Things New Screenwriters Should Know When Adapting Scripts from Established IP
“Ask yourself, ‘Has this been done before?’ and ‘Who is the publisher?’ and more importantly ‘How strong is the premise?’”
Producers, Investors, Studios, and Distributors love adaptations. They’re safe, they’re fast (relatively), and if the book or comic has caught your attention, odds are it’s because it already has a following; meaning guaranteed box office sales. As a burgeoning screenwriter, it’s almost silly to consider anything other than an adaptation for your break-out-break-in flagship spec-script. However, here are some things you should know ahead of time when moving to adapt a piece of established fiction.
(1) The fiction you want to adapt may not be the fiction you should adapt. Be picky about premise, not about execution.
(2) If it’s popular, someone else wants it, and they probably have more money than you. Creative searches are necessary.
(3) You need to strike a balance between honoring the source material, and being practical for screen.
(4) Don’t be good. Be great. This means using the one resource you, as a no-name-first-timer, has more than any established writer.
(5) Read it, plan it, write it, pitch it, then move on.
Let’s take each one of these in turn.
(1) The fiction you want to adapt may not be the fiction you should adapt.
This means BE PICKY. Don’t nab the first thing that comes to mind off the shelf of things you half-remember from when you read it in the 8th grade and think that’s your meal ticket. You need to read, then read, and read some more. In order to whittle down the pile you need to subject every story to a strict objective standard - your ‘litmus test’ so-to-speak. Ask yourself, “Has this been done before?” and “Who is the publisher?” and more importantly “How strong is the premise?” Be on the lookout for a future blog post on Premise and a more robust list at some point. For now, know that picking the material is what will make you, or break you.
As a quick caveat to that: understand the difference between premise and execution. “Skin” by Ted Dekker has some of the worst pacing and back story execution I’ve ever seen.
I also finished the book in one day.
Why?
Because the premise was endlessly intriguing. Ropey dialogue and poor backstory execution can be fixed easily in a screenplay - after all, visual storytelling is what we do, which means a paragraph long exposé on the cult a character escapes from, which breaks the tension and pacing of the book, fits right in when delivered as a cut-away-dream-sequence that recurs and fleshes out over the course of a film.
Big Takeaway: Premise over Execution.
So, if the premise is so strong, why am I not adapting “Skin”?… Because it’s popular, by a popular author, with means the rights are expensive.
(2) If it’s popular, someone else wants it, and they probably have more money than you. Creative searches are necessary.
“Why does money matter,” you ask?
As writers, creatives, artists, it’s easy to forget that other people are just like you - they need money to eat. If they’ve made art that someone else wants, namely, you, they’re going to want to be paid for it. Wouldn’t you?
Paying someone for the right to adapt their work is called “Optioning.” This is a “small” amount of money paid up front to the owner of the original IP that guarantees that they won’t sell the screen rights to anyone else for a designated period of time. With popular works, this can get messy and turn into a bidding war.
A war you, as a broke first timer, second timer, or indy screenwriter/producer in general, are all but guaranteed to lose.
So, as an artist, you’re called to respect another artist’s desire to be paid for their art, but you’re also balling on a budget. This necessitates creative solutions. Here are a few to get you started:
Creative solution #1 - Look somewhere other than the New York Times Best Sellers list. Bookstagram and BookTok are good starting places, but be careful because someone blowing up there is probably going to be getting offers from the Big Boys in the game as well.
Creative solution #2 - Talk to local authors. This will be hit and miss, but if you’re going to read a butt-load of material to find “the one,” you might as well do so supporting your local community. That community is more likely to give back into you anyway. Leverage it. You might even manage to land an optioning deal that costs you nothing up front. Huzzah!
Creative solution #3 - Public domain is a beautiful thing. As of this writing, any author who died on or before October 19th, 1953, is in the public domain. If you’re reading this years after the publishing, the formula for calculating copyright expiration is the author’s life plus seventy years. These stories are free to use, abuse, and plagiarize - just make sure you give a good “based on” or “adapted from” credit on the script cover page and in the open credits of the film, should it get made. Just ask for it in your contract. It helps ensure your soul goes to heaven, just like honoring the source material.
(*looks down*)
Well lookie what's next.
(3) You need to strike a balance between honoring the source material, and being practical for screen.
There are no limits to what an author can do in a novel.
In H.P. Lovecraft’s short story “The Music of Erich Zann” we open with our main character stumbling around what we assume to be Paris, destitute, and looking for lodging after having been kicked out of his last place of residence because he couldn’t make rent. Bearing his few belongings, he walks across a bridge, away from the city proper.
