THURSDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:

ADAPTATION

One of my assignments about a decade ago was adapting a New York Times best selling novel from a big name author for a producer at MGM. .. And I didn't even have a twin brother named Donald to help me. Though I was well paid, I don't think the film is ever going to be made... welcome to studio films! So that all of that work figuring out how to adapt the novel doesn't go to waste, I thought I'd write a tip about it.

1) Find the central conflict. Story is conflict - so the first thing you have to do is figure out exactly what that conflict is. I read this novel a few times until I figured out what the main conflict was. This can be tricky, because books are filled with all kinds of conflicts and subplots. What we are looking for is the MAIN conflict - the conflict that makes all of the other conflicts possible. Novels can be scattershot in their plotting and you may end up with more than one main plot - if so, it's time to make a choice. What is the story you want to tell? What is the story that is most compelling?

The novel I was adapting dealt with a lawyer hired by a woman accused of murdering her husband - and the big courtroom trial that follows. One main conflict... but lots of subplots. And what actually was the main conflict? That required some analysis. Though the DA seemed like the guy who was creating the conflict, he was really just doing his job. The real conflict came from the woman - all of the evidence pointed to her as guilty. The central conflict of the story was - Did she murder her husband or not? That's the seed of conflict the entire story grows from. If she's not guilty - the lawyer hero needs to make sure she isn't convicted... but what if she's guilty? Should the lawyer hero fight to set her free? Often the central conflict will be a question that the story itself will be answering, other times it's a major decision that the protagonist will have to make in their life. Really dig into the book and figure out what that central conflict is - the biggest mistake you can make in an adaptation is using a minor conflict as the spine of your adaptation, or using a bundle of related conflicts instead of digging in to find the central conflict at the source of their relationship. One story = one conflict, so finding the central conflict of the novel is critical.

2) Emotional stakes. Adding to the central conflict of the novel is an emotional component - the lawyer hero becomes romantically involved with the woman over the course of the trial. Now it's the woman he's sleeping with who may or may not have murdered her husband in cold blood. Will he be next? Should he trust her when she says she's innocent... or be suspicious of everything she says? This gives the protagonist EMOTIONAL STAKES in the outcome of the trial, which creates drama. Once you've found the central conflict, the next thing to look for is how that conflict emotionally involves the protagonist. What are the emotional stakes? This is the element that will make the audience care about your protagonist and hope he resolves the problem (but fear that it may all blow up in his face). It should grow right out of the central conflict, rather than be something pasted on from the outside.

3) Focusing the story. Once you've found that central conflict - that's the focus of the story. Everything else is trash. Like most big best selling novels, this one was filled with subplots. There was a great subplot about the dead husband's first wife who contested the will, but it had nothing to do with whether the current wife was guilty or not, so I threw it away. All of the subplots ended up in the trash - except those which were directly related to that central conflict. The central conflict is the spine of your adaptation, and if a subplot isn't attached to that spine it's just going to get in the way. A novel has hundreds of pages to tell the story - you have 110 pages. You have to cut anything that has nothing to do with that central conflict!

4) Your menu of scenes. I went through the book and wrote down every scene that had to do with that central conflict... and every place where characters THOUGHT about the central conflict. Some of those thinking scenes had to be dramatized into physical conflict scenes. On film we can't know what a character thinks or feels - we only know what they DO and SAY. The book was filled with places where the lawyer hero wondered if she was guilty... and I had to create scenes that ILLUSTRATED this - scenes where the actions of the characters would make the AUDIENCE wonder if she was guilty. A suspicion in the mind of the protagonist isn't dramatic - but a scene where he confronts the woman he's sleeping with and asks her about a piece of evidence is going to be a good, meaty scene. Because I wanted THE AUDIENCE to share the protagonist's suspicions, I made sure her explanations made sense... but sounded a little contrived. In the novel the reader never knew if she was guilty or not, and I wanted to replicate that in the script. Suspicious thoughts had to be turned into actions. Everything internal had to be externalized and dramatized. This created scenes that were not in the novel, but seemed as if they were.

5) Your menu of characters. Characters were "repurposed" so that they focused on the central conflict. In the book, the lawyer hero met an ex-cop who helped him in a scene - but was mostly a sounding board for the lawyer's theories. I made this character the chief investigator for the lawyer so that he would be more actively involved in the story and created a backstory friendship between the two so that I could explore the theme I discovered in that central conflict... and have our hero lawyer LIE to the investigator in order to get important information. This created a cool dramatic scene between the two where their conversation could echo what our hero COULDN'T say to his client about trust and betrayal. A bunch of characters in the novel ended up "repurposed" to serve that central conflict. Any characters who didn't have anything to do with the central conflict ended up on the cutting room floor. I didn't have time for them. For a good example of "repurposing" characters, read Elmore Leonard's GET SHORTY and OUT OF SIGHT then see the adaptations by Scott Frank. Scott did an amazing job of taking interesting characters on the fringes of the story and giving them a role to play in the main story.

6) Creating characters and combining characters. You know how we had to dramatize the thoughts of characters so that we could see them? Sometimes you have to do the same thing with characters. In the novel OUT OF SIGHT the Albert Brooks character was someone the protagonist remembered from prison... but on screen he couldn't just be a memory, he had to be flesh and blood. So Scott "created" the character for the script. In the novel I was adapting another lawyer from the protagonist's office did some investigating and uncovered some witnesses. The protagonist never met those witnesses in the novel, but he gets to track them down and question them in the script. You may also end up combining characters who serve the same story purpose into a single character - if the protagonist has two best friends in the novel, he may only end up with one in the script. This sort of thing was done well in GET SHORTY in order to better focus the story. In the best seller there were a dozen reporters who kept trying to ambush the lawyer and his client, I combined them all into a couple of really aggressive reporters - a Mike Wallace type TV reporter and a very friendly reporter for a major newspaper who tries to gain the confidence of the accused wife. These two were composites of the dozen reporters in the novel, taking the most interesting aspects of each character and their most interesting scenes.

