How to Turn Your Manuscript into a Screenplay

How to Turn Your Manuscript into a Screenplay  

They say that Hollywood movie producers are always in the market for new screenplay material to turn into the next big feature film. However, industry experts say they don’t want new fresh ideas and scripts, instead, they’d prefer book to film source materials because it helps to sell the movie itself in the long run. If you’re working on your own novel, consider adapting your novel into a screenplay for a film or TV series.

So how do you transform your book into a movie script, it’s not that hard. Actually, each of my books started out as a movie script first. The reason I do it this way is because the movie script is all about scenes and dialogue. In contrast, a book has scene descriptions, feelings, and what the character is wearing to help give the reader a visual description so they can follow along in the book with better clarity. The Movie script helps me set the stage first for the story, which characters are in the scene and what they’re saying in the scene. Then when I convert to the book, I can add in what I call the fluff words to help flesh out the book to a minimum of 50,000 words or a maximum of 125,000 words. Whereas a script is about 75 pages in total.

If you’ve never written a script before, then I suggest you begin by reading books that explain the screenwriting process in great length and the proper structure.  

When it comes to industry software, I recommend the industry standard software called Final Draft. You can use free software that is out on the internet. I’ve used Celtx but that’s it. I prefer Final Draft because I can create a cover sheet and I can use it on various laptops, whereas Celtx can only be used on the laptop or computer system to which it was created. So if your laptop dies, you’ve lost all your hard work. So, stick with the industry software, it’s more reliable.  If you can’t afford the software, then just lay out Word in the industry format until you can afford the right software.

The best way to understand how a book is transformed into a movie is to read books that were used to adapt to a movie. Then Watch the movie of the same book. For example, the “Harry Potter” books by J.K. Rowling, my favorites are J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” series that begins with the “Hobbit,” then my other favorite is Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” (Keira Knightley version) This is a great way to learn and understand the process of adapting a book to a screenplay.     

Remember that most studios will not stick with the original storyline because they must add more action or intense visuals to make the movie viable. They call this altering or enhancing the visual storytelling capability of the film. I call it destroying the film, which is why I wrote the script first then the book. As the Author, I can sell the rights to the book as the screenplay and make more money in the long run, and have better control over my own work.  But first I had to learn the various elements of filmmaking. Now when I watch a movie, I watch it three times, the first time for entertainment, the second for dialogue, and the third for cinematography and lighting. This helps me understand the process even better.  It’s a great way to learn the film structure and visual process it takes to make a movie. This process will also teach you the movie structure of the classic three-act structure. Beginning, middle, and conclusion along with the arc of the story.  The beginning is the setup of the story, then there’s an arc that brings you to the middle of the story, and then another arc that brings you to the conclusion or the solution of the story. Mystery, it’s the conclusion of the mystery of who has done it so to speak. A love story, a happy ending, or the worst nightmare of your life.

When you decide to review an adapted book movie, seek out the outline of the film first. The outline is the description of the movie that can be usually found in a paragraph that describes the movie itself. That paragraph is your outline. Read it over and then watch the movie. Once you’re done with the movie, write your own outline and see if it matches the one you researched first. That outline is considered a small treatment that describes the who, what, when were, and how of the movie. You learned the five aspects of writing back in English class in High School. When you learn this trick of the trade, you’ll begin to understand the ins and outs of filmmaking, plus it will help you understand the reason for plots and subplots in a story.

Now that you’ve done your homework on the structure and outline of a movie script and how a book has been adapted, it’s time for you to decide which of your stories would make a great movie. If you’ve already written the manuscript, then analyze it and begin the process of turning it into a movie script. As I said at the beginning of this piece, I always start with a movie script before I start writing the book, so I don’t have to adapt my work to a script format. You should try it; you’ll find it works great to write a book this way.

Elizabeth Kilbride is a Writer and Editor with forty years of experience in writing with 12 of those years in the online content sphere. Graduating with an Associate of Arts from Pheonix University, then a degree in Mass Communication and Cyber Analysis from Phoenix University, then on to Walden University for her Master's in Criminology with emphasis on Cybercrime and Identity Theft, and is currently studying for her Ph.D. degree in Criminology, her portfolio includes coverage of politics, current affairs, elections, history, and true crime. In her spare time, Elizabeth is also a gourmet cook, life coach, and avid artist, proficient in watercolor, acrylic, pen and ink Gouache, and pastels. As a political operative having worked on over 300 campaigns during her career, Elizabeth has turned many life events into books and movie scripts while using history to weave interesting storylines. She also runs 6 various blogs from art to life coaching, to food, to writing, and opinion or history pieces each week.