By Sharyn Konyak
Adapting a novel for the screen is more than just condensing a 100,000+ word novel down to 20,000 words. It’s an opportunity to see a novel in living color on the big screen and secure a sizable financial reward. Robert Blake Whitehill, screenwriter and author of the best-selling Ben Blackshaw series, the first two of which have been optioned, states that “52% of the Top 2,000 movies of the last 20 years are adaptations from books, rides, magazine articles or human interest stories.” Consider the hugely successful and financially lucrative Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. A novel’s 250-350 pages of roughly 100,000 words might garner a three or four-figure advance from a traditional publisher. That advance must be earned out, which could take years. Conversely, a 100-120 page script of 20,000 words could garner a six figure deal.
That script must be competitive and compelling particularly since it asks a producer to marshal $60-100 million dollars and two years of their lives to make it into a movie. By Whitehill’s estimation, a best-selling novel can cost in the neighborhood of $80,000 to produce. That same novel, adapted for the screen, would cost more than ten times that. To put that number in perspective, one page of a script translates to one minute of screen time. That minute costs nearly $10,000 to produce so there has to be an emotionally compelling story to make the audience spend their time and money on the movie. The task of writing a compelling screenplay falls to the writer.
“There are an embarrassment of riches in your novel,” says Whitehill. The structure Hollywood producers are looking for is a distillation of the novel into eight plot point milestones. Pulled out and placed in their proper orientation in a script, they make your story competitive.” How to choose what to keep in and what to leave out? “Leave out the thinky bits,” says Whitehill. The emotional moments, exposition and literary parts used to paint the picture on paper and communicate the setting’s imagery for a reader.
The eight milestones are based on the traditional three act structure. In a screenplay, that might look as follows:
Page 1 – Show what a normal day looks like and bring in an aspect of that day, unlike any other, that moves the story forward.
Page 30 – The protagonist must decide whether to take up the cause.
Page 55-60 – No turning back. There’s no way to stop the path forward for the character nor can they move back. The stakes are highest.
Page 80 – Character comes to the realization they must summon the gravitas and finish the journey.
Action is character in the language of film. What a character does is the core of who they are. That character needs to be a relatable hero stymied by conflict. The greater the distance between what the character wants and what they truly need creates a compelling character. The hero’s stakes must be enormous. A commonly quoted stakes parable is: Take your hero, put them up a tree and throw rocks at them. Whitehill adds, “Make those rocks boulders and eventually grenades.” That’s a fantastic screenplay.
Some tips for making a character more compelling:
- An inexplicable change in the character
- A character who gets what they always wanted and it’s all they hoped for.
- A character who gets what they always wanted and it’s nothing like they’d hoped for.
- Not getting what they always wanted for finding something better, more precious.
What response might a screenwriter get from a reader or producer who has reviewed their script?
- Pass=No
- Recommend with Prejudice=like it but want to see more. Proof of concept might come into play here.
- Recommend=Yes
So the screenplay gets “green-lighted”. Congratulations, it’s going to be a movie. Now what? While an author’s participation ends with the sale of film rights of the novel, if that same author has adapted their novel into a screenplay, the project cannot move forward without them. For this reason, it is important for authors to hold the rights to their projects. In the case of a novel being optioned, the financial transaction begins with the option and the balance is paid out on the first day of principle photography. The length of time between agreement and payout for publication for a novel and production for a movie may be similar, however, the financial reward is substantially greater.
Screenwriting is an adaptation of a novel to a new medium and the skills necessary can be similarly adapted. They exist in every writer and, with the help of some movie industry formatting software, can provide an opportunity for authors to shepherd their novels through another, and perhaps more lucrative, lifecycle.
Links:
Website
www.Robertblakewhitehill.com
Robert Blake Whitehill Amazon Author Page
Facebook
www.Facebook.com/rbwhitehill
Article author Sharyn Konyak’s website:
https://sharynkonyak.com/my-story/
