ll never forget that Aramis was on stage when one of the other Musketeer’s asked, “Where’s Aramis?” Not getting enough time to rehearse the ending was a major mistake.  
• I was not part of the costuming process, no, no. One student’s mother got in on that, and caused a whole lot of kerfuffle with a bill at the end of the night! But the show went on. The students looked great!
• I hope my colleague was in the pit with the script to help with lines … I don’t remember any more.
• I was backstage. I nearly broke my leg pulling something off the stage and hadn’t realized there was a huge staircase up to the stage behind me. My shin hurt for the rest of the year.
• It was over in a flash. I wish I could remember if the students were happy or sad or how they felt. I knew the ones with big roles were disappointed that it wasn’t perfect, but I’m still thrilled we got through it!