# Adapt a short story into a screenplay: the film school exercise

> How film schools set the adaptation exercise: choosing a public-domain story, checking its US status, the packet, the pages and the memo, with a worked example.

*24 September 2026 · adaptation, public domain · [ScripTao blog](https://scriptao.com/blog)*

The adaptation assignment is the one where you start with somebody else's story and end with a script that only works on screen. Film schools set it in a fairly consistent way: pick a public-domain or cleared source, build a small development packet, write somewhere between 6 and 30 pages, and often explain in writing what you changed and why. Here is how the assignment works, how to choose and check a source, and a full worked example you can copy.

## What the adaptation assignment actually asks for

Course pages vary on page counts, but the deliverables repeat. These all come from published syllabi and catalog pages:

| Course (as published) | Source rule | What you hand in |
|---|---|---|
| [LMU SCWR 641, Feature Film and TV Adaptation](https://sftv.lmu.edu/academics/undergraduateprograms/screenwriting/screenwritingcourses/) | Public domain, or permission "for educational purposes only" | Four conceptualization guides (novel, short story, play, true story), at least two pitches, a pitch deck, a step outline, character bios, then a 25–30 page first act or pilot, rewritten at least once after notes |
| [DePaul SCWR 307, Adaptation](https://catalog.depaul.edu/course-descriptions/scwr/scwr.pdf) | Public domain | Logline, short pitch, treatment, and the first act of a feature (or two acts of a teleplay) |
| [Carleton ENGL 3902 (Fall 2021)](https://carleton.ca/english/wp-content/uploads/sites/147/ENGL-3902A-FILM-3902-A-Neiley-F21-Final.pdf) | Short story, novel, novella or epic poem; no plays | 6–7 pages of adapted scenes, a treatment for the whole film, and an analytical paper of 2 pages at most on what you changed and what you kept, and why |
| [Utah ENG 5570, Screenwriting & Adaptation (Fall 2025)](https://class-tools.app.utah.edu/syllabus/1258/20156/Core+Syllabus+--+Screenwriting+++Adaptation+--+Fall+2025.pdf) | Another source, any medium | Three pitches, two 10-page adapted scripts, a report on a book-to-film adaptation, a 20-page capstone adaptation |
| [Purchase College, adaptation course](https://www.purchase.edu/academics/playwriting-and-screenwriting/courses/) | An existing short piece of fiction | Two drafts of a 25-page screenplay |
| [University of Florida ENG 6392](https://english.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/45/ENG-6392-9111-23343-Mowchun.pdf) | Short story, prose piece or poem | Annotated source, a 1–2 page rationale, a 2–3 page adaptation method, then a script of at most 20 pages (or a prose treatment of at most 15) |
| [Liberty CINE 787](https://www.liberty.edu/online/courses/cine787/) | A given set of parameters | A 10–15 page script (a short feature, the start of a feature, or a TV pilot) with the source attached, plus a reflection paper of at least 300 words on the course |

Put together, the standard assignment has five parts: **a source you are allowed to use, a logline or pitch, a treatment or step outline, 6–30 pages of script, and a written reflection or rationale.** The rest of this post covers each one in order.

The craft goals repeat too. The [UCLA Extension adaptation course](https://www.uclaextension.edu/writing/screenwriting/course/writing-film-or-tv-adaptation-script-x-4657e) lists the core techniques as extending or condensing a story, compressing and expanding time, combining several characters into a composite, and opening a story up visually. Liberty's course page says the final script should show "conversion of internal tension to external tension." That phrase is the whole assignment in six words. Prose can sit inside a character's head. A camera can't, so every thought you want to keep has to turn into something the audience can see or hear.

## Why schools want public-domain sources

Rights, mostly. LMU's course description says the source must be in the public domain, or else the author or rights owner must grant permission for educational use only, and that true stories need life rights or public-domain status. DePaul's graduate version, SCWR 407, teaches students to "negotiate the public domain when searching for material to adapt" and also covers practical ways to acquire copyrighted material.

The reason is simple. Adapting a novel into a screenplay creates what US law calls a derivative work, and the right to make one belongs to the copyright holder. Entertainment attorney Christopher Schiller [explains in Script Magazine](https://scriptmag.com/columns/legally-speaking-it-depends-novel-adaptation) that an unauthorized adaptation can be blocked from being shown or produced, however good it is. A public-domain source removes that problem, so a class exercise can later become a writing sample, a festival short or a contest entry.

