The Gideon trilogy : adaptation as a narrative tool in creative practice : reflections on the nature of adaption and a comparison of narrative techniques in the novel and the screenplay

The creative element of this practice-based thesis comprises extracts from a fictional work for children, The Gideon Trilogy. A time-travelling fantasy set in England and America, the novels straddle the late eighteenth- and twenty-first centuries and feature a large cast of child and adult characters. Extracts have been selected either to demonstrate the character development of the Tar Man (an eighteenth-century henchman and eponymous protagonist) or to give a sense of how I have 'choreographed' different locations, times and sets of characters within the narrative framework. The critical commentary has two aims. First, it interrogates difference and congruence in narrative techniques in the novel and the screenplay. I reflect, in broad terms, on the nature of adaptation and on the historical relationship between film and the novel. I argue that predominantly negative attitudes to novel-to-screen adaptations have defined the discipline's preoccupation with authenticity and fidelity to the source text. Drawing on theoretical debates surrounding how narrative functions in prose fiction and cinema, and supporting my arguments with analyses of novels and screenplays, I discuss the creation of narrative viewpoint and the function and usage of character and dialogue in these two forms. Second, using my own work as a test case, I discuss the outcomes of developing a narrative in two media, using sequential and parallel adaptation, and ask if adaptation might be used as a developmental tool in the creation of narrativesEThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo