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In a novel-to-film adaptation, one of the most interesting things to do is look at the source novel and see how it differs from the screenplay. Film is a visual medium, making it very different from the literary medium of the novel, but the adapted screenplay is like the bridge between the two, and can show the most striking resemblances and differences between the two versions of the story.

Initially, Sally Potter had the narrative of Orlando living each moment as the present. For instance Orlando in 1592, tells the story as if it were 1592; the Orlando in 1700 tells the story as if it were 1700, etc. However, later this changed and bore more resemblance to Virginia Woolf's prose. The film took on the structure of memories, the present being 1992. Therefore, the narrative of the film did not alter with the aging/ developing of character. The narrator of the film is the female mother Orlando, and thereby tone and language differs from the language of a young boy. In the part of "Death" we can see many differences between Potter's shooting script and the finalized version in her process of adapting Virginia Woolf's novel "Orlando".