Y’all.
If you have ever listened to C&C, you know that we love talking about adaptation — the process of taking a story from one medium to another, the transposing of characters and place and themes and ideas and emotions from print to screen and vice versa. If you’ve listened to us before, you also know that we love talking about the nitty gritty of character development and plot structure in complicated books like Shadow of Night. (If you didn’t know that, may I direct you to Episode 42 – I Made Slides?)
One of the things we’re most excited to talk about in Season 2 of A Discovery of Witches TV is adaptation — how to take and distill the best parts of a story and bring them to life on-screen with detail and texture and color. Adaptation also gives you the opportunity to broaden the aperture of the story — we see scenes and stories that Diana, our first-person narrator, doesn’t experience in the books and it gives us the chance to explore our antagonists and storylines from a different perspective. No one is more adept at the art of adaptation than Bad Wolf — the production company who adapted His Dark Materials and the first season of A Discovery of Witches — and thus, we are in incredible hands for Season 2 of this series. While screen adaptations can never replicate the experience of reading a favorite book, they can provide a fascinating look at what creators and artisans see in the story that we might have missed. If you’re nervous about the adaptation of the story, we can assure you that Jane Tranter, the head of Bad Wolf TV, knows what it takes. In an episode of NPR’s All Things Considered, Jane said:
“It’s about staying true to the story that you’re telling,” she says. “No matter whether or not you’re doing a contemporary piece, or whether or not you’re doing a big fantasy like His Dark Materials. It’s all about text and performance, and a really good story with something to say.”
You can listen to Jane’s interview below, or read more about her adaptation of His Dark Materials here.
Which scene in Shadow of Night do you hope to see adapted on-screen?
We’ll celebrate the premiere of Season 2 with a live-tweet on Saturday, 9 January 2021, at 7pm EST. Use the hashtag #ccalchemy to join in the fun and keep your eyes peeled for our updated release and live tweet schedule.
In the meantime, follow us on Twitter or join our Facebook group, the Chamomile & Clove Clovers, to connect with us and other fans eagerly awaiting the return of our favorite series in just over a week!
Xoxo,
Cait and Jen
Chamomile & Clove 