How to adapt a novel into a screenplay in 10 steps.

How to adapt a novel into a screenplay in 10 steps.

If you’re wondering how to adapt a novel into a screenplay, you’re in good company. So were Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games), Annie Proulx (Brokeback Mountain), Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl), and Dave Eggers (Away We Go) at one point.

If you’ve found some success as a novelist (or even if you haven’t yet) maybe you’ve considered adapting a novel into a screenplay, but are having trouble knowing where to begin?

If so, here are ten clear steps you should follow while adapting a novel into a script for the silver screen.

How to adapt a novel into a screenplay step #1: decide if it would make a good movie.

While Hollywood absolutely loves making movies out of novels, not all novels should be made into movies. You need to take a good hard look at your story and be honest with yourself as to whether it would make a good film.

Is it visual enough?

Is there enough conflict? Is it commercial enough? Would people pay their hard-earned money to go see this in a movie theater? Are there a good number of scenes that you can easily imagine up on screen, thrilling audiences worldwide?

If the answer’s “yes” proceed to step #2.

If, on the other hand, your story is very small, deeply personal and mainly concerned with your characters’ inner thoughts, it’s probably not cinematic enough to consider adapting into a screenplay.

Step #2: learn how to adapt a novel into a screenplay by reading books.

As you probably know, writing a book and adapting a novel into a screenplay requires two completely different approaches and techniques. Therefore if you come from a novel writing background, it’s a good idea to first garner as much information as you can on how to write a screenplay.

One of the best ways to do this is to simply get started reading some screenwriting how-to books. Aim to read at least ten before embarking on your screenplay.

Here are just a few of our favorite screenwriting books. They’re not too heavy and also explain things in a clear, concise manner.

•Your Screenplay Sucks by William M. Akers

• Inside Story by Dara Marks

• Save the Cat Stikes Back by Blake Synder

For the full list, check out this page The 10 Best Screenwriting Books To Read In 2019.

Step #3: learn how to adapt a novel into a screenplay by reading pro scripts.

Not enough aspiring screenwriters do this regularly, but reading the scripts to your favorite movies is maybe the best way to learn how to write. And it’s also one the very best things you can do when it comes to adapting a novel into a screenplay.

There are a ton of sites where you can download professional screenplays for free but we have a put together a post 50 Of The Best Screenplays To Read And Download In Every Genre that’s a great place to start.

In short, reading a ton of professional screenplays should be an essential part of your weekly writing routine.

Step #4. learn how to adapt a novel into a screenplay by writing outlines.

Writing a movie tends to be a much more structurally “formulaic” process than writing a novel. So here’s a great, hands-on technique you can use to familiarize yourself with how movies are constructed.

All you have to do is open your laptop and simply write down the key actions in every scene. Stick to the essentials of each scene—just what’s happened and how the plot’s moved forward—and keep it to two sentences max per scene.

Once this is done, study the outline, break it into its three acts and note why each scene is in the movie. Repeat this enough and before you know it, you’ll be an expert when it comes to how scripts are put together structurally and can begin adapting your novel into a screenplay.

Step #5: write out your novel as an outline. 

Having focused on steps #1 to #4 for a while, it’s time to write an outline of your book. Read it once more, picturing the events up on a movie screen and summarizing each scene in the same way as in step #4.

Only put down scenes that advance the story in some way—either by developing the plot or by revealing character.

A scene in which we see a character realizes he has one hour to stop a bomb going off is obviously moving the plot forward. A scene in which we see a character choose not to talk to anyone at a party and lock herself in the bathroom is revealing character.

Essentially you only want to include things we can see on screen. This means leaving out all interior monologues, descriptions of the rolling countryside, political theories, and so on.

Step #6: zero in on your movie’s main conflict. 

Much of this might be familiar to you, but it’s worth reassessing your novel from a basic screenwriting perspective when it comes to adapting a novel into a screenplay.

In contrast to penning a novel, writing a movie script is mainly about giving the protagonist a clear goal to achieve. This should have high stakes attached to it and be very hard to accomplish due to the opposition they face from a strong antagonist.

It can be very useful to try to condense your novel/screenplay’s core idea down into what’s known in screenwriting jargon as a “logline”—a short summation of the film’s core conflict into a couple of sentences. (We have a post here on How to Write a Logline.)

Go to IMDb.com and take a look at the plot summaries/loglines for some of your favorite movies. You should find that each logline neatly encapsulates just why you wanted to go see that movie in the first place.