## Choosing a source that will teach you something

A good classroom source is short, character-driven, and has at least one thing that seems impossible to film. Carleton's handout asks students to avoid theatrical plays and to pick "a complex, multi-layered character driven story" over action, gothic romance, pure fantasy or talking animals, because those teach less about technique.

Some public-domain stories that suit a 10–15 page adaptation:

- **Ambrose Bierce, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"** (first published in the San Francisco Examiner in [1890](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Occurrence_at_Owl_Creek_Bridge)). Its whole escape sequence turns out to be imagined by a condemned man between the drop and the noose breaking his neck. It appears on the reading list of [Utah's Prose to Screenplay course](https://class-tools.app.utah.edu/syllabus/1258/19303/Prose+to+Screenplay.pdf).
- **Kate Chopin, "The Story of an Hour"** (first published in Vogue in [1894](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_an_Hour) as "The Dream of an Hour"). It covers one hour, one room and one secret feeling. The worked example below uses it.
- **F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"** (Collier's, [1922](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curious_Case_of_Benjamin_Button_%28short_story%29)). A wild premise, told briskly. It's worth comparing with the 2008 film (see below).
- **Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.** After years of dispute, every story in the canon has been public domain in the US [since 1 January 2023](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinger_v._Conan_Doyle_Estate,_Ltd.). In *Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate* the courts held that Holmes and Watson, as they appear in the public-domain stories, are free to use as well.
- **Newly public-domain works.** On 1 January 2026, US works from 1930 entered the public domain, among them Faulkner's *As I Lay Dying*, the full book version of Hammett's *The Maltese Falcon* and Christie's *The Murder at the Vicarage* ([Duke's Center for the Study of the Public Domain](https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2026/) has the full list).

Project Gutenberg is the easiest place to get clean texts. [Its permissions page](https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/permission.html) says most of its ebooks are public domain in the US, that nobody can grant or withhold permission for them, and that making derivative works is allowed. It also says that not everything public domain in the US is public domain elsewhere, and that anyone outside the US should get professional guidance.

## How to check public-domain status (US rules, not legal advice)

This is the part most online guides leave out. For a class exercise, check four things:

1. **Publication date.** Under the [Cornell copyright term chart](https://copyright.cornell.edu/publicdomain), works published in the US before 1931 are in the public domain as of 1 January 2026. The line moves forward a year every January 1st, because pre-1978 works get a 95-year term. Duke's page puts it as "you add 96 years to the publication date."
2. **1931–1963 renewals.** For US works published with notice in those years, copyright only lasted the full term if it was renewed. Unrenewed works are public domain. The [Online Books Page](https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/cce/firstperiod.html) lists periodicals with renewed issues or contributions from 1931–1950. One catch it points out: a contribution to a magazine could be renewed separately, so a story can still be under copyright even when the magazine issue was not renewed.
3. **The exact version.** Only the original text is free. Duke's page notes that later versions, including adaptations, films and translations, can still be copyrighted for their new material. If the original is free but the only translation you have is recent, the translation's wording is not. Work from an old translation or make your own.
4. **Your guidance's date.** Some library pages still say "before 1923." [Yale's FAQ](https://ask.library.yale.edu/faq/175272) gives 1923 as the cutoff, while the Cornell chart it links to says 1931. Always use the current chart.

These are US rules. Duke's page points out that copyright terms in other countries are different, and Project Gutenberg warns that a work that is public domain in the US may not be elsewhere. If you want to sell or produce the result, ask someone qualified. For a class exercise, "published in the US before 1931" is a safe default.

## The development packet, step by step

Here is a two-week schedule for 10–15 pages. It follows the shape of the syllabi above.

1. **Read twice and annotate (1–2 hours).** Read the story once for pleasure. On the second read, mark every sentence that is interior (thought, memory, judgment) and every sentence that is behavior (action, dialogue, objects). UF's syllabus makes the annotated source its own deliverable.
2. **Write the adaptation logline (30 minutes).** Write it for *your* version, not the source. If it could be the logline of the original story, you haven't made a choice yet. See the [logline exercise](https://scriptao.com/blog/logline-exercise) for the form.
3. **Write a one-page rationale and method (1 hour).** Why this story, why now, and what your big move is: new setting, new point of view, a compressed timeline, or an invented character.
4. **Write the treatment (an evening).** Carleton's handout asks for a treatment that reads like a short story, in present tense, covering the whole story *including the ending*, broken into acts. Keep it to 2–5 pages.
5. **Build a step outline (an evening).** One line per scene: who wants what, what stops them, and how the scene turns. The [step outline exercises post](https://scriptao.com/blog/outline-exercises-step-outline-reverse-outline) shows the format. For 12 pages, expect 8–14 steps.
6. **Draft the pages (two or three sessions).** Aim for a complete draft, not a polished one. Utah's Prose to Screenplay course has students read a first draft in class and expects second and third drafts, and LMU requires at least one rewrite on notes.
7. **Write the reflection memo (1 hour).** No more than two pages. The template is at the end of this post.

