confidence

And that’s three

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My goal for this year was pretty simple: complete two rewrites and at least the first draft of the new action-comedy.

Rewrite #1: done

Rewrite #2: done

First draft: done

This first draft was the closest I’ve ever come to actually churning out a proverbial vomit draft. As has been documented here over the past several weeks, it was primarily just writing down what was in the outline with a bare minimum of going back and editing.

It ain’t pretty, but I got there. To put the most positive spin on it – it can only get better from here.

I won’t say that it’s bad, but more like this first effort is severely lacking. It needs an absolute shit-ton of work, along with adding in somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-30 pages. I already know a lot of what’s missing and what needs to be added, so no panic mode as of yet.

At the top of an continuously-getting-longer list: fleshing out both the protagonist and antagonist, building on the subplots, and at least a few more sequences to enhance the overall story.

The foundation is there. Now it requires some major work on revising the blueprints.

All of this is going to be challenging, but I’d much rather have an awful first draft to work with than no draft at all.

So what now? Going to let this one simmer while I conduct a bit of an experiment on a previous script. When that’s done, I’ll return to this one, red pen in hand and ready to have at it.

I was pretty certain I’d be able to get the first draft done, and my sights are now set on finishing a second (and much-improved) draft.

And I’m quite confident I can do that.

Just your typical rewriting rigamarole

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Figuring out the rest of the story for the action-comedy spec continues, but there was a slight change of focus this week to the rewrite of the fantasy-comedy.

A lot of the story remains in place, but there are still some tweaks and minor adjustments that need to be made.

First was seeing what still worked. This involved the very-helpful writing out the entire story scene by scene, with a quick sentence stating the point of each. Or at least “here’s what’s happens here that moves things forward”.

I also dug up notes from the most recent round of readers – first-timers all. I’m still working my way through them due to the sheer volume of comments and suggestions. Some pretty good stuff, with lots about the characters and potential ideas of how to make them better.

One reader’s comments really resonated, mostly due to the fact that they pointed out something regarding the story I wasn’t aware I’d done. It was as if my subconscious was a contributing writer. Good when I do it intentionally, even better when it’s unintentional AND still works within the context of the story.

As I often do during the figuring-stuff-out phase – no matter what draft it is, I tend to overthink and cram too much stuff into the story. That’s something I want to try and avoid this time around. Like I said, most of this should only require some minor touch-up work, and I think I can limit the bigger changes to a relatively small number.

Once all of the changes are made, I’ll go through and trim the excess fat while fine-tuning it as much as possible.

Like with all of my projects for this year, progress may be slow, but it’s still coming along.

Time unintentionally taken

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When I started working on the new spec a few months ago, I was hoping to have a solid outline done by the end of the year.

But the story is proving to be more complicated than I originally thought, and I’ve come up with some ideas that would help not only the story but to also showcase the “different” in the Familiar But Different aspect when it comes to the films that inspired it.

And on top of that, I’ve been busy with other stuff, so development on this project has really slowed down. I’m still working on it, but slightly annoyed that this is happening in the first place.

Part of it is my strong desire to get this thing written. I’m really psyched about it, but I also want to do as much outlining and figuring stuff out before moving onto pages.

There’s also the previously-alluded-to going for “familiar but different”. There are scenes and sequences in this story that require a strong sense of originality so as to avoid being interpreted as me being a lazy writer and just ripping off stuff from those other films. That is something I definitely want to avoid.

Thus, my continuing struggle to put this one together.

I initially felt embarrassed and a little ashamed about being so far behind schedule, but this is what putting this story together requires. When I expressed this to other writers, I was reminded that everybody makes progress at their own pace (“As a runner, you know how true that is.”), and it was also pointed out that several other writers in our community spend a lot of time writing and even more time rewriting their stuff.

I was told I shouldn’t feel bad about not being as productive or prolific. I’m doing the work at the pace that works best for me, and that’s the important part.

I also have to keep in mind that my animated script began several years ago as just jotting down ideas, and then gradually evolved into what it is today – including countless rewrites and polishes. Even today I’m still waiting on notes that will be applied to the next draft.

I know I’ll get this one done, and of course wish it wasn’t taking so long, but that’s just the way it is. I’m still enjoying putting it together, and confident I’ll be happy with the end result (and all the subsequent drafts that follow it).

FBD is a BFD

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Working on this new script idea is proving to be quite a challenge. It’s still in the very early development stages, so any and every idea is being written down for potential use. No doubt some will stay, some will be trashed, and some will be altered/revised/modified to varying degrees.

Adding to all of this is that a big part of the story is similar to parts of a very beloved and well-known film – so similar that it’s one of my comps – so I also need to come up with ideas so my story safely falls into the category of “Familiar, But Different” – FBD.

It’s my goal to have this story be reminiscent of that other one, but not so much that it feels like I’m totally ripping it off. I’ve read a lot of scripts that fall short of that, so doing what I can to avoid falling into that trap.

This film also has a lot of iconic scenes, so it’s even more important I put my own spin on the concept to really hammer home its FBD-ness. The absolute last thing I want is for somebody to read this and think “There’s nothing new here”.

A key part of this is breaking down the components of the original film – not just the story, plot and characters, but seeing what worked, how the various storylines and subplots were laid out AND how they were connected. I can then use all of that as a springboard to putting my story together, and then fine tune as necessary.

Challenging, but not impossible.

Great as it would be to have the final result ready now, finding a new way to tell this familiar story is part of what I enjoy about doing this. I like to call it “go for the hard turn”; Just when you think things are going to go a certain way, there’s a yank on the steering wheel and all of a sudden things are heading in a whole new direction that makes you want to keep going.

One thing I’m fairly certain will play a factor in putting this together is that I’m just enjoying working on it. I don’t think there’s anything like it out there, so there’s a certain thrill to exploring the unknown, so to speak. It’s a priority for me that when it’s totally done – no matter how long that takes – it makes a strong impression for both the story it’s telling and how it’s written.

Even though it’ll take a while for me to figure it out, I’m confident I can make it happen.

Can’t talk. Busy.

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Mega-shorty post today.

Got some incredibly helpful notes for the animated fantasy-comedy, so some major revising is in progress.

Bonus – one set of notes was from a longtime associate who’s always been a big fan pushing me to do better. They thought this script did exactly that, and that it really shows how far I’ve come since my earlier work and what I was capable of. You love to hear that – especially from somebody whose opinion you hold in very high regard.

There’s a contest deadline coming up in a few weeks, so I want to make this thing as rock-solid as I can before sending it in.

Confidence levels feeling strong and steady.

Hope you have an excellent weekend that also involves feeling good about your writing, and maybe some pie because it makes things that much better.