So many authors dream of the opportunity to see their story appear on the screen. Whether it’s a cozy Hallmark movie or a major production for Netflix, the chance to see a story come to life on a different medium is thrilling. And while some authors may get their story optioned before a book is even published, other authors might be wondering if they can facilitate the process by adapting their novel themselves. Or perhaps the adaptation is underway and they would like to write the screenplay themselves rather than outsourcing the script to a screenwriter.

Either way, for most authors, adapting their own novel might be the first time they’ve ever attempted to write a script. First things first, it’s essential to any beginner screenwriter that they understand the fundamentals of the craft. But writing a screenplay and adapting a novel are two different skillsets. Formatting and style may overlap, but figuring out how to extract a script from larger source material like a book is a skill in and of itself.

So if you’re considering taking on this project, here’s what you need to know.

Find Your Story’s Core

We’re going to skip the basics of screenwriting in this article, but if you feel you need to familiarize yourself with that, please make sure to check out our beginners guide, Screenwriting 101: How to Write Your First Screenplay from Start to Finish.

Once you feel you understand how to construct a screenplay, it’s essential that you approach your novel in an effort to get to the bare bones basics of your story.

To do this you’ll want to:

  • Condense the description of your book into a single sentence
  • Identify the theme and central message in your novel
  • Map out the main plot points in the story
  • Highlight the arcs for each of your characters

In doing this, you’ll reveal the essentials of the story that have to be represented in the script. These high level points will be a driving force in each scene, line of dialogue and action that takes place.

Visual, Active Storytelling vs. Interiority, Subplots and Exposition

In the next stage, it’s important to identify which parts of your novel are action driven and taking place in the present. A major difference between film/television and novels is the way information is capable of being represented. Moments in a book that are occurring in the character’s head do not often translate to film. Furthermore, a subplot may provide context or a little bit of mystery to a novel, but it can bog down the pages of a script and slow down pacing.

Subplots deserving of omission usually show up in the form of a side character’s journey or a battle that is being fought internally within a character.

An example of this can be found in The Hunger Games. The novel by Suzanne Collins develops a relationship between Katniss and Madge and it’s Madge who gives Katniss the mockingjay pin that becomes so symbolic. In the film, that relationship is omitted and Katniss simply grabs the pin for her sister while at the market. The movie is no less impactful, but minutes (and pages of the script) would have had to appear in the film in order to develop that relationship with Madge and the economy of screenwriting doesn’t allow for such tangents.

In your own story, you may find that the cantankerous neighbor who provides comic relief or the internal struggle battling the concept of morality isn’t fit for the screen. Either because it distracts from the main story or it simply won’t fit.

Go through your novel chapter by chapter and try to imagine each moment as a scene playing out on screen. Is it two friends sitting on the couch? While indulgent and delightful in a book, how long will an audience be enticed by this on screen? Think about times when you see this in film or TV. For example, in the movie Bridesmaids, Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph’s character are sitting on a couch when the engagement is announced. How long does this scene last? Clock it. If you have to have a “two friends sitting on the couch” scene, aim to make a low action moment like this as brief and impactful as possible. In Bridesmaids, this moment last seconds and then is interrupted by a call and we get to watch Wiig’s character react in all her awkward discomfort for a comedically poignant, albeit brief few seconds that sets us up for what we might expect from the reluctant maid of honor.

Narrow in On Your Characters

Though there are some limitations even in a novel for how many characters your audience can withstand, the number tends to shrink even more on screen. Focusing in on your absolute core characters and making determinations about the necessity of your side characters will be a vital part of the process. The cheeky shop owner may get eliminated. The two close friends might drop to one. The big family with four siblings might drop to a couple of siblings. Or the irritating boss who had seven scenes in the book may only have one or two. Try to eliminate what you think your readers want and aim for what will work on screen.

A part of this will also come down to dialogue. The quicker and punchier your dialogue, the better it is for screen. And if a character requires too much dialogue-based explanation to justify them being there, they may just get cut. A lunch with your character’s mother may become a quick phone call or even a text message in a film.

As you go through your novel, you may decide that an argument between a husband and wife is crucial to the story. However, there’s a very slim chance it will look the same.

In a novel, a wife might snap at her husband’s lack of contribution to the house and list all the ways he isn’t assisting with the household responsibilities and child rearing. There might be an exchange where she makes accusations, he gets defensive, she retorts and the fight unfolds in a way you might imagine it happening in real life.

In a script, she may look around the room and see him sitting on the couch while the kitchen is a mess, the kids are screaming and she clearly hasn’t showered. Instead of erupting in this fight, she might trip over his shoes, pick them up, toss them in his lap and say “Every damn time.”

All the visual opportunity can make up for the paired down dialogue. So as you approach each scene, picture how your descriptions can be represented in a second and what little would need to be said for the audience to understand.

Scenes with Purpose

When you’re looking at a completed novel, it’s easy to believe it’s as lean as it can be. But, it isn’t. This is the ultimate phase of kill your darlings. Each and every scene must have a distinct purpose. You may use three or four scenes to establish a warm mother and daughter relationship in a book… but can you do it in one?

Of course you can! But it has to be very intentional. For each scene ask yourself how the scene starts and what has changed by the end of it. If little to nothing has changed, no driving force has been introduced and you find your characters sort of meandering, cut it or revise for the script.

If you have to include a scene that is low energy, light hearted or emotion packed, then you need to balance that out with a high action scene to follow or your script will drag.

There is a lot of space in a book to dig deep, take your time and massage a point. With screenwriting, you need purpose, pace and pragmatism to be your guides. No matter how much you may love a scene, if it isn’t propelling your story forward in a major way, it isn’t meant for the screenplay.

You might even consider a scoring system as you go through your novel. On a scale of 1 – 5 how integral and compelling is this scene? Ones and twos may be cut. Threes and fours may be combined, revised, scaled or eliminated. And 5s are the meat and potatoes of your script. Can you build a script primarily off the fours and fives? Give it a try.

Including New Scenes

Often we think of adaptation as a process of elimination. In every single solitary adaptation, things are going to get cut that appeared in the novel. However, that doesn’t mean your script is going to be some watered down, lesser version of the book (although, we’ve all seen that happen).

In some cases, more is more! And when it comes to a book-to-TV adaptation in particular, you may find you have room to explore entirely new and exciting elements that aren’t present at all in the source material. Adaptations like this can be seen in Netflix’s 3 Body Problem and AMC’s The Walking Dead. In both instances, more characters are added, more emotion is plugged in and the TV show sort of becomes its own story in a way, diverting more and more from the books with each episode.

Adaptation should be an opportunity for a story to take on a whole new shape and appeal to an entirely new audience. If your only aim with an adaptation is to satisfy readers 1) it’s a hard audience to please and 2) it might rob you the chance of capturing a TV/film audience.

You want to ask yourself what the best thing is for the medium you’re writing for. Using 3 Body Problem as an example again, the book was very technical and rich with physics talk. The scientific complexities of the story worked in book form, but absolutely would not have translated on screen. No one can sit there for minutes on end listening to scientific jargon on TV. Instead, the show upped the human element by integrating all new characters that created a real heart-centered story that wasn’t quite as prevalent in the novel.

Adaptation isn’t about peeling away all the fun elements of a book or mirroring the book as closely as possible. It’s about crafting the story in a familiar way that fits the medium you’ve chosen.

As you move through your adaptation, you may discover that each round of revisions feels further and further from your book. This might be scary at first, but try to distance yourself from the original work and think of this as en entirely new piece of art.