## Worked example: "The Story of an Hour" in 12 pages

**The source.** Louise Mallard has a heart condition. Her sister Josephine tells her that her husband Brently has died in a railroad accident. Louise grieves, goes alone to her room, and realizes she feels free. Then Brently walks in the door, alive, and she dies. Nearly all of the story's power is in what happens inside her head in that room, and a camera can't record any of it.

**Adaptation logline (original).** *In 1894 St. Louis, a woman with a weak heart has one hour between the news of her husband's death and his arrival at the front door. She spends it quietly planning a life of her own, and nobody downstairs guesses.*

**The cut / merge / invent ledger.** This is the heart of the reflection memo, so draft it before the pages:

| Move | Choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Cut | The narrator's commentary on Louise's feelings | Commentary can't be filmed; it has to become behavior |
| Merge | Richards, Brently's friend who learns of the accident, folds into Josephine, who breaks the news alone | One fewer speaking part in 12 pages |
| Invent | A drawer of Louise's unsent letters, a train timetable and a savings tin | Gives her freedom something to do with her hands |
| Invent | Josephine reading the newspaper report aloud through the door | Pressure from outside the room, and a clock on the scene |
| Keep | The ending, exactly | The final irony is the reason to adapt this story at all |

**The scene where the thought becomes action (original, abbreviated).**

> INT. MALLARD HOUSE, LOUISE'S BEDROOM – DAY. Louise locks the door. She sits. She waits to cry. It doesn't come. She opens the bottom drawer: a savings tin, a folded railway timetable with one route circled in pencil. Through the door, JOSEPHINE reads the casualty list aloud, name by name.

> Louise unfolds the timetable. Her finger finds the circled route. She checks the date. She almost smiles, then catches her face in the mirror and fixes it, the way someone practices an expression.

The story has her realize she is "free, free, free." This version *shows* a woman who has been planning to leave for a long time, and the audience gets there before anyone in the house does. That is Liberty's "internal tension to external tension" on the page. The same method appears in the [silent scene exercise](https://scriptao.com/blog/silent-scene-exercise) and the [subtext exercise](https://scriptao.com/blog/subtext-exercise), which make good warm-ups.

## Exercise: Adapt a public-domain story

*Advanced · An afternoon.* Start with someone else's story and find the version that only works on screen.

**What it trains.** Turning interior prose into things a camera can record, and deciding what to cut, merge and invent. It also trains you to defend each choice in writing.

### The exercise

1. Pick a public-domain story. In the US that means, as a safe default, published before 1931. The demo is Conan Doyle's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; every Holmes story has been public domain in the US since 2023.
2. Decide the shape: a short, a feature's first act, or a season with a story per episode.
3. Map who matters. Merge or drop minor characters, and note every interior moment you'll need to turn into action.
4. Write the logline of your version, not the source's, then draft the first scene.
5. Keep a cut / merge / invent list as you go. It becomes your reflection memo.

### Doing it in ScripTao

1. Start this exercise: it opens Import set to “A book”
2. Try the public-domain demo, or paste your own public-domain text
3. Choose the number of episodes and which recurring names become characters, then create the adaptation
4. Ideas & loglines for your version's logline; the original stays under Export → Imported originals

**You're done when:** A project with the source's chapters mapped to episodes and beats, characters picked, and the original kept word for word.

### Read or watch alongside

- Linda Seger, The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film (Henry Holt)
- Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (1890) next to Robert Enrico's short film of it, which won the Best Short Subject prize at Cannes in 1962
- Fitzgerald's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (1922) next to the 2008 film written by Eric Roth, story by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
- Cornell's copyright term chart and Duke's Public Domain Day page for checking a source's US status
- Project Gutenberg for public-domain texts

[Start this exercise](https://scriptao.com/app/exercise/adapt-public-domain) — free, no sign-up. Opens a practice project set up for it.
## What professional adaptations change

Before you draft, study one source next to its film. Two public-domain examples show how far a writer can move from the original:

