The past few days have been all about working through the horror-comedy outline. Lots of figuring stuff out, cutting, adding, tweaking, and so on.

Got through a sequence and was just about to move on to the next one, when I realized “this is too serious. The horror aspect is covered, but what about the comedy?”

I looked it over again, trying to think of what would work. What would be the most unexpected thing here?

Several options were weighed, and then one suddenly popped into my head. Something nobody would ever expect me to write, but I figured “why not?” My initial reaction was “It’s a little silly, but I like it.” Zipped through a quick rewrite of the sequence, followed by a little set-up work in the scenes leading up to it (to make it fit within the context of the story, of course).

I can honestly say reading the end result made me laugh. Out loud. And the more I thought about it, the more I laughed. Even now, it still makes me chuckle.

I think part of the appeal comes from the thought of “I can’t believe that I, of all people, came up with that joke.” I guess sometimes you never know what you’re truly capable of.

All I have to do now is the exact same thing for every scene and sequence throughout the rest of the script, and I’m all set.

No problem!

-mini bulletin board time!

-Author Brian Gallagher’s new book Doing Time in Hollywood: The Chronicles of a Movie Journalist by Day, Screenwriter by Night and His Quest for a Happy Medium in the Age of Outrage is now available. I’ve had some great online discussions with Brian about screenwriting, and he really knows his stuff.

-Author Robert W. Jackson is offering a very limited time offer on some of his YA books, so you have to act quickly. On Sept 15th, you can get his book Karistina and the Enchanted Kaleidoscope for free by clicking on the link. He’s hoping to do the offer again for a few days starting on the 21st, so keep a look out for it. He’s also offering his book The Tale of Hester for free Sept 15th-19th. This is the first of a series, so if you like this one, there are more to choose from.