Adaptation is Transformation

I’ve been writing plays for over twenty years, and adapting scripts for fifteen. Adapting is not just copying/pasting from Project Gutenberg. Adapting to a different medium is

It’s like seeing a beautiful field of wildflowers. You’ve come to the field with a vase, and you want to somehow take the feeling of being in that field and bring it home.

The answer is not to mow down the field, take the clippings, and cram them in the vase, like “there, I did it! I managed to get as much of the field into the vase as possible! I won!”

You will have to make some hard artistic choices. There will be a point where you have to slightly diverge from what the author did, and make a strong choice on your own.

You want to evoke the field. So you just take a few flowers—maybe some grass as well. You don’t take the roots, cause you don’t need those. You add water—which you likely had to get from home.

But you had to get the vase from home as well—dust it off. What kind of vase did you choose? A mason jar, a crystal vase, an old wine bottle, a milkglass beaded vase? You are already having an impact on the art, which is not a problem, but an asset. Because you’re a writer, too.

The goal is not to erase your presence, but to use it strategically.