Adapting to radio
Yesterday one of my Twitter followees/followers asked me if she could interview me for her blog about the process of adapting for radio. I told her I'd be a better interview after the piece was already in production, but it has got me thinking about the topic, so I'm going to make this a place to jot down my ideas as they come to me.
Avoid leaving your characters alone. There's nothing to hear if they have nobody to talk to. Give your characters a Watson or a Deadpan Snarker. You may have to make some of your characters a little more extroverted than they are in the book, so that they say out loud things that are internal monologue in the book.
Avoid action scenes. Running and shooting don't sound nearly as exciting as they look. Skip straight to the outcome, where your characters are reacting to what happened or telling somebody else about it.
(Especially avoid action scenes where your character is alone, or you'll end up with lines like, "Climb... Must. Climb!")
Cut down the number of characters. A lot. The best radio plays have four main characters. If you can't cut it down to that many, try not to have more than four characters in each scene: Your listeners will get lost.
Exaggerate your characters' personalities just a bit. Your listeners can't differentiate the characters visually; they need to sound different. Of course giving them different voices and accents helps, but distinguishing character traits are always more compelling.
Simplify. Again, the listener has no visual cues to help them follow what's going on, and they can't flip back to the previous page if they get lost. Also, you have to simplify, or you'll end up with a script that is twice as long as the book.
Don't narrate. I know a lot of radio plays use narration, but when a book adaptation uses narration, I feel like somebody is just reading me the abridged version. I'd rather just listen to the audiobook.
If you do choose a narrative device, stick to it. If, say, the story is carried along by a diary, don't have it shift partway through into a memoir. Be consistent.
Make sure your scene transitions are clear: again, no visual cues. Modern audiences are very savvy though, so this isn't actually that hard; you don't need a musical sting or anything contrived like that. Audiences know what kind of punchline or cliffhanger a scene usually ends on, and any well-written scene ending sets up the following scene anyway, so this isn't as different from screenwriting as you might think. A moment of silence followed by another moment of establishing sound effects should be enough if the audience knows what to expect (e.g. if you've just wrapped up a scene in the A plot, they will expect a scene from the B plot; if you've just said "We'll see what Carolyn has to say about that," they'll expect the following scene to be with Carolyn). Try to throw the characters' names into the first few lines of dialogue so that listeners know who they're hearing.
Choose your book wisely. A book that is dialogue-heavy will adapt better to radio than one that is full of descriptions.
Don't be afraid to improve upon the original. For instance, it might take only a very subtle little change to turn a character from a plot device into a real character. The Magical Negro may have been acceptable trope when the book was written, but giving him real motivations and desires will make him a more compelling character, and isn't that hard to do.
Avoid leaving your characters alone. There's nothing to hear if they have nobody to talk to. Give your characters a Watson or a Deadpan Snarker. You may have to make some of your characters a little more extroverted than they are in the book, so that they say out loud things that are internal monologue in the book.
Avoid action scenes. Running and shooting don't sound nearly as exciting as they look. Skip straight to the outcome, where your characters are reacting to what happened or telling somebody else about it.
(Especially avoid action scenes where your character is alone, or you'll end up with lines like, "Climb... Must. Climb!")
Cut down the number of characters. A lot. The best radio plays have four main characters. If you can't cut it down to that many, try not to have more than four characters in each scene: Your listeners will get lost.
Exaggerate your characters' personalities just a bit. Your listeners can't differentiate the characters visually; they need to sound different. Of course giving them different voices and accents helps, but distinguishing character traits are always more compelling.
Simplify. Again, the listener has no visual cues to help them follow what's going on, and they can't flip back to the previous page if they get lost. Also, you have to simplify, or you'll end up with a script that is twice as long as the book.
Don't narrate. I know a lot of radio plays use narration, but when a book adaptation uses narration, I feel like somebody is just reading me the abridged version. I'd rather just listen to the audiobook.
If you do choose a narrative device, stick to it. If, say, the story is carried along by a diary, don't have it shift partway through into a memoir. Be consistent.
Make sure your scene transitions are clear: again, no visual cues. Modern audiences are very savvy though, so this isn't actually that hard; you don't need a musical sting or anything contrived like that. Audiences know what kind of punchline or cliffhanger a scene usually ends on, and any well-written scene ending sets up the following scene anyway, so this isn't as different from screenwriting as you might think. A moment of silence followed by another moment of establishing sound effects should be enough if the audience knows what to expect (e.g. if you've just wrapped up a scene in the A plot, they will expect a scene from the B plot; if you've just said "We'll see what Carolyn has to say about that," they'll expect the following scene to be with Carolyn). Try to throw the characters' names into the first few lines of dialogue so that listeners know who they're hearing.
Choose your book wisely. A book that is dialogue-heavy will adapt better to radio than one that is full of descriptions.
Don't be afraid to improve upon the original. For instance, it might take only a very subtle little change to turn a character from a plot device into a real character. The Magical Negro may have been acceptable trope when the book was written, but giving him real motivations and desires will make him a more compelling character, and isn't that hard to do.