How to Get Your Book Made into a Movie: Why Some Books Don’t Make Good Movies

Hollywood has an allure, and I am often asked, in my consulting work and at conferences such as Bouchercon and Killer Nashville, “How do I get my book turned into a film?”

The first answer to the question is straightforward but not always easy to accept. Do you have a book that lends itself to being turned into a film? You see, some books don’t make good movies. Sad, but true. Many excellent books don’t make good movies.

Books and films are inherently different storytelling mediums. Each medium has its own strengths and limitations. It may sound unfair, but not all movies make very interesting book tie-ins, just as not all books make exciting movies. When you turn your book into a film, you have to take everything you’ve written as an author and break it down into a visual and time-bound format that is the domain of a screenwriter and director. Depending upon the book, and I’ll say most books, this adaptation does not, and because of the medium of film cannot, capture the essence and what is truly beautiful in the original book itself. Let’s look at some of the differences.

Books excel by internal storytelling. Because of the devices of a book, books can delve into characters' emotions, thoughts, and inner conflicts. You can’t get “inside” with a film. All you have to work with in a film is what the audience sees and hears. Anything beyond that cannot be portrayed in film. Films rely on visual and external storytelling. It is rare that a screenwriter (or you as the adaptor) can take the richness and complete world of the literary story, strip it of all internally based nuances, and make it into a film that captures that same essence. So much in the process is lost because of the limitations of the film medium. And you don’t want to talk a lot in movies. Dialogue-heavy movies don’t do well, especially in foreign distribution. An internally and deeply introspective book does not lend itself to getting turned into a movie because the depth of the novel (or short story, creative nonfiction, essay, memoir) cannot be communicated through film without overblown verbal narration that will bring the movie to a snail’s pace, sound like it is talking down to the audience by explaining, and can make the whole visual experience awkward and unenjoyable to the viewer. However, because of these elements inherent in a book, a book using the same devices can be an exhilarating, enjoyable, and memorable read.

There is also a substantial difference in the time you are allowed to tell the story. The average novel takes about four to six hours to be read by a fast reader and eight to twelve hours by the average reader. A film is an hour and a half to two hours on average. That’s an extensive amount of material being left out. Why the difference? Books, because of their length, can explore subplots, backstories, multiple character relationships, multiple character arcs, and detailed descriptions of worlds and themes over three hundred to four hundred pages, which a film cannot do because of time. Films run for ninety to one hundred and eighty minutes long, which equals about 30 single-spaced pages. Transferring from a full-length book to a movie takes major cutting; with major cutting, much of the “good stuff” gets left out. Is your story capable of being chopped like this? Can a single storyline with only reference to chosen subplots be pulled from your story and still leave it with the magic of your original book? Things are going to be lost in the condensation. There will be a tendency when screenwriting to rush through or oversimply certain areas of the plot. None of these will make for a pleasant cinematic experience. Time, unfortunately, is an enemy of turning books into films. This is why you see many movies made from short stories. The storytelling length can be more satisfactorily matched.

Because of the amount of time you have in a novel, complex worlds with detailed descriptions, themes, and exposition can be used to paint the picture for the reader and bring them in. This can be achieved in film through the visual set or location alone, which is all you have, but sometimes the backstories and the nuances are lost. But this one can be overcome. Films need to establish the setting quickly and do this through their visual content. Books that translate well into films have locations that lend themselves to quick understanding. If you have such a location, this point will not be detrimental to your book being turned into a movie. Many places require more than just the location to make the setting a character in the book. Can your book’s settings be portrayed easily and vibrantly visually? Can the nuances of the set be achieved through props? If so, these must be considered before a movie can succeed on screen as the story succeeds on paper.

Plot-driven books, mostly, but certainly with exceptions, are much easier to turn into films. Character-driven novels focus on subtle dynamics, personal growth (internally and externally), and relationship arcs (again internally and externally). These nuances can be challenging in the time allowed to transfer to screen. Because they are inward, viewers of movies can find the lack of action, movement, or visual engagement lagging. Plot-driven books certainly have the advantage of turning a book into a film.

