Tag: movies

Making Your Story Adaptable for Stage and Screen

Quan

I had picked up a cheap DVD at the dollar store a while back. It was “Blast” starring Eddie Griffin and Vivica Fox. It was a decent flick, nothing spectacular, but it wasn’t horrible, either. What surprised me was that the movie was based on a book.

Being a book writer, it always raises an eyebrow when a novel gets optioned for a movie or TV show. And it’s not just the holy grail franchises like “Twilight”, “Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, “Da Vinci Code”, “Bourne”, or “Harry Potter”. Even lesser-known properties like “Virgin Suicides”, and the short-lived (but AWESOME) TV show “FlashForward” are based on books. Heck, even nonfiction how-to books like “Think Like A Man” got movie treatments.

So I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering how to get a piece of that action.

There’s a lot about getting your story optioned that is out of your control. You have to find a connected literary agent that can get your story in front of movie execs or people with enough power to make stuff like that happen. You have to have a studio actually interested in your story. And then there’s negotiating a fair deal, and hoping the guys adapting your story for screen don’t butcher your creation to the point where it’s not recognizable (Think the movie version of “I Robot” vs. the book). And that’s if the story actually makes it to film – many optioned properties get lost in the development process and never actually get made into movies or TV shows.

But one thing you CAN control about the process is making your story easily translatable for television and movies. This way you story becomes more attractive to would-be producers and film execs, because they can see an easy path to getting the story in the format that will make them the most money.

Break down your book into its core elements.

Remember, movies are visual mediums, and you don’t have more than a few hours (which translate into about 150 specially formatted pages) to tell a complete story. So your story needs to get to the point and stay there. First and foremost, you need to know the core elements of your story: The central characters, the central conflict, and the setting. Most films and television episodes are plot-driven, which means you want to make sure the plot that moves your story forward is strong and engaging. With characters, you want your main characters to have strong, definable characteristics that the actors portraying the role can build around. This doesn’t mean you eschew nuance and subtlety completely, but you want to make sure that your character’s defining traits are front and center and inform most of their behavior. The setting should be well defined, enough so that your readers (and a potential producer) can visualize where everything is happening.

Your book synopsis as a movie outline

After you find these core elements, then you want to build the skeleton of you story, or find the skeleton in your existing story. Most publishers and agents require a chapter-by-chapter synopsis of your story for submission anyway, so now is a good time to put one together. Write a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of your story, and then go back and filter out the details that are least vital to the plot. Look your outline over and then determine if the plot is strong enough to carry onscreen (or stage, if you want your story to be adapted into a play). These scenes are the ones that need the most of your attention when you write your final story. They need to stand out, engage and keep the narrative moving forward.

The plot points also need to drive home the central conflict of your story. Who is you protagonist, what are they up against, and what is at stake. These elements need to be front and center throughout your story. Ultimately, you want to be able to explain the biggest elements of your story in one sentence.

With those elements established, then you can go back in and build everything else on top of that, while still keeping everything pointing towards your core elements. Just about every story I write is intended to be adaptable. Godmode was built as a sci-fi horror story, but there is heavy action and character development moments to establish Elijah and his supporting characters, along with ever-raising stakes that escalate from simple survival, to protecting people near him, to rescuing his wife and child from a nemesis that was a former friend.

Action and Dialogue matters

Since movies are a visual medium that moves in realtime, you do not really have the luxury of delving deep into aspects that cannot be visually represented on the screen/stage. So inner thoughts, explanations of how stuff works, lengthy descriptions of history and settings, while still useful and essential to your story, all take a backseat to strong dialogue and action (and by action I don’t just mean shooting, fighting and blowing stuff up. By action I mean stuff happening and moving the plot forward). So you want to make sure your characters are talking or communicating to each other in some way, shape or form, and that they are interacting with their environment.

As long as you have a strong core to your story, and your story is moving and engaging, then moviemakers should be able to see how they can bring your story to the screen. Now it’s just a matter of finding a moviemaker willing to give your story a chance. Go for it.

Writing to Music

Quan

When I write my stories, I often like to listen to music. For some, listening to music while they work is just a way to help them calm down or focus. But I use music for a different purpose, and I’m quite sure many other writers do the same. For me, music provides an ample way to set mood and tone for the stories I write. It’s very similar to how music plays an integral role in movies: a good soundtrack that fits the story stirs up emotions and feelings that really drive home the theme of the action in the story at that moment. So if that principle works when I’m watching a movie or playing a video game, then I figure it will also work when creating these stories.

For instance, I had an extensive list of songs and artists I listened to while writing my Sci-fi horror novel Godmode. It was an eclectic mix of artists ranging from Portishead to Linkin Park to Evanescence to composers Robyn Miller, Hidekai Kobayashi & Fumie Kumatani to even the French electronica group Air. Since all of these artists have distinct sounds, I use their music for different aspects of my story.

If I wanted my scene to feel creepy and ominous, I played Robyn Miller’s Riven Soundtrack. For something just as creepy but more menacing, I’d play Portishead’s Third. If I wanted some pathos and raw emotion, Evanescence’s “Like You” was a perfect fit. And for action, I listened to heavy doses of Hidekai Kobayashi & Fumie Kumatani’s Phantasy Star Online Soundtrack. That music made for some epic sci-fi fighting, especially for some of the larger, more high-stakes monster fights. I also listened to the more aggressive songs by Evanescence and Linkin Park.

For the Fantasy Thriller I just finished writing, I wanted an epic, blockbuster action feel, so my background music of choice was the Inception soundtrack by Hans Zimmer. I listened to the faster-paced tracks while I wrote the action scenes, and everything else for, well, everything else. I also have an epic, high-fantasy kung-fu story I want to write, and for that I would listen to a mix of traditional Asian music and grand, sweeping Lord Of The Rings-styled adventure music.

When choosing the perfect writing music, first consider what you’re writing about. What is the setting of the story, and what kind of mood are you trying to set up? What is happening in the story, and what plot points within that scene are you trying to emphasize? Once you’ve figured that out, then it’s a matter of finding appropriate music that fits that mood, setting and action. Also keep in mind that even within those criteria, different songs you write to will create different moods. A sweeping love theme by John Williams will work differently from an intimate love song by Adele, even though you could use either for the same scene; and an epic action song from John Barry’s James Bond soundtracks has a different feel than an aggressive heavy metal song from Metallica.

Also, when writing to music, if you can write fast enough to keep up with the song, then do so. It will help you to capture the mood and the feelings that the music evokes. And once you are finished with your scene, always go back and read it over to your music. This way you can tell if you’ve managed to capture the mood the way you originally intended.

Give it a try! Who knows: when your book is optioned for a motion picture, maybe the producers will get soundtrack music similar to what you used to write it to.