Turning your novel into a screenplay is perhaps one of the most popular things for authors. Some of the finest movies and TV series have been adaptations of novels and books. If you are an author who has just published their book and is seeing a good response from the audience then this idea of turning your book into a movie or TV series might have occurred in your mind. We are glad that this has occurred to you because we can’t get enough of good movies or TV series.
SO, WHAT IS TURNING A NOVEL INTO A MOVIE OR SERIES?
In simple terms, this is the process of turning your novel into a movie or TV series wherein the exact storyline and the exact character sketch are maintained or changed to some degree and are emulated in the form of a movie or TV series. The best thing about this is books turned into movies or TV series are usually excellent because in a movie or TV series the plot of a book has to be condensed and this process of turning your book into a screenplay is the process of condensing pages worth of story into an hour or two.
In order to do this, you must understand what is a screenplay. A screenplay is basically a script that is in written form for a particular movie or TV series. In a few instances, the novel’s script can remain unchanged and in a few other cases, the novel’s main script has to be altered so that the dialogues fit into a working screenplay that actors can utilise.
Here are a few steps that will help you turn your novel or any book into a screenplay.
SCREENPLAY EDUCATION –
When it comes to screenplay there are a lot of factors that are different from writing a novel. You may be a bestselling author and you might have a long spanning novel-writing career but when it comes to screenplay you still have to dedicate a bit of your time to reading screenwriting books and screenplay books so that you understand the format and the writing technique for the screenplay. This will allow you to understand how to adapt the storyline according to the format of a movie or TV show and how the screenplay structure actually works and assists in the filmmaking process. These books are usually from professional screenwriters and screenplay writers who know exactly what they’re doing and work for various production companies and play an important part in the transformation of a book into a movie.
SCREENPLAY SOFTWARE –
In this day and age, it is quite easy to write a screenplay compared to the olden times because now there is excellent software that will assist you in the layout and the format. A few of the best options in the industry are Final Draft which is in its 12th version now and students can also get a special discount when purchasing this software. Other good options are Movie Magic Screenwriter, Celtx, WriterDuet, Highland, Fade In and KIT Scenarist.
READ ADAPTED BOOKS –
A lot of famous novels have been turned into movies or TV series. Novels like The Lord Of The Rings by J.R.R Tolkien, 12 Years A Slave by Solomon Northrup, A Game Of Thrones by George R.R Martin and a lot more are great examples of famous books being turned into movies and TV series. Reading these books and then watching the movie or TV series will allow you to understand what kind of transformation takes place between the original book and the new movie or TV series and will give you an understanding of things that have been altered between the original and the newer versions and also the things that have remained unchanged. This will also allow you to have an understanding of other factors of movie making such as cinematography and lighting as well as framing dialogue delivery and how all that ties into a screenplay.
READADAPTED SCREENPLAYS –
Now that you have seen what the final product looks like you might now want to take a look at the various scripts of movies or TV series that have been inspired by books and novels. You can then put them side by side as you read the main text in the book and novel and then read the screenplay adapted version and then you can understand the differences between them and also the similarities. This is one of the most helpful ways that authors turned screenplay writers have been able to understand the world of films and filmmaking and how traditional novels tie into that.
MOVIE STRUCTURE –
A movie is shorter than a novel and if you are to ever convert a novel into a screenplay then you must also condense it into the structure of a movie because a movie has time and structural constraints. Various good books on this will allow you to understand the structure of a movie and then after thoroughly understanding the structure and then you can begin to convert your novel into a movie screenplay.
FIND THE WRITE PEOPLE –
Before you go on with any other step we must suggest that you always find people who are like-minded and who have already read your novel. Having found these people you must then pitch this idea to them and see their reaction and learn from that. These people should be primarily filmmakers who are on the same level as you and after pitching this idea if they’re on board and if they totally feel the vibe of your novel and are willing to give it their heart and soul then you can move forward to thinking about writing the screenplay.
START THE PILOT OR FIRST ACT –
A pilot episode is the first episode of TV series and a movie is generally divided into 3 Acts and the 1st act usually starts the movie. Depending on whether you want to turn your novel into a movie or TV series you must start your work on the pilot episode if it is a TV series, a first act if it is a movie adaptation. This will be the first time you write screenplays so we suggest that you take your time and take your steps slow and steady. You are a professional author and we do not want to teach you about writing and how you need to add hooks and all that.
CONTINUE THE PROCESS –
After you have written the first episode or the first act of the movie or TV series you must always suggest it to filmmakers and actors and have them read it for them to give their honest opinion on whether it is worth making into a movie or TV series. If you get the green light then you can move forward with the process of creating your epic novel into an epic movie and TV series.
So, these were a few steps that will allow you to turn your novel and book into a movie or TV series. If you are an author who simply does not have the time to convert their novel but still wants it made into a feature film order movie order TV series then we suggest you hire professional screenplay writers who are experts in only one thing and that is to convert masterpieces like your novel into film or TV series adaptations. You can hire script writers for TV Series and scriptwriters and content writers from us at GetBestWriters because we are India’s most trusted agency where you can hire every type of ghostwriter and content writer.
