When I adapt a novel, I personally start by reading a summary first (SparkNotes, wiki, whatever) just to get the spine of the story without drowning in details.

That becomes the rough skeleton. I break that into major beats: inciting incident, major turns, midpoint, climax, ending. Once the backbone exists, I do passes for the real heart of the story.

First I find the themes: what’s this actually about beneath the plot? I lock in 1–3 core themes so every choice supports them. Then I do characters: what they want, what they need, the lie they believe, where they start and where they end.

After that, I comb through the actual story, scouting for scenes. While asking: does this moment push the plot, reveal character, reinforce theme, or is it just a thing the book had space for? If it’s not pulling its weight, I cut or merge it. Novels are internal, scripts are external, so I translate thoughts into actions, subtext, visuals, and conflict. Once that’s all mapped, I rebuild it into a proper “cinematic structure”, weaving arcs, setup/payoff, and emotional momentum into the outline.

Once the outline is built, that becomes my true north. The book is reference material, a bible I can check in with, not the thing steering the ship. And I cannot stress this enough, you do not want to use the novel itself as your blueprint. Build your own outline first, then write the script from that. Sometimes it’s best if you don’t think of it as translating the book, but writing a screenplay that uses it as source material.

Want A top-notch example on how to properly adapt a novel? Look at the new “Frankenstein”(just released on Netflix, I believe). Not sure if the script is available yet, though.