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themorikelifeOne of the classes I took in college was a screenwriting workshop focusing on adapting a book to a movie. The professor was a working screenwriter based in California, so we would only meet once a month to sit down and talk about screenwriting. As a college class, I enjoyed it because it was finally a class that went at my own pace. I appreciated the independent study, which I could fit in-between my other classes. It was also a class that trusted me, a young and naive thing, as a storyteller.
The overall gist was that we had a stack of books that were purposefully hard to adapt, and over the course of the semester, we would be at least starting a screenplay adaptation of one of these books. (My book was Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. I had nothing to do with the Syfy TV adaptation).
It's because of this class that I have my current feelings around adaptations. They can be summarized into 3 big rules:
So what happens when you don't have the time to cover everything? You lose things. What happens when you lose things? The story changes.
We learned that, when planning the screenplay, we are taking the entire story. We are identifying the underlying story throughout the novel and then building the rest of the screenplay around that. This is similar to what some AU fanfiction does. Someone wants to tell a story about, say, a woman finding other lesbians in 1950s New York City, but they use the characters of Arcane instead of original characters to fill in the blanks around who this woman is, who she encounters, and what sort of relationships she forges.
My favorite question to ask is: if you're attempting to retell the story verbatim, then why should people go to your adaptation instead of the original?
Take novels, for example. Novels can do weird shit. You can have a random paragraph of exposition in the middle of an action sequence. Novels have the time to set up a book-long joke. In terms of visuals, novels dictate exactly what you're looking at. An author can write any setting that uses any technology and it will be their own vision from start to finish.
So when you're adapting a novel into a movie, you're basically taking an internal monologue and giving it a visual expression. The strength with movies is a single image can tell the audience about three pages' worth of information in a matter of seconds. A movie is a dramatic, multi-sensory spectacle. When adapting anything into this, a good question to ask is: how can I make a spectacle out of this?
Or, for another medium, how do the strengths of this new medium enhance the original story for the better?
Which means that anything you put into your story shouldn't require any homework from the audience. No one should go home from the movie theaters and look up what the hell something was. If you are not adequately explaining your story while the story is being told, that's just bad storytelling.
In the end, whatever you are adapting, it has to stand on its own as a full and complete story.
Agree? Disagree? What makes a good adaptation for you? What's your favorite adaptation, and why does it work for you? What's an adaptation you think adheres to these rules that I didn't mention? Inquiring minds want to know!
The overall gist was that we had a stack of books that were purposefully hard to adapt, and over the course of the semester, we would be at least starting a screenplay adaptation of one of these books. (My book was Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. I had nothing to do with the Syfy TV adaptation).
It's because of this class that I have my current feelings around adaptations. They can be summarized into 3 big rules:
Rule 1: If You're Trying to Recreate the Entire Story Verbatim, You're Doing It Wrong
Our professor brought up the elephant in the room for adapting novels to movies: the time constraint. Novels can be as long or as short as they need to be. And in fact, a short story or novella is easier to adapt to a movie than a 300-page/100,000-word novel. Movies should not exceed 180 minutes, and if they do, they have to earn that overtime (sidenote: you should write as though your screenplay is not earning that overtime).So what happens when you don't have the time to cover everything? You lose things. What happens when you lose things? The story changes.
We learned that, when planning the screenplay, we are taking the entire story. We are identifying the underlying story throughout the novel and then building the rest of the screenplay around that. This is similar to what some AU fanfiction does. Someone wants to tell a story about, say, a woman finding other lesbians in 1950s New York City, but they use the characters of Arcane instead of original characters to fill in the blanks around who this woman is, who she encounters, and what sort of relationships she forges.
My favorite question to ask is: if you're attempting to retell the story verbatim, then why should people go to your adaptation instead of the original?
