Adaptation.

The film grew out of writer Charlie Kaufman's difficulty in adapting the best-selling book 'The Orchid Thief' by Susan Orlean. Kaufman soon ran into writer's block, as the book lacked the dramatic structure required for a film. He therefore opted to draft a screenplay about his own struggle to adapt the book, exaggerating many of the story's elements and characters and inventing new ones (notably a fictional twin brother, Donald Kaufman). Expecting producers would reject the idea, he kept his new approach to himself and simply handed in the finished script. Although the move had the support of Spike Jonze, Kaufman believed it would end his career — which, in the event, it did not.