Book to TV adaptations: The Perfect Couple
Screenwriting Tricks for Authors
I just watched The Perfect Couple on Netflix. Actually I started watching it, and then stopped to read the book, and then went back and finished watching the series. Going back and forth between a book and its TV or film adaptation is probably my own weird obsession, because of all the years of book adaptation I did for studios. But I just love looking at a story in different media to see the different ways you can tell the same story.
And for anyone who aspires to sell a book to television, especially, this is a pretty important exercise to train yourself to do. Studios are wild for these kinds of books that naturally translate to the screen, like The Perfect Couple and other recent adaptations like Big Little Lies, Little Fires Everywhere, Slow Horses, One Day, Daisy Jones and the Six, The Idea of You, You Don’t Know Me. I’ve read all those books and dozens more like them and you really can just see the series playing out in your head as you read.
(I’ve written about most of them in past posts - click through the links to read. And if you have a book-to-TV adaptation you want me to write about, let me now and I’ll see what I can do.
The Perfect Couple TV adaptation is not the best of the ones I just listed. It gets progressively wackier as the plot, um, unravels. I was laughing out loud, not in a good way, at some of the absurd revelations and completely left-field red herrings in the second half. Also, I guessed the killer in the first episode (maybe second) - I thought it was pretty clumsily telegraphed. But there were some good choices made by the filmmakers that made up for a major and pretty bizarre weakness in the book. 1 (Click through to the footnote or scroll to the very end of this post if you want spoilers).
I wanted to mention the series because for the first half or so, The Perfect Couple is a good example of how to keep audience/reader expectations bouncing back and forth between various eccentric suspects in a locked room - or in this case a locked island - murder mystery For that genre lesson alone, I’d recommend the first half of the book and series.
And all this leads me to a couple more notes on Act II: Part 1.
For every Act of your own book or script that you approach to write, it is really useful to consult your Master List and pick at least three movies from that list to watch just that Act. This can be especially helpful when you’re writing Act II: Part 1, because this Act tends to be the most genre-specific, and when you watch a few examples in a row, you can really pick up on scenes and beats that a reader or audience is going to expect from this genre, which will inspire scenes and beats of your own;
I’ve always recommended that you use movies to get the hang of story structure first, because structure is easier to see working in a movie than in a book or a TV series. But if you’ve been doing this for a while, looking at a TV series in your genre can also be extremely helpful, and when you have an opportunity to look at both a book and its TV adaptation, that’s gold!
So - think about creating a Master List that includes some of these book/TV adaptations that are similar in genre and structure to your own book, and make a point to watch them consciously for structure, scenes, character development, setpieces - and anything else that could help you!
(Since we’re talking about Act II: Part 1 - in an eight-episode TV series, Act II: Part 1 will generally be Episodes 3 and 4.)
I also wanted to remind you that the two halves of Act II are vastly different tonally. The pattern almost always goes like this:
In the first half, Act II: Part 1, the hero/ine is generally WINNING.
At the Midpoint, there is a huge change which is generally a LOSS.
In Act II: Part 2: the hero/ine starts to LOSE, and lose big.
This holds true even if the Midpoint is SEX AT 60, The Lovers Get Together. Because despite that apparent win, after that initial rush of romance and endorphins, chaos is almost certain to ensue.
More on the Two-Part Act II
If you are approaching your own Act II: Part I, here are some posts and workbook chapters focusing on that Act.
—Elements of Act II
—Act II: Part 1 - TEAM, TRAINING, TESTS
—Act II: Part 1 - What’s the EXPERIENCE of Your Book?
—The Hunger Games story breakdown, Act II:1
—Silence of the Lambs story breakdown, Act II:1
—Stealing Hollywood, Chapters 12 & 13, plus Part II: Story Breakdowns
—Writing Love, Chapters 10 & 14, plus Part II: Story Breakdowns
If you’re into Scotland, witches and/or murder mysteries, Craig’s THE TRIALS OF MARJORIE CROWE is just 99c/99p US and UK on Kindle right now. I consider it a personal triumph that my skeptical husband has been won over to the witchy side!
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If you’d like to go through the brainstorming and plotting process with direct feedback from me on your story, you have a couple of ways to do that.
A paid subscription— Includes the full Screenwriting Tricks for Authors archives, and optional access for me to give you specific feedback on in a private setting.
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Get the workbooks:
Stealing Hollywood ebook, $4.99, also available as print workbook
Writing Love ebook, $2.99
In the book of The Perfect Couple, it turned out there was actually no murder at all!
I was also happy that the TV series cut the secret romance, which seemed just conventional and retro.