The very best book-to-screen adaptation is, and I suspect, always will be Lonesome Dove
It's virtually impossible to compress a novel into a 120 minute screenplay without losing a lot, even when the book's writer does it himself. If you do it the wrong way you end up with a Cliff's Notes version, an idiot's highlight reel that is of no value to anyone who actually read the story.
The very best way is to cut the interior monologue and stick to scenes at actually take place in present of the story. You ask your readers for casting choices, who do they see playing this character?
What authors don't realize is that once a story is published, the don't own it anymore, the people who have read it and love it do.
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