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How ‘The Outrun’ Writer/Director Adapted the Unadaptable 

"Screenwriter and director Nora Fingscheidt sat down with ScreenCraft to break down her process for adapting a memoir.
by Alyssa Miller on October 8, 2024

Some books just seem impossible to bring to the silver screen. Whether the story outpaces current technology or it's a sweeping memoir filled with interior thoughts, novels present unique challenges that often make screenwriters feel some books are unadaptable.

But challenges can spark some of the most creative solutions.

Nora Fingscheidt, the writer and director of the Sundance hit film The Outrun, faced this unique challenge when tasked with adapting Amy Liptrot’s Wainwright Prize and PEN/Ackerley Prize-winning memoir.

Fingscheidt sat down with ScreenCraft to discuss how she brought this complicated story to life, turning emotional beats into action, and discovering the biggest challenge when translating the script into a final cut.

Adapting the Unadaptable

How do you adapt a book that is mostly internal thoughts with minimal action? It’s a tough pitch to crack, even for a seasoned writer.

“For the first half, I thought, OK there's no film. This is unadaptable, because, you know, [Liptrot] book started off as an internet blog, and it almost feels like you are reading someone’s diary. It’s so internal. It’s just like a thought process of memory layers, it jumps in four lines in one sentence,” Fingscheidt tells ScreenCraft.

“But the more I got sort of into the location and into her character and all that with Saoirse [Ronan] in mind, I thought, OK maybe there is an adaptation. But it would need to be quite radical, you know, in terms of it needs to keep the nerdiness of her character alive. And we have to embrace the fact that this is a woman going into isolation spending two winters by herself on a tiny remote island in a tiny cottage,” she adds.

After spending nearly three months with the book, annotating each section, and breaking down the beats, Fingscheidt was able to find a way to adapt the unadaptable. Her trick was to lean into the extremes of the characters, and have those extremes translate visually and through all of Rona’s actions.

“There is a line in the book which says, ‘The edge is my home. The edge is where I come from.’ … How is she shaped by those extremes, you know?” Fingscheidt notes. “That was something that was definitely important that no matter what she does there is a certain level of extremity to it. Like she doesn’t do things 50%, she goes full-on. … I think that is part of Amy’s character and that is something that we really wanted to translate visually.”

Read More: How To Create Memorable and Resonant Characters

Balancing the Story with Creative Vision

With a shootable script, Fingscheidt was ready to share it with her creative team, which included talking with Liptrot.

“After [being with the book], it was important to me that [the author] was on board with every creative decision that we have to make because of course it's just a feature film,” Fingscheidt says. “It can never be as complex as a book and the book can never be as complex as real life. So you have to simplify and dramatize to find the essence of something. But this essence still has to be true to the book and to real life.”

Adapting any novel is a daunting task that requires screenwriters to collaborate with the author to fine tune the story’s intent, but adapting a memoir is a massive task. Everyone has to live with the film forever, and making sure that the story does justice for the people involved is part of a screenwriter’s responsibility.

By opening up the process to those involved, you can create a creative space that helps bring an important story to life in a way that feels honest and true to the author’s intent.

Understanding this creates a thread throughout the production process that grounds the narrative and everybody’s creative decision-making, even when the script becomes obsolete.

“Again, this book is an unadaptable beast in a way, and we all knew that all throughout. It’s like how do you do that to make it into a feature film narrative? At some point, we got a script that was working as a script. But when we shot it and edited it along the script order, it didn’t work at all,” Fingscheidt says. “There were many more stories that then, through the editing process, we had to lose because we found out that all these things that read so great on the page are cannibalizing each other.”

“At some point, you were like, ‘Oh, am I supposed to care about the boyfriend? Or the guy in rehab, or the dad. Or, wait, is it about the best friend’ And it was sort of so many little stories that it was like we’re losing Rona almost. So we had to reduce, and reduce, and reduce and combine all those back and forth bits into longer bits,” Fingscheidt adds.

This process is why having a team you trust and trusts in you and the story is important.

Rona (Saoirse Ronan) laying on Daynin (Paapa Essiedu) as he paints in 'The Outrun'

'The Outrun' (2024)

The Power of Trust When Filming

As more and more screenwriters step behind the camera to bring their stories to life, it is vital that the team you bring together shares the same vision. As Fingscheidt’s career evolves, there is one thing that stays constant throughout each of her productions: finding a crew she trusts.

“Choose the right people. Choose people you trust, and that share the same vision, and make sure you do this film for the same reason,” Figschedit says. “It can get very complicated when you work in a team and suddenly you realize, ‘Oh, there are actually going on two different journeys in terms of what is the outcome supposed to be.’”

Whether you are a novice screenwriter who wants to showcase your work or a professional writer who is stepping behind the camera for the first time, Fingscheidt emphasizes that the first story you bring to life has to be one that you need to tell no matter the budget.

“My advice to first-time filmmakers would be to really, really, really make a film in which story you believe that it needs to be told. It’s very dangerous to do too many compromises on your first film,” she says.

Rona (Saoirse Ronan) standing in front of a fire in a nightgown.

'The Outrun' (2024)

If you believe that there is a story out there that deserves to be on the big screen, don’t let the fear of not knowing how to adapt it or not having the budget stop you from making that movie. Everyone is adaptable, but you have to find the thread that keeps the visions consistent through each stage of production.

Read More: How ‘We Were The Lucky Ones’ Showrunner Erica Lipez Masterfully Adapted the Complex Narrative for TV


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