- **The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.** Fitzgerald's story starts with a birth in Baltimore in 1860 and follows Benjamin's marriage to Hildegarde Moncrief. The [2008 film](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curious_Case_of_Benjamin_Button_%28film%29), screenplay by Eric Roth from a story by Roth and Robin Swicord, starts him on the night of 11 November 1918 in New Orleans. It frames the whole story as a diary read aloud at a deathbed in 2005, and it adds a love story with a new character, Daisy, and a clock that runs backwards. The premise stays; nearly everything else is invented to serve it.
- **An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.** The same 1890 story has been adapted more than once. The [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Occurrence_at_Owl_Creek_Bridge) lists a 1959 *Alfred Hitchcock Presents* episode that ends with the Union sergeant ordering Farquhar's body cut down; Robert Enrico's French short, which won the Best Short Subject prize at Cannes in 1962 and later aired as an episode of *The Twilight Zone*; and *Owl Creek Bridge*, a 2008 short that won a BAFTA Cymru award and follows a young boy caught by a gang of racist youths. They share one source and make three very different sets of choices.

Robin Swicord leads a self-paced adaptation course at [Sundance Collab](https://collab.sundance.org/catalog/Writing-Screenplay-Adaptations) whose first stated goal is to "identify the core of the original story" you plan to adapt. Her [master class](https://collab.sundance.org/catalog/Master-Class-Adapting-a-Screenplay-from-Source-Material-with-Robin-Swicord-Video) covers "Finding Dramatic Scenes" and building a story arc. For a book-length treatment, Linda Seger's [*The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film*](https://openroadmedia.com/ebook/the-art-of-adaptation-turning-fact-and-fiction-into-film/9781429936682) (Henry Holt) covers how to analyze source material, including why some of it resists adaptation.

## The reflection memo: a template

Carleton's version asks two questions: what you changed and why, and what you kept the same and why. Two pages is plenty. Use this outline:

- **The core I protected** (one sentence). What would make this no longer *that* story if you lost it?
- **Cut.** Three to five things, each with a reason tied to screen time or visibility.
- **Merged.** Which characters or events became one, and what the merge gained.
- **Invented.** Every new scene, character or object, and the interior moment each one replaces.
- **What I'd do with 90 more pages.** One paragraph. Seeing whether the idea scales is how a class exercise becomes a feature pitch.

If the memo is hard to write, the pages probably have a problem. A choice you can't explain is usually an accident. The [rewriting exercises](https://scriptao.com/blog/rewriting-exercises) help with the next pass.

The exercise box above opens ScripTao's book import: you can try the public-domain demo or paste your own text, and it creates a project with the source's chapters mapped to episodes and beats, the characters you pick, and the original kept word for word. It's free, needs no sign-up, and your work stays in your browser.

## FAQ

### How do you convert a story into a screenplay?

Don't convert it line by line. Find the story's core, write a logline for your own version, and sort every interior passage into something a camera can record: an action, an object, a line of dialogue, or a cut. Then build a step outline, draft, and write down what you cut, merged and invented. Most of the courses above follow some version of this: pitch or logline, treatment or outline, pages, then a rewrite or a written reflection.

### Do you need permission to adapt a book?

For copyrighted books, generally yes if you want to show, sell or produce the result, because a screenplay adaptation is a derivative work controlled by the rights holder. That's why LMU requires a public-domain source or permission for educational use only, and DePaul's adaptation course works from public-domain material. Public-domain works need no permission. This is general information, not legal advice. For anything commercial, talk to an entertainment lawyer.

### How can I tell if a book is in the public domain?

In the US, start with the publication date. Anything published before 1931 is public domain as of 2026, and the cutoff moves forward every January 1st. For 1931–1963, check whether the copyright was renewed. Make sure the edition or translation you use isn't newer than the original text. The [Cornell chart](https://copyright.cornell.edu/publicdomain) covers the edge cases.

### How long should an adaptation assignment be?

It depends on the course. Among the syllabi above, published targets include 6–7 pages of scenes (Carleton), 10–15 pages (Liberty), two 10-page scripts plus a 20-page capstone (Utah), 25 pages (Purchase), and a 25–30 page first act or pilot (LMU). If there's no brief, 10–15 pages covering the source's first movement is enough to learn from.

### Which famous stories are in the public domain?

In the US: anything published before 1931, including Bierce's "Owl Creek Bridge," Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," Fitzgerald's "Benjamin Button" and every Sherlock Holmes story, plus the 1930 works that became public domain in 2026. The characters as they appear in those works are free too. Newer versions of a character can still be protected, and trademarks can still apply to merchandise.

More in this series: the full list of [screenwriting exercises film schools assign](https://scriptao.com/blog/screenwriting-exercises-film-schools-assign), and the [want, need and wound exercise](https://scriptao.com/blog/character-want-need-wound) for deepening the characters you inherit.