Literary adaptation: History and Key Facts

Literary adaptation is the process of adapting a literary work (e.g. a novel, short story, poem) into another genre or medium, such as a film, stage play, video game, or other literary genre, such as a graphic novel, while still maintaining themes of the original story.

Adaptors tend to try to keep the new piece faithful to the original. This is also known as fidelity, and adaptations can range from unfaithful to extremely faithful. Fidelity creates strong opinions among audiences, especially if they are fans of the original work.

Adapted works are important in creating a network, which is known as intertextuality. This is sort of like a spider web, as a story shapes and expands across different mediums. Perhaps most importantly, especially for producers of the screen and stage, an adapted work is more bankable; adaptations represent considerably less risk to investors and pose the possibilities of huge financial gains. This is because:

It has already attracted a following.

Source and attribution

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