Adaptations of Novels

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

Order '[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



Film devours material from other forms of storytelling at a furious rate, mostly concentrating on the work of novelists. But it's rare that contemporary playwrights dive for the same lure.

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 . . .


Order At first glance, basing your play on someone else's story may seem like a grand idea. You won't have to worry about coming up with characters or plots. But beware . . .

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 . . .


The good news: Once your plays have received some recognition through productions or Competitions, a novel's structure will control you less. It'll just be a minor vampire hovering over your fingers.


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