Adapting a book to a screenplay can be a rewarding experience for the creative individual who wants to incorporate audio-visual mediums to bring the still characters of a book to life. As a short narration of the entire book, screenplay writing must be carefully planned to capture not only the actions but also the thoughts of characters involved.
While adapting a book into a screenplay, important points of differences between a screenplay and a book must be understood:
1. A book is narrative while a screenplay is to be performed with audio-visual aids.
2. A book contains about 60,000 - 150,000 words on an average, however a screenplay cannot exceed a certain specified word limit. A screenplay is usually 85-125 pages long.
3. A book follows a certain writing style while a screenplay lacks literary prose.
4. A book is an in-depth description of all the characters and other biographical details while screenplays lack that advantage.
Thus, a very important step to begin screenplay writing is to decide what is to be included and what needs to be cut out.
Pointers to be noted while reading a book for its conversion into a screenplay:
• The opening story page
• The key characters