Distilling your core idea down into a couple of short sentences is the ideal way to make sure it contains enough conflict and is exciting enough for people to want to see it up on screen.

Step #7: turn your novel outline into a script outline.

Now it’s time to take the outline you wrote in step #5 and, having refined your movie’s core idea, turn it into an outline for the actual screenplay. Editing, refining and polishing your outline is vital as it could potentially save you wasting many months of working on a story that’s not quite there yet.

Resist the temptation to jump right into writing the screenplay and spend some time beating out the story—working out what from the novel you should keep and what you should cut. As well as what new characters, scenes or plotlines you might need to write.

Novels usually run between 200 and 400 pages in length. As screenplays are considerably more concise, writing this outline may require quite a bit of editing: removing characters, subplots and anything not associated with the protagonist’s goal.

You want to make sure that you only include scenes in this outline that move the story forward—either by advancing the plot or by revealing character.

If you find yourself including scenes about the protagonist’s aunt who has no impact on the story at all, she should probably either be removed from the story or maybe melded together with another character.

Keep the narrative as clean and focused as possible.

Step #8: buy some screenwriting software.

If you’ve made it this far it means you’re committed to writing this screenplay and so now might be a good time to purchase some screenwriting software. The last thing you want to do is start writing the screenplay on MS Word or some other regular writing program.

Screenwriting software will take all the formatting heavy lifting off your hands while adapting a novel into a screenplay, and here are the five best screenwriting software options on the market.

While all of these screenwriting software programs will do much of the formatting work for you, it’s still worth getting to grips with the best practices concerning how to format a script.

Step #9: start writing your script. 

Having concentrated on writing novels up to now, you may be used to spending a great deal of time describing tiny details and giving characters long speeches and internal monologues. In a screenplay, though, everything needs to be as brief and concise as possible.

As they say in the screenwriting business, you want to leave lots of “white space” on the page. This generally means avoiding detailed descriptions, like of a stain on some drapes, or what the moon looks like in the sky.

The trick is to only include dialogue and describe action or scenery that’s important to the advancement of either plot or character.

Keep your scenes short and sweet. Remember the old screenwriting adage to “get in late and leave early” and that one page in a script roughly translates to one minute on screen. Generally, you don’t want your scenes to run over two pages.

Above all, remember that as opposed to writing a novel, writing a screenplay is all about revealing story through visuals. Rather than remaining in a character’s or narrator’s head, approach each scene from this angle: what do I want to show the audience with these characters’ words or actions?

Here’s a post on 35 Common Writing Style Mistakes In Spec Scripts that you should check out.

Step #10: learn how to adapt a novel into a screenplay by getting feedback.

Keep writing and learning the craft of screenwriting, but also don’t forget to get some script coverage on your work as you go along. Otherwise, you may end up writing away in a bubble, as some fundamental mistakes that could be easily rectified, go left unchecked.

Obviously, the best people to get advice from are professional writers, script readers, producers, managers, etc. If you know someone in the industry who can give you some free feedback, grab the opportunity with both hands.

We also recommend the online screenwriting forum, Stage32, as a great place to get honest advice from fellow screenwriters. And it’s free.

Once you’ve taken someone else’s notes on board, it’s often a good idea to step away from the script for a couple of weeks or so to let them sink in. Make notes. Mull them over for a while and then return to the script with a clearer head to begin the rewrite process.

Getting to grips with screenplay writing may be hard at first, but stick at it and who knows? Maybe soon you’ll be following in the footsteps of Cormac McCarthy and Emma Donoghue.

7 Steps For Adapting Your Novel Into A Screenplay

Writing books and writing screenplays are two entirely different beasts. If you have experience writing the former but not the latter, it’s important to understand what makes a good screenplay first before attempting to write one.

Therefore, Steps 1 – 3 below tackle some of the research you’ll need to do before adapting your novel into a screenplay.

Steps 4 – 7 then tackle the actual writing itself and how to put this research into practice.

Step 1: Read screenwriting books

Reading some how-to screenwriting books will give you a solid grounding in writing characters, plot, structure, dialogue, theme, etc. for the big screen. I would recommend avoiding some of the heavier tomes, such as Robert Mckee’s hugely popular but rather pompous, Story.

At least for now, seek out screenwriting books that are easy to read, “fun”, and will keep you excited about your new project.

