Adaptation is the conversion from another form of media, for example, radioplay, play, musical, novel, novella, short story, diary or biography into the language of film. Newspaper articles or essays and publications of all sorts like poems, for example can also be made into films, wherein the idea or basic plot is adapted.

What happens when a work is translated? Taking the example of a novel, film production worldwide relies heavily on the novel for stories.

Firstly the international film rights to the work must be secured for both Cinema and TV distribution. In most cases, the purchased production rights are optioned for a period of time, usually 2 years and for ten percent of the total cost of purchasing the work outright.

When developing a screenplay one can use different methods:

1.) Create an Outlining Process - What parts of the story are required to tell the story, what can be left out, what needs to be created.

2.) Create a topic list. Will the film version of the story use the same locations as written in the novel or will locales, nationalities and cities in other places be substituted in the film. If the film changes the location of the story, the characters in the story must be ievably adapted to accommodate the new setting without damaging the integrity of the work.

3.) Creation of a character list. Who do I need, who can I leave out, which character might be changed for which reason and who must be created to fill a gap and why. When do I make them younger or older and why. Why do I make them a man or a woman or the other way around?

4.) Creation of a dialogue outline accounting for literary devices such as the internal monologues or descriptions of characters that can be translated into the language of the film, i.e. visuals, sound, dialogue and monologue or voice-overs without which the actions and the psychological, physical and above all the emotional development of the characters and the story would not be comprehendible.

5.) Creating a scene - Sequence.

When you have all these together, you can begin writing the screenplay. Of course you can also do this while writing as well.