Doing it Right: The Expanse
The Expanse TV show is based off The Expanse books by James. S.A. Corey, which is a pen name for Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham. The TV show does a good job of adapting the overall plot that drives the books, while at the same time trimming some side characters and evening out the pacing. For example, Abbadon's Gate (book 3) is a brick; it is also slow as fuck. In the TV show, that book is given half a season (6 episodes), which was a perfect amount of time to linger in that arc.Rule 2: What is this New Medium Bringing to the Table that the Old Medium Lacks?
"Different mediums use different tools to tell the story" is a simplistic summary of this. Each medium has its own set of limitations, yes, but they also have their own set of strengths. When starting your adaptation, you need to think about the strengths and weaknesses of this new medium and how it will enhance the story you want to tell.Take novels, for example. Novels can do weird shit. You can have a random paragraph of exposition in the middle of an action sequence. Novels have the time to set up a book-long joke. In terms of visuals, novels dictate exactly what you're looking at. An author can write any setting that uses any technology and it will be their own vision from start to finish.
So when you're adapting a novel into a movie, you're basically taking an internal monologue and giving it a visual expression. The strength with movies is a single image can tell the audience about three pages' worth of information in a matter of seconds. A movie is a dramatic, multi-sensory spectacle. When adapting anything into this, a good question to ask is: how can I make a spectacle out of this?
Or, for another medium, how do the strengths of this new medium enhance the original story for the better?
Doing it Right: The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is told in first-person present narration from the point of view of Katniss Everdeen. Katniss's perspective is very limited. The movie adaptation shined when it allowed the story to step away from Katniss and show us her effects outside of herself. Because of Katniss, District 8 started a riot. Because of Katniss, the Gamemaster was forced to commit suicide. These are consequences that we don't really see in the books, and seeing them in the movies only serves to highlight the story.Doing it Right: Speed Racer
The 2008 movie adaptation of the beloved anime is one of my favorite movies on the planet. It takes an animated beloved and turns it into a stylized, spectacle of a live-action film that both pays homage to its origins while being its own thing. There is very little I can criticize it for. It's a quality adaptation and I am due for a re-watch, since it's been several years since I last saw it.Rule 3: The Adaptation Should Be Accessible to People Who Have Never Engaged With the Original Source Material
One of the reasons stories are frequently adapted is so they can be seen by a larger audience. Some people don't like reading books. Some people don't play video games. Some people are not keen on graphic novels. These are all valid preferences. Adaptions enable a story to be seen by more people. When you're writing an adaptation, you have to think about the people whose first interaction with this story/franchise will be through your adaptation.Which means that anything you put into your story shouldn't require any homework from the audience. No one should go home from the movie theaters and look up what the hell something was. If you are not adequately explaining your story while the story is being told, that's just bad storytelling.
In the end, whatever you are adapting, it has to stand on its own as a full and complete story.
Doing It Right: Dune Parts 1 and 2
Dune has been adapted multiple times, and I am specifically looking at the 2021 and 2024 movie adaptations. They follow the events of the first Dune book by Frank Herbert pretty closely. Dune Part 1 is basically the first half of the novel in movie form. Dune Part 2 is where we see most of these changes. For instance, Paul and Chani have a son who makes it to the age of two before he is killed off screen. He does not make an appearance in the movie. Probably because infanticide would alienate a vast majority of the movie's audience. This and other changes feel like they were made to update the story to contemporary philosophies in order to make the adaptation more accessible.Doing It Right: The Last of Us
For the purposes of this, I am specifically speaking to The Last of Us season 1 adapting the video game of the same name. I watched the whole thing in a weekend and I was enthralled. I have never played the original game, and at this point I have no interest in doing so. Part of that is because the first season of the television show was so well done. It had a lot to say about apocalypse and community and survival and family. From my friends, I know that a handful of storylines were updated from the game, and those updates were made for the better. Because I am not left wanting to play the video game to find out what I might have missed, the first season is doing something right.Agree? Disagree? What makes a good adaptation for you? What's your favorite adaptation, and why does it work for you? What's an adaptation you think adheres to these rules that I didn't mention? Inquiring minds want to know!