You also have two different mindsets between readers and viewers. Book readers like to use their imaginations. Screen viewers tend to want to lean back and enjoy the story as it is presented to them. They think about it afterward and some during, but book readers do much more thinking while in the process. Reading a book is more mental work. That doesn’t mean movie viewers don’t think, but it means the delivery allows them to sit and observe without having to be a participant if they don’t want to. With a book, you have to participate. Written stories allow readers to imagine characters, events, and settings in their own way based on their own interpretations, which is highly rewarding to them. Sometimes, when a book is turned into a movie, it doesn’t make a good movie because it doesn’t allow for the interpretations that the reader gleaned personally. This is when you hear the book was better than the movie. This is because the book allows the reader to be a part of the story, which most films do not facilitate.

Film tends to be a linear medium. Even when you have two plot lines running, such as a narrative of when the main character was a young boy intercut with him in the main plot as an adult, for the most part, but certainly with exceptions, it will be a linear presentation. The narrative structure of a book can be more complex. Book writers sometimes use unconventional structures such as unreliable narrators, multiple timelines, and multiple characters’ points of view that do not translate well into film because of the medium and the time constraint. If you have an unconventional book, turning it into a movie isn't easy. If it does make it into a film, it might not be considered a commercial one that will give you the celebrity you want; many of these films are more directed toward art houses and have a much smaller viewing demographic. Art house movies have minimal budgets; your book must lend itself to a smaller budget.

Tone and style also play a role. Books with experimental styling or a distinctive narrative voice lose their punch when turned into a more conventional film. Whimsical, philosophical, or experimental books have a challenging time finding a home and being made into movies.

Have you written an opus full of magical, special-effects-type adventures? Have you written detailed, other-worldly, heavily created, and grandiose settings? Is your book filled with action sequences? All of these can work against you unless Hollywood can cast it with well-known actors who can justify the budget considerations for these elements. Hollywood must make a profit. Will your book attract the biggest names in the Hollywood business? If not, you will have an uphill battle simply because of the budget unless you wish to remove all these beautiful elements, and that will not be your story when it is finally made into a film.

As I mentioned, readers participate in books but not always in films. Having your book turned into a movie is easier if your book is more literal. If there are subtleties or open-ended lines that leave themselves speculative for interpretation, readers are more likely to embrace and take part in abstract and ambiguous symbolism that resonates differently with each reader. Films, being a more literal medium, have difficulty with these ambiguities because of the constraints of having only what you see and what you hear. You have to have a top-notch screenwriter to pull this off.

Studies have shown that readers tend to have more emotional investment in books than moviegoers do in films. Readers are willing to spend maybe four times the amount of time (or more) “getting into” a book. They absorb themselves in the character arcs, the conflicts, the moral ambiguities, and the detailed plots. Unless it is a series or an extremely long (and rare) movie, viewers won’t invest the time, which makes it more difficult for viewers to get the same emotional investment in a film that a reader makes with a book. If the movie is going to be long, for lack of a more poetic way to put it, it better be good.

Backstory that explains the present story is complicated in movies because of the time constraints. Not so in novels. Books that rely heavily on intricate social commentary, cultural context, or history cannot be turned into a compelling film, nor do those books make good movies. They don’t translate well because so much of what was engrossing in the book is left out of the film, either in production or editing.

Giving up creative control is a phrase that means you are happy if someone takes your book to turn it into a movie and changes everything about it. The filmmakers (the screenwriter and the director) have that liberty. You have no input or control. You sign that all away. Books written in a way that don’t lend themselves to good movies have to be altered and reimagined. Directors, screenwriters, or producers may love your idea. Still, they may reinterpret it to present it for how they think might better work onscreen, or they may present it in a way they believe is better storytelling than what you did (they think you had an excellent or marketable idea, but you didn’t do a very good job of telling it visually so they can do it better). This is when you hear book fans hating the movie adaptations. Hollywood has a right to move away from the book’s core message, and in doing so, it tells you that you had a great idea but didn’t have a book that could be made into a movie by direct transfer. Are you happy letting them “butcher” your story? This works if walking away with the “story by” credit and the money is enough for you. If not, you may not have a book you want to see turned into a movie.

Books are often founded on beautiful prose and intangibles, such as internal dialogues that explain and enhance character development, themes, and conflicts. All these internal and esoteric elements must be translated somehow into dialogue in the film. Does your book lend itself to that? Or is it beautifully complicated? If the latter, your book may not be a book that can be effectively turned into a movie.

