Adaptations II

Adaptations?  I generally hate them, for exactly the reasons that Sharmila describes. How often have we squirmed through slash-and-burn celluloid travesties of cherished novels, wincing at the wooden acting of Hollywood’s latest simpering starlet? How many times have we wailed “But they’ve left out the subplot/most important character/half the story! It doesn’t make sense without it!” Most of the time, I don’t want to see the whole inner world I’ve lovingly constructed so crudely dismantled, or the character’s faces I’ve decided on substituted for an unwelcome intruder. But sometimes, once in a while, just when you think they’re not going to, things work out well. One of the best adaptations I have seen in many years is Dexter, based on a series of novels by Jeff Lindsay, which just seems to get better and better. The first series began as an adaptation of the first novel, Darkly Dreaming Dexter. The main character, Dexter Morgan, is a serial killer (yes, my fellow Write on Essex members, I can hear you all groaning), who is polite, friendly, kind to his wife and children, and all the other things monsters aren’t supposed to be. The books deal cleverly and wittily with Dexter’s inner life and explore how he reconciles psychopathy and a penchant for dismemberment with a ‘normal’ family and working life. Dexter kills only those who 'deserve' it; child molesters, wife beaters, other serial killers and all kinds of horrible lowlife. He is the hero, however morally ambiguous, and the reader cheers him on at every stage. Maybe it’s because he rids the world of those who really shouldn’t be in it, something we would love to do, but can’t; he is the agent of our revenge. So, how does it work on television? Besides other advantages such as excellent scriptwriting, strong characterisation, fine acting and quirky plotting, I think it is because the writers have used their source creatively. After the first series, the television Dexter has developed quite differently to the subsequent novels. Characters long removed from the television series remain present in the books and vice versa; the stories are different, but recognisably the same. The books and the TV series co-exist happily and I can enjoy both for what they are – and that’s how I know this adaptation works.

A few years ago, I did an interesting piece of work for a writing course. We were asked to dramatise the story of Cinderella, but find a fresh way of presenting it. While that might sound straightforward, it isn’t, and I soon found out there were big questions to be answered. How do you find that new approach in a story everyone knows? How do you make characters, in fact stock fairy-tale tropes, come to life on screen (or radio, which I’d chosen)? How would these people actually talk to each other instead of their communication being subsumed into the storyteller’s voice?  The process of adapting this piece did improve my writing, to answer Sharmila’s question, because it improved my reading. I went back to the original source. Although I know the Cinderella story, I don’t think I’d ever read the Brothers Grimm version. Looking for a different way to present it, I read it carefully and made a note of all the twists and turns and any minor characters I hadn’t noticed because the Ugly Sisters, the Fairy Godmother, the Handsome Prince and the Glass Slipper had got in the way. In fact, I’d missed a lot.  That’s how I found the new angle. I used a minor character’s perspective, in one of the settings that usually takes second place to Cinderella’s kitchen. Radio drama works largely through dialogue, so I chose to tell the story by adding another minor character; I framed it in a conversation between two courtiers at the ball, and went from there. I felt that I learnt a lot in the process of adapting Cinderella; how to manipulate characterisation and plot, and how to convey a familiar story in a different medium. It’s not always easy. I’m still not sure I like adaptations, though!