Now I’m focusing on the adaption of the crime novel “Mord i Malmö”. It would be great if I could have the first draft ready by the end of the week. It is possible, but let’s not hope for too much.
I’ve done a mindmap of the whole story, as I want it in the script, and it has been to great help now, when I’ve not been writing regularly on it for some time. It is so quick to be back on track with something as visual as a mindmap.
The ending of the story in the book was a bit complicated and lacked that titanic obstacle that is supposed to be in our hero’s way, so I need to do it in another fashion. The great thing about the novel is that it is written in me-form, so it is very easy to find focus in the story.
I’m having long pretty talky scenes in the script. It’s not an action, so in a way it is expected, but I need to make sure that it is what I want, that it works. I try to make the dialog dynamic, like short lines and long lines mixed; No “yes” “what?” “that!” “nooo!” type of dialog, but rather a dialog that. . . I don’t know how to describe it. . . in lack of a more poetic expression: a dialog that keeps you awake.
A dialog can’t be a ping-pong match. I deliver a short line – you deliver a short line, I deliver a long line – you deliver a long line. Long-short-long-short does not work either. What I try to gain is something more unexpected.
It is an interesting experience to adapt a novel. This one is pretty short, so I don’t have to cut so much. I can’t dream about what it would be like to adapt a Tom Clancy.
I have an old favourite book from my youth I tried to adapt once, just for fun, many years ago. I succeeded to get it down to just over twohundred pages – a three and a half hour movie. Some day I hope I’ll get the option to do a more serious try on it. I’ll likely do a better job today.
3 comments:
It all sounds very exciting Desirée! Best of luck with it!
It will be interesting to read more blog posts from you on the process of adapting a novel into a screenplay :)
Wow, great project! It must be a difficult but exciting job to do this. Creating an unexpected dialog is a challenging job, I'm sure you will succeed, try to take away the pressure of time (or does this pressure motivate you?) and you might find a nice way to do it. I'm not a screenwriter but pressure doesn't work always with me to be creative ;-)
As long as it is reasonable deadlines we are talking about, pressure works perfect for me.
It would be easier to write blog entries about the adaption, if the novel was in English. I can't quote anything since it is all in Swedish.
But I'll try to make a resume of the work.
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