Date
12-19-2024
Department
College of Arts and Sciences
Degree
Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (MFA)
Chair
Doctor Durrell Nelson
Keywords
Adaptation, Book-to-Movie, Film, Novel Adaptation, Screenplay, Christian Entertainment, Christian Media, Art
Disciplines
Creative Writing
Recommended Citation
Cox, Larah C., "When Books Come Alive: Crafting a Clean Book-to-Screen Adaptation Worth Watching" (2024). Masters Theses. 1248.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/masters/1248
Abstract
The Things We Leave Unfinished is a screenplay adaptation of the novel of the same name by Rebecca Yarros. In this story, audience members will watch as the characters fall in love during both World War II and the present time, and experience how these themes become unbreakable family ties and strong women. This thesis, due to the importance of availability of clean entertainment for Christians to enjoy, explores what is necessary for a filmmaker to provide that kind of film, and seeks to find the answers in what makes a book-to-screen adaptation successful and worthy of an audience (both spiritual and secular). This paper aims to assess the components that require consideration in order to successfully adapt a novel into a screenplay. These include (but are not limited to) the difference in the mediums in their perception stimulation methods, character development abilities, time constraints, and even biases from audiences. This paper will then analyze the success of three film adaptations by way of faithfulness to their source material, critic reviews, and audience reception. I hope that this research and all that it yields will help when writing my own screenplay adaptation of The Things We Leave Unfinished. Due to the nature of the screenplay (and its source material) and its duality between the horrors of war and whimsies of romance, this thesis works to simultaneously provide thought-provoking research and riveting entertainment.