As I was adapting the piece, I knew I wouldn’t have the luxury of filming in Paris, or anywhere in France for that matter, and I had no screen time to show the drama of our narrator being evicted. This was supposed to be a short film. Keep it short.
My compromise in the script?
Our narrator starts on a bridge, smoking a cigarette. He puts it out, looks back longingly at the city, then walks away from it bearing his few belongings as the lights twinkle dimly in the background.
I honored the truth and intent of the original author, while building the audience’s intrigue in the character. What’s he thinking? Why is he there? Is that contempt in his eyes?
None of the questions get answered outright in the film, but they don’t need to be. What needs to happen is that, in those first few moments of film, our audience wants to know more.
That’s our hook - our McGuffin.
The rest is in the can.
It’s up to the individual creative to decide when and how a book shall be treated, either literally or alluded to but changed.
As this is a reality of our craft, there is only one steadfast rule for making changes: When you make them, include a nod to the audience who know the source material. It shows that you know what you’re doing, and that you know that you’ve changed something intentionally.
Fans of books or IP want to know that you, the adapter, are as big a fan as they are when you adapted it. Show them this and you’ll escape most of the loaded criticism leveled at you, and maybe even garner some praise.
Nevertheless, the line must be drawn, and the balance must be struck.
If you want more examples of excellent compromises from book to screen, check out “The Wheel of Time” series on Amazon Prime. I wrote a review of the second season finale here.
(4) Don’t be good. Be great. This means using the one resource you, as a no-name-first-timer has more than any established writer.
After reading from writers like Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot, to John Truby, and Robert McKee, I noticed that the number one criticism they have with unknown writers is not that they aren’t good, but that they’re half-baked. They didn’t take enough time to refine their craft, and their product, before putting it out in the world.
For these heavy weights, this upsets them deeply.
Why?
Because the only time you get to write without a deadline in Hollywood is before anyone knows who you are.
Taking your time, and being great, doesn’t just help you get noticed by a studio or an agent. It might get you noticed by the author. Especially the popular ones.
Many author’s biggest fears about having their work adapted from book to screen is that their intent won’t be honored, and the plot will be changed to give it that Hollywood “pazzazz,” ultimately destroying the soul of the IP.
By taking your time and being great, you might get the green-light from someone you would never otherwise be able to reach - the original author.
Why?
Because your dedication to craft, and the product you pitch, shows them that you respect them, and their work. This makes them want to trust their work to you rather than some hollywood-schmuck that they’re halfway certain is out to make a parody rather than honor the IP (check the history of ‘Starship Troopers’ as a loose reference.)
Use your time. It’s your greatest resource. I wrote a-whole-nother article on the subject. You can find it by clicking here.
It’s that important.
(5) Read it, plan it, write it, pitch it, and forget it.
You’re not going to nail it on your first try unless you’re some prodigy or have the hand of the Almighty on your side. Therefore, it’s not worth working, and reworking, the script that just won’t sell.
By following the process laid out by Robert McKee in his book Story (which is loosely parroted by Terry Rossio on his blog site), you can go from nothing to a finished, decent, first draft in about six months. I’ve done it in five, and that was while I also juggled a normal, bill paying life - the details of which I’ll spare you.
Point is, it can be done, and done well.
Once that first draft is written, you’ll send it off to an alpha reader, or what Stephen King calls an IR or IA - Ideal Reader or Ideal Audience. Meanwhile, you’ll take a two week to two month vacation.
Afterwards, you’ll get the feedback from your IR, then sit down and do six more months of edits and rewrites (yes, it will take you that long. If that’s how long the pro’s take, you should arguably take longer) till you’ve got a product that’s really got your immediate creative (I pray, filmmaker) circle buzzing.
By this point you’ll be in contact with a producer or 3, a literary manager, maybe even an agent, and you’ll be ready to pitch it, or hand it off to your aspiring producer friend to pitch it for you.
Once you do, forget about this piece. It’ll sell, or it won’t, but unless it does sell and you get paid to rewrite it, your rewrites are done. Start reading again and find something else to adapt, or take a stab at that original idea that’s been brewing in the back of your head.
Whatever you do, do not go back to that script you’ve pitched. Like a kid leaving the home, it’s out there in the world. It must grow and live or end up in a ditch on its own, but your job as its creator and nurturer is done.
Let it go.
