tips for novelization (and, by proxy, fic writing)

somehow, in the sea of things i have to do for school (do NOT talk to me abt nano pls) i've found the time today to think about adapting. now, i know nothing about adapting prose to film but i do know a thing about going the other way around (turns out fanfiction is good for something).

so, you want to adapt your favorite movie/tv show/video game into a novel/novella? great! but don't start writing just yet; you need a few things first.

1. find yourself a script. for the love of god, find yourself a script. please, oh please, do not go into this without a script of the movie, preferably the shooting script, if you can. this is soooo important. if you can't get a hold of that (which happens), look for transcriptions of the movie. both have their pros and cons depending on what exactly you're doing: if you want novelize the movie the way it is, transcripts are best because you won't accidentally write in deleted scenes, but for fic i've found that looking at scripts work better in some cases. for video games you most likely will have to use a transcript. do not try to write your novel by memory or just using the piece of media, it will not work. that being said,
2. have the piece of media on hand as well. this is important too, especially if you're just working from a shooting script. scenes get changed around all the time, and if you're doing a straight novelization you need to make sure your scenes are all in line in a general sense. if you're a visual writer, this is also good for building an aesthetic (if you're a visual writer like me, this is really important).
3. write an outline. this is one of the most important things for any book with more than one chapter. you neeeeeed to know how your story is going to go for at least a few chapters ahead of what you're doing. in original stories, i say you should plan at least five chapters ahead, but for this kind of thing you can go all the way. if you're wondering why you need to write an outline for this, something that is already structured, one good reason is because writing outlines is good for establishing povs, as well as when certain chapters will begin and end. the second reason is because of 
4. stitching. i've talked about this in the man of steel reviews plenty of times. stitching is when you put the scenes of the movie together to make up the book's chapters. it's soooo important to do this because if you don't the book will be choppy as hell and hard to keep up with (see my review of the first chapter or so of the tdkr novelization for more on that point). how much you have to do this will depend on who wrote the script, as well as what pov style you use; 3rd person omniscient requires more, while 1st person and 3rd person limited will require a bit less, still depending on the writer.
5. establish you narrative mode. another important thing for all books. the narrative mode you write in can affect the mood of the book. you have a lot of things to choose from (excepting 2nd person because that wouldn't make sense), especially in this day and age, because writers have been kind of bending the rules and creating a lot of new ways to write in 3rd person. each of the traditional modes will have their own limits; 1st person (hunger games style) and will require that your main character be in every single scene. on the other hand, both of these will give you a more personal relationship with the pov character. 3rd person omniscient (the prologue of the tdkr novelization style) will give you a lot more scope and access to character histories, but you can lose a connection to the characters by accident. traditional 3rd person limited (harry potter style) lets you choose just how limited you are at points, but it still can have the limitations of 1st person. non-traditional 3rd person -- i.e. more than one limited pov told in 3rd person (a song of ice and fire series style) -- gives you the connection with the characters as well as not making you choose one character, which is not always feasible. this is the style i tend to write in the most for my fics, as it gives me more freedom to limit on my own terms, but in the end you should choose a mode that fits your work.
6. if you're writing in 1st person or 3rd person limited, establish your pov character(s). like i mentioned, if you go with 1st person you need to choose a character who is present for every main event that happens in your media. the difficulty in doing this will vary depending on how many important characters the story has. for example: you could tell inception completely from the pov of dom cobb, because (and especially with this piece) the film focuses on him the most. the same goes for something like the film adaptation of scott pilgrim, any rpg and most military shooters (it's right in the name of one subgenre of them!). however, if you tried this with, say, the avengers, it wouldn't work at all, because that movie has six main characters! the same goes for most movies with ensemble casts, games where you switch between two or more characters, and most tv shows. don't switch to the pov of a char that isn't important to the plot in a major way (narrows eyes in the direction of greg cox).

you're finally ready to start! have fun adapting your thing!

happy writing friends!