Some of the most helpful books for novice screenwriters (and my personal favorites) are:

·         Your Screenplay Sucks: William M. Akers

·         The Coffee Break Screenwriter: Pilar Alessandra

·         My Story Can Beat Up Your Story: Jeffrey Alan Schechter

·         Save the Cat Strikes Back: Blake Synder

·         Into the Woods: John Yorke

Step 2: Read screenplays

The reason many screenplays fail, whether they’re adaptations or not, is because the writer simply hasn’t read enough screenplays.

Attempting to write a professional standard script without reading any is a bit like trying to learn electric guitar without listening to any Jimi Hendrix, so make sure you don’t fall into the same trap.

Go to a free download site like Simply Scripts, or Drew’s Script O Rama, download a bunch of screenplays and get reading.

I would recommend finding the time to read at least two scripts a week. You’ll learn so much about how to write a screenplay (perhaps even more than attending most classes or reading most books) that you can’t afford to skip this step if you want to adapt your novel into a script.

Step 3: Outline movies

It’s also important to become familiar with movies are put together structurally. Novels may contain some structural tropes within certain genres, such as Mystery or Romance, but screenplay structure is generally much more “formulaic”.

Certain beats, plots and turning points repeat themselves in movies across all genres, from Alien to Zoolander, and so it’s important to get a handle on what they are.

The best way to do this is to write outlines of movies as you watch them. This involves simply writing a short one or two sentence summary of what happens in each scene as it happens.

For example, here’s what you might write for the opening few scenes of Bridesmaids:

·         Annie has awkward sex with Ted.

·         Next morning, she does herself up and sneaks back into bed. He says he doesn’t want a relationship and tells her to leave.

·         Outside, she can’t get out the gate so she climbs over and gets stuck as it opens.

·         In a park, Annie and her friend, Lillian, workout within ear-shot of an aerobics class. The instructor shoos them off.

·         In a cafe, they discuss Lillian’s relationship with Doug and Annie defends herself for still sleeping with Ted. Lillian says she should leave him because he’s an asshole.

Do this for the whole film and you’ll end up with an outline, or “step outline” as it’s sometimes called, of the whole plot. Then it’s time to break it down into acts and sequences (this is where your reading all those how-to screenwriting books will come in handy) which will force you to study and work out how the movie’s put together.

Repeat this process with as many movies as you can and you’ll soon have a pretty strong grasp of screenplay structure.

Step 4. Write an outline of your novel

Once you’ve spent some time on the first three steps, apply the same principle of writing outlines as described in Step 3 to your own novel.

Go through it again, but this time imagining you’re watching the events unfold on screen. Write out the key scenes focusing only on ones that contain action the reader can visualize being in the movie.

This means no flowery description, no inner character monologues, no backstory — just the scenes that push the story forward because the characters are active, making things happen.

Once you have a scene-by-scene outline of the whole novel, break it down into its respective acts and sequences just like in Step 3. This document will form the basic building block of your movie script, ready to be expanded upon, changed around and edited as you continue your writing process.

Step 5. Refine your movie’s core conflict

Take some time to think about the story from the point of view of someone watching it up on screen in a movie theater. What’s the core conflict here that’s going to make them pay money to want to go and see it?

As opposed to writing a novel, writing a screenplay is predominately about making the reader follow active characters who want to achieve clear-cut goals that are in opposition to each other.

Ask yourself some key questions and jot down notes on elements, like:

·         Who’s the protagonist?

·         What’s their goal?

·         Who or what is the force of antagonism stopping them achieving this goal?

·         Who or what’s at stake if the protagonist doesn’t achieve their goal?

Thinking about these questions will give you an idea of how your novel can translate onto the big screen by focusing on its core concept.

Every great concept has at its heart a protagonist who has to struggle to achieve something. And this is usually a three-way power struggle between them, the antagonist who stands in their way, and what’s at stake in the movie (or the stakes character).

For example:

·         In Sideways, Miles is the protagonist, Jack is the antagonist and Maya is the stakes character.

·         In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy is the protagonist, Belloq/the Nazis are the antagonists, and Marion and the future of the world are at stake.

·         In Se7en, Somerset and Mills are the protagonists, John Doe is the antagonist, and someone else getting murdered is what’s at stake.

It’s this three-way power struggle — the protagonist and antagonist both fighting in direct opposition over a stakes character or something big at stake — that gives a screenplay its power.

