Page 89 - Student: dazed And Confused

Exercise: Decide how you could best show the above scene, and write it until you
can recreate the very same image.

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To be able to effectively com m unicate an image, w hether it be through w ords or
m usic or screen etc, you m ust first understand the devices that will be em ployed. For
instance, colour, sound, m ovem ent and sym bolism will all be needed. M aybe the piece you

are adapting it may say 'there is a car crash.' That is too vague to be of any use to you.
W hatever m edium you are adapting for, detail is essential in creating a picture. Add things
like flam e, explosion, maybe the colours the crash leaves hanging in the air. These things
mean an adaptor is doing their job well.
It has often been said, most notably by Stephen King but also by countless others,
that w riting is like telepathy - in the sense that you are trying to make the reader see and
feel what the w riter is seeing and feeling. That goes double for adaptations. Not only are
you trying to make your audience see the things you envisage, you are trying to make the

image more im m ediate than before.
A while ago, in a script outline, I wrote this:

She has revenge on her mind and will take it
upon herself to exact it. She com m ands a flash
of lightning, a clap of thunder. The w indow s are blown out and shards of glass
pierce anyone in
the way. The blood gushes through the school.

From this, I daresay you can create a pretty good picture in your mid of what was
going on. But you have a luxury I did not. You have free will. You can see this in your own

w ay and provide your own details.

Exercise: Take the above passage and create a poem, then dialogue, then prose,
then a piece of script direction. Your pieces must tell your audience what is going on but
must also create the image you see. This will help you to adapt more concisely by staying
true to the source text and still adding your own ideas.

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You may have read books such as Em m a, Oliver Twist, Carrie and The Hitchhikers'
Guide to the Galaxy, written by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Stephen King and Douglas
Adam s respectively. It is fair to assum e that these books wee not written with the notion of
having them turned into so m any films. But they were. And the books were adapted very