Write Your Screenplay Podcast Hamnet vs Shakespeare in Love
Jan 30, 2026
A look at adapting big source material by finding a single narrative location. A comparison of Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet and the film approach that leans into magic and visual grief. A contrast with Shakespeare in Love's London-centered romantic location and how cuts and language sharpen its love story. Discussion of how changing location shifts priorities and demands ruthless edits.
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Find One Slice Of The Story
- Stories are big and screenplays are small, so find a single slice of the whole pie to tell deeply.
- Jacob Krueger urges adapting by locating the one element you can fully explore in a screenplay.
Hamnet Centers Agnes, Not Shakespeare
- Maggie O'Farrell locates her novel Hamnet in Agnes, Shakespeare's wife, rather than in Shakespeare himself.
- The novel shifts perspective to a family living with an absent husband and the title child, Hamnet.
Structure Amplifies Theme Of Absence
- Hamnet the novel uses non-linear structure to emphasize absence and loss rather than chronology.
- Krueger explains the book starts in absence to make the theme of absence central to the story.
