character arc

A variety pack of fun-size treats

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Several shorties in one convenient package for today’s day-before-Halloween installment

-The rewrite/polish of the fantasy-comedy continues. Taking it more or less one scene at a time. Several recent sets of notes made a good point about the protagonist needing to be more active than reactive, so that’s part of the current focus. It’s been quite an exercise in figuring out how she can be the one moving things forward in each scene. So far, so good.

An unexpected bonus has been more of how her arc and that of the antagonist are the proverbial “opposite sides of the same coin”. Always nice when I discover how much I’ve inadvertently laid a foundation for this sort of thing.

Biggest challenge now is incorporating the numerous subplots, but I’m confident I can make it work.

– I recently had the opportunity to do my Screenwriting 101 presentation for two separate writing groups. Both were warmly received by the writers in attendance, and I even got to sell a few of my Go Ahead And Ask books. I really enjoy doing this and will look into opportunities to do it at writing conferences.

-If you get the chance to see WILDWOOD on the big screen, do so. It is a truly amazing film, and don’t let the fact that it’s stop-motion animation turn you off. This is definitely one of those “you have to see it in a theater”-type of movies. And it can be a little dark at times, so probably not very suitable for small children.

-Submissions are still open for The Maximum Z 2026 Script Showcase, so don’t wait until the last minute to send in your script’s info.

Nicely done, me from the past

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Having (for the most part) completed the outline for the action-comedy, attention has shifted to revising/rewriting another script.

I’m not sure the last time I’d worked on it – maybe March?, but I opened the pages and was pleasantly surprised how many changes had already been made. There are still some rough spots, including figuring out the best moment to have a key part of the story take place. Weighing my options on that one.

But it was very reassuring to see how much work had already been put into this before switching to another project, and not at all surprising. This has happened before.

I’d also forgotten how much work overall had been done for the new draft, including questions about potential subplots and character arcs. This helps lighten the load – albeit just slightly. Looking over some of the notes I got on the previous draft, a few sticking points remain that need addressing.

There were also some suggestions from readers that didn’t mesh with what I was going for, or felt like they wanted things to go in a different direction than what I was intending. I weigh the merit of what’s being said, and then decide if there’s something in there worth salvaging.

Whenever I start a rewrite, I try not to put a limit how much time I’m allowing to get it finished. Many times it’s longer than I’d like or expect, but this time feels a little different. I suspect once things get started and more pieces fall into place, the shorter the time to get to the finish line.

Figuring out all these solutions won’t be easy, but I’m confident it will happen. Hopefully sooner than later.

More like this, please

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Some MAJOR progress on the outline for the action-comedy spec this week, and I am thrilled.

Among the highlights: figuring out how and where to connect some sequences, plotting out a few others, and coming up with a great new angle about my antagonist’s arc.

Some of these were a long time coming, and some were spur of the moment. I’ll take what I can get.

Also realized a few subplots still need work, which range from “should this be cut or expanded?” to “three scenes should cover it”.

One thing that’s been nagging at me since the beginning is the best way to show my protagonist’s arc in action. How is she changing over the course of the story, and what are the most effective ways to do that? Doing what I can to have this occur at every opportunity, even if it’s something that initially seems insignificant but plain as day in retrospect.

Ain’t easy, but it’s coming together. Would have been great for this to have happened a few months ago, but that’s how it goes.

No guarantee this momentum will continue, but confidence levels are currently registering as high. I may even be so bold as to suggest a strong possibility the outline could be done by the end of the month. This will most likely be followed by either a whole lot of editing and revising, or setting it all aside to work on one or both of the two rewrites.

Either way, there’ll be at least one completed draft of this script by the end of the year.

The heart of the matter

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The past few weeks, part of my writing schedule has involved revising the outline of my animated fantasy-comedy spec. It’s been fun to develop – having a previous draft to work with really helps. The action sequences, the story, the jokes and sight gags haven’t been too difficult, but I’ve been making more of an effort to build up the emotional aspect.

This isn’t to say I’ve never included that. It just hasn’t been as prevalent in the early stages of planning and plotting process.

It’s not enough to just show the stuff that’s happening, you need to show how it’s relevant to the characters. While the plot is about the external goal (what do they want?), there’s also the importance of establishing their internal goal (what do they need?).

Sometimes the internal and external goals work together, and sometimes a character will achieve one and not the other. There’s also the tried and true “they got what they wanted, but it wasn’t what they needed” (and vice versa). It all depends on how the writer wants to the story to go.

To help myself get a better grasp of this, I’ve been reading the scripts for and watching other animated films to see how they approach it. There has also been the occasional “read a few pages of the script, then watch how it plays out onscreen”.

*helpful tip – for prime examples of incorporating emotion into story, you can’t go wrong with well-made animated films. They do a fantastic job of setting everything up as fast and efficiently as possible. Sometimes singing is involved. And as it should be with live-action, each scene manages to include advancing the characters’ emotional arc as well as the story arc.

As more than a few readers have said to me, sometimes my writing is more about what we see onscreen and not as much about what’s happening to the characters on the inside. Hopefully that won’t be the case this time around. Since I’m still outlining the story, I try to include what the emotional impact is in each scene. Does the point of the scene affect the character(s) the way it’s supposed to?

At first, this was pretty challenging, but watching how other films accomplished it, it wasn’t as daunting as I initially thought, plus the more I think about it and plan for it, it’s not as bad as I thought. It’s helping with the overall development because I’m taking that sort of detail into consideration as part of the initial planning stages, as opposed to trying to work it in later, along with avoiding a few unnecessary rewrites.

Since this is a slightly different approach for me, I’m sure it’ll be chock-full of trial and error along the way, but am fairly confident it’ll yield the results I’m hoping for.

Rewriting: more than just moving words around

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I came up with the idea/concept for my fantasy-comedy more than a few years ago. Up until last year, putting it together consisted mostly of the occasional jotting-down of ideas for scenes and sequences. Figuring I had enough to work with, I worked my way through writing a first draft.

That was the end of last year.

After working on several projects since then, including some still in progress, I’ve decided to make things just a bit more complex for myself and start on the next draft.

The core concept and execution are still pretty solid, but after a lot of help and suggestions from some trusted colleagues, I’ve got a better grasp of which parts need some major work. It’s not as long a list as I expected, but there’s still a good deal for me to work on – especially from the perspective of character development; namely – my protagonist.

There are still some aspects to his internal and external goals that need tweaking, so a lot of my time lately has been all about that. And I was already racking my brains trying to figure out what would work best not just for that character, but also how all of it relates to the antagonist as well as the supporting characters.

Initially a daunting prospect, I am finding the more I work my way through this, the stronger the story seems to become.

I’m also working on fleshing out the storylines for some of the supporting characters, making sure to incorporate the theme into each of those. It’s also been a pleasant surprise to realize/uncover previously hidden connections between some of them and work those into the story.

As is my usual M.O., I’m taking my time in figuring all of this out and doing what I can to make sure everything is as solid as I can make it (for this draft, anyway) before starting on pages.

And what might be the most important angle to all of this – I’m enjoying it. This is just a fun story to work on. It is definitely the kind of thing I would write, and I hope that vibe really comes through in the finished product.

Until then, and as it always does, the work continues…