7) First hand scenes. In the book the lawyer could call on people to give him information - in the script the lawyer had to go out and get that information himself. The protagonist has to be ACTIVELY working to resolve the conflict. The protagonist has to get his hands dirty. In the novel the lawyer had a guy in his office doing much of the leg work, plus the ex-cop out there poking around. Those characters made the protagonist passive. There were several scenes where the protagonist was briefed about the investigation - just a big exposition dump! I ended up eliminating the guy in the office and had the protagonist go out and uncover his own information. He became more involved in the case, more active, and because these witnesses were often trying to hide the truth - it created some big dramatic scenes. Any time you can change exposition into action, you're improving the script. Any scene where someone TELLS someone what happened needs to be changed into a scene where we SEE what happened. Dramatize!

8) Visualize. Scenes that were not visual had to either be made visual... or dropped. Either the character could be seen performing some action - or those scenes couldn't work. Much of the courtroom drama from the book ended up being pre-trial investigation... because that is more visual. Only the big trial moments ended up in the script. Hey, we love that Perry Mason stuff... but all of the boring courtroom stuff had to be re-created in a form that was more dramatic and active. The protagonist out there uncovering clues is more interesting than people sitting in a court room talking about it.

9) Focus. One of the things that happened in adapting this book - the plot which was scattershot in the novel ended up being very focused in the script. A weak plot twist became much stronger because it was in a focused (and more dramatic) scene. Often the order of scenes was changed from book to script to make it more dramatic... and it ended up making more sense, too.

The main thing to do is focus on the story that central conflict where the physical conflict and emotional conflict intersect. That's the spine of your story. Every character, scene, line of dialogue, bit of action, and subplot will be attached to that spine. Anything that isn't part of the central conflict should end up in the wastebasket. That's how you turn a big fat New York Times Best selling thriller into a 110 page script... that never gets made.

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THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIES

NEW: Updates On Films 7 & 8 Casting!

All Six Movies analyzed! All of the mission tapes, all of the “that’s impossible!” set pieces and stunts, the cons and capers - and how these scenes work, the twists and double crosses, the tension and suspense (and how to generate it), the concept of each film as a stand alone with a different director calling the shots (broken in the sixth film), the gadgets, the masks, the stories, the co-stars and team members (one team member has been in every film), the stunts Tom Cruise actually did (and the ones he didn’t), and so much more! Over 120,000 words of fun info!

THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIES - 347 Pages - Only $3.99 !

BRAND NEW!

*** THE BOURNE MOVIES

NEW: Updates on TREADSTONE TV show!

All five "Bourne" movies (including "Legacy" and it's potential sequels) - what are the techniques used to keep the characters and scenes exciting and involving? Reinventing the thriller genre... or following the "formula"? Five films - each with an interesting experiment! A detailed analysis of each of the films, the way these thrillers work... as well as a complete list of box office and critical statistics for each film. This book is great for writers, directors, and just fans of the series.

Only $3.99 - and no postage!

Over 240 pages!

*** THE TERMINATOR MOVIES *** - For Kindle!

He's back! The release of "Terminator: Dark Fate" is set to begin a new trilogy in the Terminator story... 35 years after the first film was released. What draws us to these films about a cybernetic organism from the future sent back in time? Why is there a new proposed trilogy every few years? This book looks at all five Terminator movies from a story standpoint - what makes them work (or not)? What are the techniques used to keep the characters and scenes exciting and involving? How about those secret story details you may not have noticed? Containing a detailed analysis of each of the five films so far, this book delves into the way these stories work... as well as a complete list of box office and critical statistics for each film. This book is great for writers, directors, and just fans of the series.

ONLY $3.99 - and no postage!

NO KINDLE REQUIRED! Get the *free* app (any device, except your Mr. Coffee) on the order page on Amazon!

HITCHCOCK FOR WRITERS!

Strange Structures!

*** HITCHCOCK: EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR! *** - For Kindle!

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Contained Thrillers like "Buried"? Serial Protagonists like "Place Beyond The Pines"? Multiple Connecting Stories like "Pulp Fiction"? Same Story Multiple Times like "Run, Lola, Run"?
HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!

This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock's 52 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock's *silent* films! We'll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.

Only $5.99 - and no postage!

LEARN SUSPENSE FROM THE MASTER!

*** HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE *** - For Kindle!

Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the *Master Of Suspense*; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?

This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!

Only $5.99

ADVICE FROM 1920!

*** VINTAGE #1: HOW TO WRITE PHOTOPLAYS *** - For Kindle!

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Screenwriting books have been around as long as films have. This series reprints vintage screenwriting books with a new introduction and history, plus new articles which look at how these lessons from almost 100 years ago apply to today’s screenplays. Anita Loos book is filled with information which still applies. In addition to the full text of the original book, you get the full screenplay to Miss Loos' hit THE LOVE EXPERT, plus several new articles on the time period and women in Hollywood.

ONLY $2.99 - and no postage!

MOVIE MAGIC SOFTWARE

Movie Magic Screenwriter is the best selling screenplay formatting software and the choice of Hollywood professionals. Screenwriter automatically formats while you write so you can focus on what you're writing, not where it goes on the page. It also formats for television, stage, novels and comic book scripts so you've got an all in one package for any story you want to write. Academy Award Tech Winner!

* * * Buy It!

copyright 2024 by William C. Martell