Some genres lend themselves better to turning a book into a movie. Thrillers, romances, action, mystery. These are the big sellers. If you are writing outside these genres, you’ll be at a commercial disadvantage, especially if you’re authoring a literary novel. I’m not talking about a setting, such as a dystopian world. (This has problems in budgeting for sets, costumes, and special effects.) Dystopian stories, for example, can be thrillers, romances, action, and mystery, but they must have the proper budget. Genres that lend themselves to film must move the story forward quickly, have action, and are train-like in getting from beginning to end. These are the best genres that lend themselves to getting your book turned into a movie.

Is your book objectively told, or is it filled with subjective perspectives? If the latter, that runs into problems in turning your book into a movie. Books with subjective perspectives match readers' minds and work well, but they have a challenging time in film adaptations showing (and this is the crucial word) the subjective characters’ mindsets. Books that rely heavily on thematic, psychological, or moral subjectivity rather than concrete action have a tough time transferring to a visual medium that, by nature, is one hundred percent objective.

In a book, a writer has more control over varied pacing than a filmmaker does with a movie. Authors can slow down and have reflective moments (which can’t be shown in film) and can create slow builds (which the abbreviated timing of a movie does not allow). Readers tend to love these reflective moments and slow builds, but viewers, while they might enjoy them, don’t have the time for them. Films, by nature, must move forward and get that story told within two hours. That doesn’t mean they run with breakneck speed, maybe, but it does mean that finding visual ways to express reflective moments and slow builds creates a multitude of extra scenes, some of which will have to be creatively executed to make them work, that the film medium does not have the time luxury of time or budget to implement.

Books allow for the involvement of the reader’s imagination. What does the setting look like? What are the races of the characters? These questions are often unanswered in books, and readers have the luxury and pleasure of adding their interpretations to the story to make it personal and relevant to them. Not so in film. Using these two examples, viewers, regardless of what might make the story personal to them, are not allowed to do so. How a character looks is shown. Their race is shown. The setting is shown. A character’s facial reactions are shown. All are shown. For readers who love to be a part of the “creation” of the story, film simply doesn’t allow it. If your story depends on letting the reader be a co-contributor to “writing” the story, if that is the joy derived from your story, then your story may not be well-suited to make your book into a movie.

Emotional subtlety is also a considering factor. If your book is filled with beautiful, emotional nuances, it may not translate well to film. Actors are limited, and much of what we consider emotional nuance takes place inside a character’s head through the description we provide as authors. You can’t do that with film. Those nuances are lost if the actor cannot express it with a glance. If your book is deep and rich in nuances, that may be what prevents it from being satisfactorily translated into a good movie. Much of the beauty of what you have written is lost.

There are more things to consider, but this gives you an idea. I’ve adapted books to films, I’ve written screenplays, I’ve directed and produced original screenplays and adaptations, I’ve been a consultant with studios who are adapting books to films, and there are many things to consider, not the worthiness of the source material, but in the worthiness of translating that literary source material into a visual medium. It’s not as easy as it seems. The tools, for example, are comparable to those an obstetrician might use as opposed to an orthopedic doctor. While they are all medicine, as books and films are all storytelling, the tools, procedures, considerations, and what you must work with are different. Not every book is suitable for turning it into a movie. Successful adaptations must balance the book’s essence with the film’s limitations, which is often more challenging than most book writers would like to consider. But this gives you, I hope, a few reasons you can think about in terms of seeing your book turned into a movie.

In the future, we will examine what makes a terrific book that can be made into a film and how to get around some of these objections. It’s more than an exceptional story and intriguing characters. Books that are made into movies are cinematic. That’s an open-ended word, but one we will address in the future.

In the meantime, should an author write a book with the idea of getting it turned into a movie? No, absolutely not. Author the best book you can write. Be as original and experimental as you can. Be as fresh as you can. Understand the conventions of literature and put your distinct mark on your book. If a movie deal comes, and we’ll discuss how to make that happen, let that be icing on the cake (unless your goal is to be a screenwriter and, in that case, write the screenplay instead of the book; you’ll find the screen process works better for the screen if the screen is the only thing you have in mind, if that is your final objective). Do not lose hope, though. Books do get turned into movies. We’ll discuss how that happens later. And how you can make that happen for your book.