In order to really solidify this, write a logline — a one or two sentence summary of this core conflict — and use it as a touchstone to keep you on track when writing the script.

Here are a few loglines from some recent films. (Note how the logline describes the core conflict of protagonist vs. antagonist over something major at stake.):

·         Whiplash: A promising young drummer enrolls at a cut-throat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student’s potential.

·         Blue Ruin: A mysterious outsider’s quiet life is turned upside down when he returns to his childhood home to carry out an act of vengeance. Proving himself an amateur assassin, he winds up in a brutal fight to protect his estranged family.

·         The Edge of Seventeen: High-school life gets even more unbearable for Nadine when her best friend, Krista, starts dating her older brother.

Step 6: Finalize your outline

Some screenwriters like to write outlines, synopses or treatments of their story before starting on the script. Other’s don’t. But I would strongly advise you have some kind of document to follow while writing the actual screenplay.

Finalizing your outline will give you the chance to work out what’s staying, what’s going, and what new material needs to be written.

A novel usually runs anywhere from 200 to 800 pages, or more. Adapting a screenplay from your novel, therefore, will largely be an exercise in editing: cutting out characters, plot lines and scenes that aren’t relevant to the overall core concept.

Focus only on the one clear goal your protagonist is struggling to achieve, why it’s not easy for them to achieve it, and what’s at stake if they don’t. Everything else can probably be cut.

Screenwriting is all about brevity and getting to the “meat” of the story as quickly as possible. Every scene in the movie needs to either move the plot forward, reveal character or expand upon the theme. (A great scene will do all three.)

Therefore, if you have a novel in which your protagonist has two antagonists, five friends, three brothers and a sister, as well as different subplots with each of them, it’s probably a good idea to cut some of these characters out.

Focus on the key characters and storylines that are relevant to the core conflict, fuse one or more characters together to make one single character, and generally “cut the fat” so you’re left with just a clear triangle of conflict.

Step 7: Start writing the screenplay

Once you have your outline, it’s time to finally start writing and I’d recommend purchasing some professional screenwriting software first, such as Movie Magic or Final Draft. (WriterDuet is a great free alternative if you’re strapped for cash.)

Familiarize yourself with the software and you’ll soon find that screenwriting is restricted to just three elements on the page: description, dialogue, and technical formatting, such as scene headings.

As opposed to novel writing, the key to writing a successful screenplay scene is brevity. One page in a script translates roughly to one minute of screen time, and most scenes should be between one and two pages in length.

The best way to make sure you’re keeping your scenes nice and tight is to remember that each one should relate back to the stakes inherent in your protagonist’s goal and the overall core concept.

For example, in Stranger Than Fiction every scene has high stakes attached because they each revolve around Harold’s attempt to either stop himself being erased or to win the girl.

The next time you watch a film, make a note of how much screen time passes without any conflict that revolves around the overall stakes of the movie. One of the biggest problems with spec scripts is that the writer fails to make their protagonist struggle to achieve something, not only in the movie overall but within each individual scene.

This results in scenes that are “flat” and predictable because a protagonist who’s not struggling to achieve anything just ends up hanging out with other characters and shooting the breeze, which doesn’t make for good cinema.

Remember also that film is primarily above all else about communicating story through images, therefore it’s important to avoid having your characters rely on dialogue to move the plot forward.

Actions speak louder than words as the saying goes, and so focus on showing us what your characters are thinking through their actions, rather than their words or inner thoughts.

Final Words

As you write your first draft, keep up Steps 1 to 3 and learning and perfecting your craft. Maybe take a screenwriting class as well in your area, or online.

Acting classes are also a great way of improving your skills as a screenwriter as they’ll force you to see things from “the other side” and understand how actors interpret description and dialogue on the page.

Steps 4 through 7 are also part of an ongoing process but should be accompanied by frequent feedback. Resist the temptation to work in a bubble and get opinions of your logline, outline and screenplay as you go along.

Friends and relatives are the obvious go-to people for this but they come with the baggage of trying to please or being afraid to tell you what they really think. I would suggest getting feedback on your ideas from free screenwriting community websites such as Stage32, joining a screenwriting group if there’s one near you, or paying a professional script consultant for a review.

Writing a screenplay may be tough, but put in the work and you’ll soon start seeing results and maybe the first steps toward emulating the careers of novelists like Dave Eggers and Gillian Flynn.

