Adaptations of Novels

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > CONTENT > SUBJECTS > OTHERS > ADAPTATIONS-NOVELS

'[Their journey in The African Queen is a symbolic] act of love.'

-- James Agee

'Oh, Christ, Jim, tell me something I can understand. This isn't like a novel. This is a screenplay.'

-- John Huston

If most playwrights don't rush out on this limb, there must be a reason or two, or at least enough of a trend to make you pause. The first is crass capitalism. Hollywood will pay much more for the required rights to do adaptations than playwrights can usually find in their own pockets. And Hollywood buys the rights to practically everything you'll find in the fiction section of the average mall bookstore.

From this comes one of the few Rules-with-No-Exceptions in this business . . .

• Never attempt an adaptation before acquiring the rights to do it.
  One of the best ways to send literary agents and lawyers through the roof is to tell them you've just finished a wonderful adaptation of this novel and are calling about . . .

• You don't have to ask -- If . . . the novel was published in the USA before 1900.
  You've got a few more years of leeway than that, but this way you'll know you're safe. But . . . Copyright law is not quite as unchanging as the Rock of Gibraltar, so always check on whether copyright protection is still in force. Do this with an attorney specializing in copyright law -- not your local ambulance chaser -- before rushing into this.

Novels -- the usual source for theatrical adaptations -- come with a lot of baggage mostly because they use a very different structure from plays. And the difficult task in adaptation is to pry the story from its original structure. Without damaging the story.

It's a bit like separating an egg . . . All you want is the yolk, so the shell and the other stuff goes down the disposer. But the yolk doesn't do much good just sitting there by itself. Good theatrical adaptations -- like Frank Galati's version of Steinbeck's classic novel THE GRAPES OF WRATH -- tell a novel's original story using the Structure and devices of plays.

That may sound obvious. But when you're just starting out in this business, odds are the novel's structure will end up gripping your play like a vise. Some of the villains here . . .

• Novels are able to tell vast stories.
  And they usually do. So Step 1 is to figure out what part of that story can actually be told within the typical Length of a full-length play. [The Royal Shakespeare Company adaptation of Dickens' NICHOLAS NICKELBY may have run over 6 hours, but if you're not the RSC, go for less.]

• Novelists generally use a very early Point of Attack.
  Except for thrillers. And with those, it's guaranteed that film companies will have snapped up all the rights for adaptation long before you'll ever see these things in your local bookstore.

• Most novels use highly Visual forms of storytelling.
  That's one of the reasons Hollywood is so hungry for them.