Adaptation

It's nearly mid-March which can only mean two things: One, it's almost time for Script Frenzy, and two, it's almost time for The Hunger Games premiere. I've been a proud, self-proclaimed Hunger Games nerd since I read the series a few months ago. If you haven't yet read it, I recommend it! It's a quick read and well worth it. To add to my delight, they are adapting the book into a full-blown movie, which seems to be a reoccurring pattern nowadays.

In fact, it seems that these days publishers are strategically seeking out novels that can be made into movies. Precious, The Kite Runner, The Lovely Bones, The Virgin Suicides—there must be hundreds, if not thousands of top box-office movies that started as books. So this leaves me wondering whether or not I should adapt a good book into my Script Frenzy script.[[MORE]]

If I did, what would I choose? Maybe I would choose the adorable novella The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Or perhaps, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz. Although, thinking about it, it would be difficult to do justice to many of my favorite novels since they are just so well-written. What might be necessary is to think of the script and the novel as two separate entities, like J.K. Rowling said she did about her Harry Potter series in comparison to their cinematic counterparts.

That's how I'll be thinking of The Hunger Games movie as I watch it at the midnight premiere in a few weeks. Maybe one of you will see me there. I'll be the girl with my hair braided in the style of Katniss Everdeen's, handing out toasted Wonder Bread bearing the symbol of the Mockingjay to represent Peeta, "the boy with the bread".

So as the month marches forward (pun intended), I will continue to explore the idea of adapting a book into my Script Frenzy script. And now, out of curiosity I turn the question over to you: What book or story would you want to turn into a script?

- Aliza