Adaptation

Adaptation

Overview

Turn a story project into another form: an audiobook narration script, a screenplay in Fountain, a picture-book pagination plan, a comics script, an interactive-fiction branch map, or an edition in another language. The story project stays the source of truth. Adaptation files live in adaptations/ inside the project, except translations, which become their own project folder with the same ids.

Prerequisites

A story project with story.md in the root and chapters drafted far enough to adapt. Read story.md (title, form, language, status), the chapter and scene records, and the character, location, and glossary files the adaptation touches. Adapting a draft that is still changing means redoing the adaptation; say so if status is not revising or complete.

When to Use

• Producing an audiobook: narration script, runtime estimate, pronunciation guide, narrator and production checklist
• Adapting the story to a screenplay, comics script, or interactive fiction
• Planning or drafting a picture book (form: picture-book)
• Translating the book, or preparing a glossary and style sheet for a translator
• NOT for publishing metadata, print, ebook, launch, or rights deals (use publishing); audio and film rights one-sheets live there
• NOT for query letters or agent submission (use submission)
• NOT for new prose in the source book (use chapter-writing)
• NOT for writing or scanning verse, including rhyming picture-book text (use verse-craft)
• Nonfiction and poetry collections are outside the story project model. The CLI checks fiction entities (characters, chapters, scenes, continuity); do not force a poetry collection or nonfiction book into it. A short-story collection does fit: see docs/series.md, Short-story collections and anthologies.

Hard Rules

• Never change the source manuscript to suit an adaptation without the author's approval. Adaptation choices live in adaptations/.
• Do not put adaptation .md files in the project root: any root .md other than story.md, style-sheet.md, and progress.md is reported as a stray file. Use adaptations/ or a non-.md extension such as .fountain.
• Never invent a pronunciation for a real place, person, or language. Ask the author or cite a source.
• Retailer and audio-platform specs change. Give the working figures and tell the author to check the platform's current spec.
• Contracts and royalty terms for narrators, illustrators, and translators are not legal advice; point to the publishing skill's contract checklist and a professional.

Workflow

1. Audiobook

Follow references/audiobook.md.

1. Add pronunciation to every character, location, faction, artifact, and glossary term a narrator could say wrong (pronunciation: SEER-sha). Respell for the narrator's language, not always English. Ask the author for any they have not decided.

2. Build the script:

   story build . --format narration --out adaptations/audiobook/narration-script.md

   It opens with the pronunciation guide table, then each chapter with its estimated finished runtime, scene breaks as [pause], and the total runtime. The rate comes from the book's language (155 words per minute in English; the script's first line names it), and the credits are in that language; time a sample chapter and rescale (see references/audiobook.md). --out never replaces an existing file under adaptations/, so delete the old script before a rebuild.

3. Review the script for what reads badly aloud: long dialogue runs without tags, visual-only jokes, footnotes, maps, letters and texts, tables. Record fixes as narrator notes in adaptations/audiobook/production.md; change the manuscript only with the author's approval.

4. Draft the production checklist from the reference: route (ACX, Findaway Voices by Spotify, other), narrator audition script, retail sample, chapter file list, credits, and AI narration disclosure.

2. Screenplay (Fountain)

Follow references/fountain.md.

1. Add setting: interior, exterior, or both to each location the scenes use, and to any scene whose place differs from its location's (on the harbor wall, not in the harbor office). Ask the author when the prose does not settle it. Run story validate ..

2. Build the scene list from scene records (reading order, or story timeline . for story-time order). Each scene becomes one or more sluglines from its location, setting, time, and characters.

3. Mark each scene keep, merge, cut, or externalize (interior moments that need an action or line). Save it as adaptations/screenplay/scene-list.md.

4. Start the script from the scene records:

   story build . --format fountain --out adaptations/screenplay/{story-id}.fountain

   It writes a title page, a ## section per chapter, and one scene heading per scene record with the source scene id, cast, and scene notes as unprinted [[...]] notes. It carries no prose: the build cannot adapt, so every line of action and dialogue is yours to write. A forced heading (.LAMP ROOM - DUSK) means the scene and its location have no setting; fix the record or the heading. --out never replaces an existing file under adaptations/, so once the script is drafted, build to dist/ instead to compare a new skeleton with it.

5. Apply the scene list's decisions to the skeleton, then draft act by act and check length at about one page per minute. Keep each scene's [[Source: ...]] note.

3. Picture book

Follow references/picture-book.md.

1. Set form: picture-book in story.md, or start a new project with story init "Title" --form picture-book (target 500 words).
2. Make the pagination plan in adaptations/picture-book/pagination.md: 32 pages, 14 spreads of story, a page-turn beat on each spread.
3. Keep the text in chapters, one chapter per spread, and the illustration briefs and art notes in the plan, not the prose (text in a chapter is counted and ships in every build). Give each spread one scene record and a hook for its page-turn beat, and set story.md to status: revising once all spreads are drafted; see "Spreads And The CLI Checks" in the reference for the warnings this clears.

4. Comics or graphic novel script

Follow references/comics-script.md. Break the story into pages (adaptations/comics/page-plan.md), then write the full script with pages, panels, captions, balloons, and SFX in adaptations/comics/{issue-or-part}.md.