8

The Short Story

There are certain reasons writers prefer adapting from a short story rather than from a novel. The rights to a short story may be easier to obtain than the rights to a full-blown novel. The short story is, by definition, shorter and has less characterization and subplots to deal with, which, for some students, makes it an easier source for adaptation. Those students who do pick the short story invariably run into difficulty because of the length of source material—they often run out of scenes to add into the story or ideas about how to develop the plot. The problem here, I think, is the problem one has with adaptation in general.

In the quest to remain faithful to the original work, which is the number one obsession of potential ...

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