Screenwriting : Book to Screen by Tammy Meadows

Tammy the first step is to find the shortest most visual way through the story. This is the movie. Yes you will have to drop story lines, kill or combine characters and introduce character for a screen purpose.

I'm currently working on a series adapted from a novel. A series is a little different then a feature, but the process is similar IMO.

I would suggest you start by finding the "beats" in the novel, identify the inciting incident (the beat that kicks the story into gear) and then layout the story's three act structure.

Once you have a rough structure, identify any gaps, some novels already have a well-defined 3 act structure, others are a little harder or more subtle to uncover. The gaps you'll be looking for are drama and conflict based - do the beats increase the tempo, the drama, move the story forward, or do they feel repetitive, or flat. How are the characters impacted emotionally to the story and how do they react to every change? If the emotional response is a little lacking then you need to look at what can heighten the drama? Can this be done with existing characters/situations, or do you need to add/condense characters and/or create/remove existing situations and/or create new ones?

Depending on the story, this process can be a lengthy one. For example, the novel I'm adapting now had 2 female roles that performed similar functions and neither had a relationship with the male character. In order to add some drama and conflict, we merged both female characters and setup a backstory where she had a previous contentious relationship with the male character. This personal baggage if you will adds to the conflict between them, an issue they try to ignore but that becomes a barrier between them and one they will need to resolve. None of that is in the book.

We also added some new characters; an investigative reporter who's fighting a custody case and a policeman suffering from sleep deprivation. These characters help us move the b story forward and tie into the main story in different but dramatic ways.

For a series, or limited series; you need to break down the main beats you've laid out above with their own 3 act structure. Depending on the type of show you want to make, a feature, limited series (4-6 1 hr episodes) or a series with x number of episodes, you'll need to build your beats around that.

Hope this helps.

My suggestion would be to read Babette's Feast (Karen Blixen) and then watch the movie (Bille August). It is a close to perfect transfer of a book to a movie.

One more thing to consider, my opinion only.

Ever story has its perfect form. Perhaps it is meant to be a novel

I’ve adapted 12 novels into screenplays and I am sure there are better and faster ways but here is what I do. However here are a few tips that you may or may not find helpful. I put the entire screenplay into final draft and put it in screenplay format. Then I save copy of it so I always have the original in case I cut something out that I decide later I want to use. Then if there are characters that really don’t need to be in the script I cut them out. Sometimes I will turn two characters into one. Then I get rid of scenes that aren’t needed. Sometimes I will combine what happens in two scene into one so there are fewer locations. If a scene will be expensive to film like a crowded restaurant or nightclub I might change it to a small neighborhood bar or some location I already have in the script. I also try to eliminate big crowd scenes if possible. I normally find things wrong in books because they may it might take them a month to just shows what happens in a room. Good luck with your adaptation.

I've adapted plenty of self-published novels. Not getting into too much but like Dan said characters will have to almost always be cut and combined, scenes/settings, etc. It kind of is a whole different ballgame. Much of the great prose and flowery description of every detail of everything will have to be cut and are not necessary for screenplay form.

I need to know how to do the opposite - screenplay to book.