Creating a screenplay from a novel: character

As a script writer, how do you approach the creation of a character given that the character already exists in the source novel?

Firstly, address the question from the original author’s point of view: what was the character intended to do, who were they intended to be, and what part in the story are they intended to fill? Often talking to the author, if they are there, willing, and available is invaluable to the process. However, where the author is absent, unwilling or in some cases expired (rewrites of historically written texts obviously apply here) you have your own interpretation to go on based on what you thought when you read the source novel.

When you look at the author’s view of the character, there may not be sufficient detail to transfer that character to a screenplay in order to fulfill the needs of the story you are trying to adapt. Remember that in a screenplay you do not have the luxury the author of a novel has to build character, background and drive for that character. Chapters of exposition and creation may have to be condensed to a single scene in order to set the character, their motivations, hopes, dreams and desires.

Let’s break down a story into the types of characters you have in a cast.

The protagonist, your lead character who either tells the story or reacts to events to create the story will usually have sufficient background to transfer to the screenplay; I’d be very surprised if they didn’t. However, the exact means by which they undertake their journey doesn’t always translate to the screen. The character in the novel may have one set of ideas and methods to reach their goal that do not necessarily transfer to the screenplay- but that statement is true of any character.

However, it is to the protagonist to lead the story by their nature so all other characters at that point become to a degree secondary in the initial planning stage.

The first rule I developed was to focus on the protagonist. Sounds obvious but I’ve found so many stories and scripts where secondary characters have moments that actually detract from the main story, and the writers goal is to tell the best story possible. It’s a bit like putting the cart before the horse, when you have someone say “There’s this really cool character who turns up in this scene…” which inevitably leads to a story with an interesting cast of quirky and engaging secondary or incidental characters whilst the lead is actually quite bland and boring.

This is a common fault amongst writers who have a great idea, an engaging lead, and a stunning cast of secondary characters so well thought they overshadow the protagonist who, when you look deeply at them, aren’t that interesting. When Mark Hammill was asked what he thought of Luke Skywalker, he answered “I prefer Han Solo”. Thus, creating a lead character has to be done carefully: they are the lead, they should be the one to drive the story, engage the audience and carry the emotions of that audience on their journey.

So let’s take the protagonist, identify who they are, what inciting incident happens to change their life, and how they go about solving the story. Do all that before the secondary characters are thought of.

Then, when the protagonist and their motivations, dreams, challenges and prejudices are created, the inciting incident sets them on their story and you know how that story will resolve (and its a good chance that story will involve additional characters to help, aid, hinder, or provide necessary information), then go back and look at the rest of the cast from the source material, work out how they fit in, and identify what part each plays in the story.

A common complaint heard in adaptations is “my favourite character is missing”. Reason? They do the same thing as another character and if information is to be imparted or help given to the protagonist, it can save time and space in the juggling act of the 90-110 page screenplay (assuming film) or 45-60 pages (TV) if a duplicate character is removed.

So your protagonist has to tell an effective story in as few words as possible, much the same way you have to tell that story as a writer. The story arc of the protagonist has to be dynamic, and effectively engage the audience within the conflict- and all within the original context of the novel you are recreating.

This also applies if there are multiple protagonists, by the way.

Secondary characters: these are the supporting cast, the aides, helpers, best friends, and people with lines to say, a part to play and an essential role in telling the story.

The key word there is “essential”. As above, if a character does not advance the story, you may want them in the screenplay but find you have to cut them from the final version.

What is an essential character?

Two cops, Rourke and Riley, have an important plot revealing conversation about the drugs bust they are going to do. They finish the conversation as Rourke’s wife phones him with a request to pick up his daughter Jessica from school as they go to Al in the police station armoury, and check out their guns. They discuss the weapons with Al and who likes what, then they leave and go for the SWAT wagon.

That’s all well and good, but the three page scene can be condensed into the following:

Rourke and Riley discuss the important points about the drugs bust, and Rourke checks his watch leaving Riley an opening to comment about “when we’re done, I’ll sort the paperwork and you go for Jess; school gate won’t wait for you, bro” WHILST they walk out of the station to the wagon, fully tooled up for the raid.

Why have Al in the screenplay? Why have Rourke’s wife? The essence of the story is captured and you’ve saved the producer two characters lines plus extraneous dialogue. It also introduces a gentler, caring side to tough guy Riley by his reference to the need for a Father to be there for his daughter. If at some point you had a scene where Riley showed us his caring side, why put it in? You’ve just done it right there with that one line. Granted, more can also be useful but when everything is competing for space in the script (lines, locations, characters, action scenes, background, sub plots to name but a few) you’ll edit any way you can to strengthen the story and save time in the process.

Once you have fleshed out the story from the novel, you have the cast of interesting secondary characters to help tell that story. Identifying what part each one plays and how best to insert them into the story is done at this point. Where multiple or conflicting cross overs in character content appear, you may have to make cuts.

Bear in mind at all times: a 90-110 page screenplay may seem like a big document to fill, but when you start out, you may find it’s a lot smaller than you realise because you can’t fit everything in!

Antagonists: this is the bad guy. Where you have a bad guy, that is. This identifies everyone from the main villain to incidental people who become obstacles in the way of the characters.

Poorly written antagonists are the death of many screenplays because the story follows the leads without any thought to what the bad guys are actually doing. In other words, they are reactive than proactive.

In some stories, the bad guy sits there and does nothing. If they’re a government with an evil plan (WW2 movies, star wars, etc) they “exist” only to “discover” the good guys part way through and get involved. If they’re an “initial wronged party” they could be hunting for the good guys all the way through. The first example is reactive, the second is proactive.

So ask yourself the question: “what is the antagonist actually doing?”. Bad guys don’t sit there and wait for a hero to come along that they can beat up, capture the girlfriend, threaten the kids or somehow come close to unleashing that doomsday device.

If you look at the story arc of most bad guy led stories, you’ll find the bad guys had a plan and a story long before the good guy became involved. Work out what that story was from the novel and that becomes your antagonist motivation. But they don’t stop there- antagonists still have a plan even whilst we (the audience) follow the protagonist doing their bit to save the world.

So in the screenplay, identify what the bad guys are doing in the novel and go from there; have them proactive and reactive when appropriate. I usually find the antagonist diverts from the original source material at this point because the screenwriter has the opportunity to tell the bad guys story in a more dynamic or appropriate fashion.

In the next part I’ll talk about story arcs for the characters and how they can be expanded from the original story to become more appropriate to the screenplay, but retain the heart of the character from the original source material.