There’s no way to say this without sounding smug, so I’ll just come out and say it.

I think my writing has reached a new level.

I say this not out of ego, but from a sort of realization that stems from a discussion I had with a trusted colleague last week.

He’d read my western and had lots of praise for it, which is always nice. What he thought it was lacking was more depth to the characters. As it reads now, there’s a lot on the surface, but he recommended going deeper to get a better idea about who they are and why they do the things they do.

In some ways, I thought I already had a somewhat firm grasp on how to do this, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that what he said really rang true.

While I may be adept at putting the basics of a story together and making it entertaining to read, I still need to work on further developing the characters, or at least more than I do now.

Like I told him, it’s a little intimidating to look at the work as a whole and think “I have to fix this. But how?”

So the rewrite is underway, albeit with a little more attention being paid to..well, everything. Which is as it should be.

I’ve always been a staunch believer in the idea that you should write scripts for movies you would want to see. I was already excited for this one, but now that I feel like I have a stronger grasp of how to be a better writer combined with the actual process of making it better (he said with fingers firmly crossed), the anticipation levels are shooting through the roof.

-Also got this from another set of notes: “It’s clear you have a sense of fun…One weird deficiency I see from a lot of amateur screenwriters is that they forget it’s their job to be entertaining.  You get that, and it’s very welcome.”

Nice.