My Films

Module 2 · Lesson 1 of 6

Book door: pick the one scene to film.

A whole book won’t fit in a minute. One scene will. This lesson helps you find the scene in your book that films best.

The steps

  1. A whole book will not fit in a minute. One scene will.

What a good scene has

  1. Two or three people. Every extra face is one more thing that can go wrong.

  2. One place: a kitchen, a car, a church parking lot.

  3. A fight or a turn: a moment where things change. A secret comes out, or someone makes a choice.

  4. Something you can see happen: a door slams, a car drives off, someone walks out.

What to skip

  1. Skip scenes that live inside a character’s head. A camera can’t film a thought.

  2. Skip scenes with a crowd, a long trip or many places. Save those for a later film.

See how much a film keeps

  1. Turning a book into a film is called adaptation. Even a long film keeps only part of a book.

  2. To see it with your own book, open the free Adaptation Scope Planner.

  3. Type how many words your book has and how many chapters. Under Target runtime, pick Short / Proof — 45 min (18 scenes). Tap Plan the cut.

    Even a 45-minute film keeps only about 18 scenes. Your one-minute film keeps one.

Make your list

  1. In the boxes below, write three scenes from your book that could be filmed. One line each.

  2. Pick the one with the fewest people, one place and the clearest moment of change.

Your film

My Films

Fill it in here. It saves as you type, and later lessons use it.

Do this now

List three scenes from your book that could be filmed, then pick one.

Check yourself

  • Does your scene have only two or three people?
  • Does it happen in one place?
  • Is there something we can see happen, not only think?

If any answer is no, go back over the steps, or look below.

Stuck?

Every good scene in my book has lots of people.
Pick the moment inside it between just two of them. The others can be heard off screen, or left out.
My best scenes all happen inside someone’s head.
Look for the moment just after the thought, when the character acts on it. Lesson 4 shows how to turn a thought into something we see.
I don’t know how many words my book has.
On a computer, Word shows it at the bottom left of the window. In Google Docs, click Tools, then Word count. A rough guess is fine too.

Still stuck? Email info@bookwriter.vip and say which lesson you’re on. A person reads every message and writes back.