Author Alistair Owen and commissioning editor Hannah Patterson discuss his new book  The Art of Screen Adaptation  and their own experiences of adapting in this free and exclusive Q&A

Hollywood. Netflix. Amazon. BBC. Producers and audiences are hungrier than ever for stories, and a lot of those stories begin life as a book – but how exactly do you transfer a story from the page to the screen? Do adaptations use the same creative gears as original screenplays? Does a true story give a project more weight than a fictional one? Is it helpful to have the original author’s input on the script? And how much pressure is the screenwriter under, knowing they won’t be able to please everyone with the finished product?

Alistair Owen puts all these questions and many more to some of the top names in screenwriting, including Hossein Amini (Drive), Jeremy Brock (The Last King of Scotland), Moira Buffini (Jane Eyre), Lucinda Coxon (The Danish Girl), Andrew Davies (War & Peace), Christopher Hampton (Atonement), David Hare (The Hours), Olivia Hetreed (Girl with a Pearl Earring), Nick Hornby (An Education), Deborah Moggach (Pride & Prejudice), David Nicholls (Patrick Melrose) and Sarah Phelps (And Then There Were None).

Exploring fiction and nonfiction projects, contemporary and classic books, films and TV series, The Art of Screen Adaptation reveals the challenges and pleasures of reimagining stories for cinema and television, and provides a frank and fascinating masterclass with the writers who have done it – and have the awards and acclaim to show for it.

'A formidable repository of knowledge and experience, and a great resource for fledgling screenwriters and film fans alike'
- Roger Michell, writer/director of My Cousin Rachel

Alistair Owen is the author of Smoking in Bed: Conversations with Bruce Robinson (one of David Hare’s Books of the Year in the Guardian), Story and Character: Interviews with British Screenwriters and Hampton on Hampton (one of Craig Raine’s Books of the Year in the Observer).

He has chaired Q&A events at the Hay Festival, Edinburgh International Book Festival and London Screenwriters’ Festival, and his platform with Christopher Hampton in the Lyttelton Theatre to celebrate Faber’s 75th anniversary was published in Faber Playwrights at the National Theatre.

Alistair has written original and adapted screenplays, on spec and to commission; contributed film reviews to Time Out and film book reviews to the Independent on Sunday; and recently published his first novel, The Vetting Officer.

His next nonfiction project is a book of conversations with novelist, screenwriter, playwright and director William Boyd, for Penguin.

📷Hannah Patterson is a playwright, screenwriter and producer. Recent plays include Giving, Platinum and Eden, all staged at Hampstead Theatre, and Playing With Grown Ups (Theatre503), nominated for a West End Award for Best New Play, which transferred to 59E59 in New York. She has written for Paines Plough’s Come to Where I’m From series (Southbank Centre), and in association with Old Vic, New Voices and Art House Jersey, and participated on Headlong Theatre’s writer’s programme.

As a writer for film she is in development with several features, including an adaptation of her play Much, and Claude, winner of the Galway Film Fleadh Best Pitch Award and The Athena List, with the BFI.  She has recently been commissioned to adapt the Booker-longlisted novel Unexploded for television. She has been invited to participate on screenwriting labs at the Edinburgh and London film festivals, and CineStory in LA, and been mentored through the British film industry’s flagship scheme Guiding Lights by David Hare.

Co-writer/producer of award-winning documentary Shelter in Place (Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation), she has also written extensively about film for publications such as The Guardian and Sight & Sound, commissions Creative Essentials, a series of books about filmmaking, and regularly hosts industry Q&As and masterclasses for the BFI, BAFTA and Curzon Cinemas.

The Art of Screen Adaptation with Alistair Owen and Hannah Patterson