The Art of Adaptation

Tips on adapting novels into plays or audio drama scripts.

BBC Radio4 broadcasts adaptations of classic novels every Sunday afternoon. These dramatisations are very different from a single-voice audio books or abridgements. They're full-cast scripted plays with multiple locations and original sound design. It's a sonic artform, rich and layered.

I've written twelve book adaptations and serials, several winning awards. This year (2026) Girl of the Sea of Cortez won a BBC audio drama award with Adam Woodham's sound design.

A successful adaptation must carry all the key attributes of the original work boldly into a new medium. It isn't a 'cut and paste' job. You have to interpret, reposition, simplify and amplify.

It must also somehow compress a book of 100,000 words into a 7500 word/ one hour play, while remaining true to it's author's voice and vision.

So where do you start?

Here's what I've learned.

The adaptation process

1. Read the book fast and note first impressions. Then read again deeper

2. Identify core themes and character journeys

3. Get a feel for what's critical, what can fall away

4. Consider the narrator voice. Can it be drama? Can you subvert it? Do without it?

5. Find ways to express characters' emotional states through dialogue or music/ sound

6. Turn text descriptions of scenes into sound (e.g. location, landscape, weather, travel, season, time)

7. Don't be afraid to include physical action, keep scenes dynamic

8. Find what's sonic. From big vistas to the voice inside your head, audio can take you anywhere

   
   

Working with the text

If you can find the original book in PDF format it will save you a lot of typing, but PLEASE don't do download PDFs of books still in copyright. That text has probably been ripped illegally, damaging an author's livelihood. Buy it on Kindle and use the highlighting tools instead. Yes all that typing is a slog, but it's the right thing to do.

That said, what works on the page doesn't always work as spoken word. You may find you're using very little of the original text verbatim.

In my adaptation of Heart of Darkness I used only one line of the original dialogue. Guess which one...

Interpret freely

When adapting older literary works, you're generally freer to be creative. You can transpose time and place, change character demographics, even switch the hero. But voice is important. You may need to slip seamlessly into a writer's individual style and become invisible. I've been M.R James, Christopher Marlow, Thomas Hardy and Susan Hill. Its fun.

Respect Reality

Historical and auto/biographical adaptations must be treated with more care. You can't invent. You can't change dates or elide characters. You definitely can't present rumour as fact or change the qualities of a person to make a story tidier or more dramatic. On the plus side, you are working with authentic human experience in all it's complexity. Use the gift you've been given, and be prepared to dive deeper.

Build the world

My drama about Gertrude Ederle (the first woman to swim the English Channel) was based on Gavin Mortimer's biography. It gave me the facts, but I needed more detail to build the world, researching everything from sandbars to period music and local seabirds, and speaking to endurance swimmers.

When adapting the Japanese horror Ring, we considered resetting it Scotland. How could I write about Japan? Partly by trusting the translator, but also commitment! I spent months reading about Japanese culture. Luckily, I love learning,

Every author is different

Novelists have different relationships with their adaptors. Susan Hill and Koji Suzuki had no contact with me and didn't ask for script approval. I find this a bit odd. Surely you'd want to know what the adaptor was doing with your work? But if this happens to you, don't take it personally!

I did a ten part serialisation of 'We Need to Talk About Kevin'. Lionel Shriver had no contact with us, trusting to the power of her story. We don't know what she thought of the production, but the BBC messageboards went mad for it!

Death of the Author

On the other end of the spectrum the family/ estate of a deceased author can, understandably, be very protective of that writer's work.

With Janet Frame's autobiography An Angel at my Table her estate were concerned about how we'd represent her mental health. This aspect of her life has often pulled focus away from her literary achievements. I reassured them that her life as a writer, her incredible prose and brilliant mind were core to my adaptation. They came to trust us and loved the end result. I say 'us' because it's the radio drama producer who must secure the rights to the book, in this case Karen Rose.

Collaboration

Of the living authors I've adapted, Steve Erickson was the most collaborative. His novel Shadowbahn is a multi-timeframe, music-driven road trip from California to North Dakota, where the Twin Towers have enigmatically re-materialised. It's a layered, complex book wrapped around a playlist. He was happy to answer questions throughout the process and was very complimentary about the finished audio drama. A very generous writer!

Each adaptation is different

Some flow easily, and are made with love and joy. I romped through the Pan Horror stories with delight. Others are like a two-sided jigsaw with no edge pieces, or a complex paper flower you must reassemble without crushing.

Getting inside an author's mind can change you as a writer. Frame taught me about shaping prose (and writing to survive). Shriver taught me about plot. Conrad got more opaque the deeper I went, until I came out the other side understanding. Marlow gave me verse. Hardy gave me the stars.

Whatever book you adapt you have to be rigorous, sensitive, methodical, innovative, sometimes invisible and above all... adaptable.

For more about adapting novels into drama, see my artical comparing three very different adaptations of Alasdair Gray's Lanark. with interviews from the adapting writers and directors.

#audiodrama #adaptatations #adaptingbooks #radiodrama