Your decisions
From manuscript to screen, without surrendering your story. You wrote the novel; TSR takes the first adaptation pass.
TSR adapts your novel the way a screenwriter would, and shows you every choice before a page is written.
Before we write, you’ll see the adaptation plan: the structure, what’s cut, what’s combined, and any scene the film needs that your book doesn’t have. You approve it, or change anything in your own words.
What you must keep, and the meaning of your ending, never change without your yes.
Three levels of authority
Creator Truth
What your story ultimately means; who your protagonist is; the relationships at its heart; the major motivations and outcomes; your ending; and whatever you tell us must remain. What you must keep, and the meaning of your ending, never change without your yes.
Adaptation Authority
Whose film it is and its act and sequence structure; what is cut, compressed, combined and reordered; the moments your book tells that the film must show; bridge scenes; composite characters; the opening and final images; how inner life becomes picture and sound.
Story Change
Changing who lives or dies, the central relationship, the antagonist or the ending; inventing a major subplot; changing what an important event means. Each one is shown to you as a choice in your plan, and written only if you approve it.
Does this change what happens, or what it means? If not, TSR renders it. If it does, it must be in the Adaptation Plan you approve.
Your Adaptation Plan
Before a line of the screenplay is written, you see the plan, in plain words:
- the story as we read it;
- the structure, with its act and sequence breaks;
- the film, beat by beat;
- every cut, combination and reorder;
- every scene the film needs that your book doesn’t have, with a page or two showing how it would play;
- the opening and final images;
- what you told us must remain, and what your ending means, in your own words.
You approve the plan as a whole. You can change or veto any single choice in it, in your own words, and every decision is signed and dated. What you veto never reaches the screenplay. What you change follows your words. A choice that touches what you said must remain, or the meaning of your ending, is never carried by approving the whole plan: it asks for your own, separate yes.
- Approve
- Change
- Veto
- Reopen
Author Gate A
Author Gate A is the adapter’s first meeting with you. Nothing is written before Author Gate A. If you need time with your plan, take it: we send a reminder if we have not heard from you, and if you are away for longer, your conversion is paused and saved, never cancelled, until you reply.
Your own words first
Wherever your novel has dialogue, the screenplay uses it first. Every line and scene written for the screen is flagged in the Adaptation Record for you to keep, change or remove. Every scene traces to your pages, because each scene is built from them or from a choice you approved.
No revision round
Choices are settled at Author Gate A, before writing, so there is no revision round after delivery. You, or the screenwriter you hire, take the draft forward in the .docx working copy.