NOTES FROM THE MARGINS: Adapting Books Into Screenplays

Before you try adapting a book into a screenplay (your own book or someone else's), you need to know the difference between the markets.

Writing novels and writing screenplays require two very different skill sets, both learnable with time and practice. And with the flourishing amount of books turned into films these days, it’s something you should probably look into.

Before you try adapting books into screenplays—your own book or someone else's—you need to know the difference between the markets.

First, online estimates say there are over 250,000 books published every year worldwide. In contrast, there are only about 270 movies released every year domestically, and much fewer scripts actually sold (and FAR fewer sold for real money). So, just using those numbers, it is about ONE THOUSAND times more difficult to sell a screenplay than to get a book published—and quite frankly, it's probably even harder than that.

The book market is widespread and has many niches. There are hundreds of publishers and each have a different type of project they'd like to publish. There are only 7 studios and they all want exactly the same thing. Most books just aren't adaptable—or rather—they SHOULDN'T be adapted. Most people's true stories AREN'T cinematically interesting or commercial. You have to be realistic about your material and realize if that biography about the man who created the soybean you wrote—is really commercial or visual or cinematic enough to be worthy of an adaptation (it isn't). Novels can be 200–500 pages while screenplays are usually 85-130 pages. Therefore, novels can give a much more detailed, intricate description and explanation about stories, settings and characters and really explore—in words—what the characters are thinking, imagining, pondering, remembering, feeling, etc.

With screenplays, everything has to be on screen. There's no writing about what the character is feeling or thinking—you have to show it through visuals, behavior, actions and in dialogue. Novels can explore the backstories and histories of your character and take 20 pages to do so. In a screenplay, your back story has to be woven into the current story or shown in a flashback that's less than four pages.

Novels can jump time periods easily and don't always have to be linear or structured. With screenplays, there should usually be a clear three-act (sometimes four-act) structure, and there needs to be a really good reason for a screenplay to be told non-linearly. With novels, you get a book jacket (or a mini-synopsis on the back) that will tell you immediately if this is a book you want to read. With screenplays this isn't the case, so it's the first 10 pages or so that have to grab you or else people won't read further. The first page of a book is important—but the first page of a screenplay could be everything. Now that you know some of the differences, how do you actually start the adaptation process?

First, make a list of the following:

·         The world and setting of the story.

·         The 5–8 main characters of the story including the protagonist and antagonist, what their respective back stories are and why/how they come together.

·         What 5 things about your main protagonist/antagonist are the most important for an audience to know.

·         The major core conflict of the story and why/how this occurs.

·         The most visual and key scenes in the book that connect to how that conflict plays out.

·         Your 10–20 FAVORITE lines of dialogue that drive the plot, are vital to the story or character development and that really shine.

·         The major overarching theme of the book.

Be aware that you will probably have to cut many supporting characters, subplots that don't connect to your main storyline, and almost all of the description. Instead of two pages of character description, you only get two lines. Often, two or three different characters in a novel will be combined into ONE character in a screenplay. And what happens on the first page of the book may not be how you need to open the film. Try to nail the same tone that the original material had—as that is part of what built its fan base and that tone needs to translate on film. But the real key to adapting a book to film or adapting someone's true story—is FOCUS and knowing how and when to take poetic license.

If you are adapting a true story, it becomes even trickier, but you need to know that changing the timeline of the original story is OK. Your primary job isn't to be loyal to a book or to another writer or even to the main character—it's to be loyal to the core story and yourself. You can't show a whole lifetime on screen (except maybe in Benjamin Button), so you need to choose the most important, interesting, conflict-filled, character-building part of the book or the person's life—and focus on that to create a tight story.

Or alternatively, if you're adapting a small personal story, you may need to expand it to fill the screen. All those Nicholas Sparks novels are incredibly small and usually depressing, but the screenplays introduce more conflict and raise the stakes. Though not based on a book, let's examine Academy Award nominated The Fighter, which was based on a true story. The screenwriters looked at all the material they had—all the characters, all the true things that happened, the time range of the real story—and then wrote what worked. The Amy Adams character wasn't even in Mickey's life at the time he won those fights. Many characters were combined and the time period was totally fudged so that the story became more cinematic and engaging but it kept the essence of the characters involved, the story and the emotion of it all.

That's exactly what your job is when adapting a book or person's true life story. Much like in life, learning to adapt is often a difficult process but can be one of the keys to success. Keep writing!