book adaptation

For just a moment, let’s take our eyes away from the books and up toward the silver screen (if you will please indulge my cinephoile rhetoric). Films such as Watchmen, Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, Inkheart, Harry Potter and Where the Wild Things Are* share a significant commonality: adaptation from a literary work. (And yes, for the umpteenth time, a comic book is a literary work. Just ask TIME Magazine.) Books have long been the fodder of screenwriters, directors and actors hungry to render favorite stories, bestsellers or classic tales as moving pictures. Nowadays it seems almost a prerequisite for certain genres—YA fiction, graphic novels, popular literary fiction among them—to have highly filmable elements.

My background is in screenplay writing, so it’s no surprise that I approach my writing, both scripts and prose, in much the same way—how to translate my story into a visual blueprint? The process is a delicate and rather complicated one. For those who believe that adaptation is simply a matter of filming the book, page-for-page (or as many complain, page-skip several paragraphs-page), you are gravely mistaken. Adaptation has long been considered as difficult as, if not more difficult than, writing an original screenplay. You are confronted with the rigid limitations of form and length, the expectations of an audience, and trying to reconcile your vision with both the reality of what you can film and what others want to see.

That being said, an author should by no means feel that they are obligated to the adapters of their work. That is the beauty of prose: your own imagination and writing skill are the only true limits to what you can create. The toolset of those who adapt the work varies greatly, but offers a chance to create your story in a totally new arena. While some authors are less than enthused about books-to-films (notably comic writer Alan Moore, who can be somewhat venomous toward adaptations), there are those who love the idea of seeing their story in a different medium that can then reach a different audience, which in turn can create a whole new audience for their book. (For instance, I never read the Harry Potter books until I saw the first film.) Films can even uniquely create a storyline from works of nonfiction, such as the box-office hit Mean Girls, based on Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees and Wannabes.

I bring this topic to your attention as the influx of adapted works continues to inundate the big screen, in hopes of helping authors and viewers alike to understand the complex, sometimes rewarding, and oftentimes terrible trials and tribulations of words-to-pictures. The key in viewing these films is to understand that the word “adaptation” does not mean “re-creation” or “direct translation”; the word itself means to “alter or modify.” And that is exactly what these films do. Most attempt to remain true not to the exact details of the plot and nuances of the prose, but rather to the essential nature of the story. Not that all adaptations do this successfully, but the stickler for an exact rendition of any book is bound to be disappointed. Rather, try to look at the film as an extension or new level of a book—not only will it increase your enjoyment in something that may on the surface seem completely different from your beloved story, but it may give you more insight into the role of those who adapt the work.

A wonderful article that does just this is from Twitchfilm, written by Kurt Halfyard: “Twitch-O-Meter: Adapt That!  Five Grossly Unfaithful Book to Film Adaptations…That Worked.” Check it out, and maybe you’ll see what I mean.

What are your thoughts on adaptations from literary works to film? Give us some examples of your favorites, least favorites, why they worked and why they didn’t.

[* A note: The highly anticipated adaptation by Spike Jonze of Maurice Sendak’s 1963 classic Where the Wild Things Are should provide our best example in the upcoming months. Considering that Jonze was the director of the acclaimed (and highly appropriately-named) Adaptation, we can expect things to be interesting, to say the least.]