Film & TV Adaptation for Novel Writers

You believe that your novel would make a fantastic film and you want to write the screenplay adaptation. That’s great!

In today’s film industry, more and more movies are being produced based on adaptations, especially novels and memoirs. This offers many advantages to film producers in that it’s easy to visualize the story at an early stage of development. And from a marketing perspective, books have an immediate built-in recognition from readers and the publishing industry.

However, there are important differences between writing a book and writing a screenplay.  To achieve this, you will need to forget all the rules of novel writing and become a screenwriter. To think as a screenwriter is to leverage the power of images to best tell your story.

For writers who can master the art of screenplay adaptation, it opens an entirely new avenue for income and fame.

In this guide, we will explain the differences between writing a book and writing a screenplay, from a style and technical standpoint as well as a story point of view. 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this guide you will be able to:

• Understand how to write with the framework of visual storytelling
• Assess which material from your book you should keep when developing your screenplay
• Embrace your new job of screenwriter
• Learn how to properly format a screenplay