draft

Nicely done, me from the past

Maximum Z character arc, determination, draft, editing, feedback, notes, outlines, perseverance, persistence, rewrite, screenplay, screenwriting, script, strategy, subplots, writing , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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

Maximum Z action, antagonist, character arc, characters, comedy, determination, development, draft, editing, I Love Lucy, ideas, perseverance, persistence, protagonist, rewrite, scenes, screenplay, screenwriting, script, sequence, spec, story, subplots, writing , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

Just your typical rewriting rigamarole

Maximum Z action, characters, comedy, confidence, determination, draft, editing, fantasy, feedback, ideas, notes, overthinking, perseverance, persistence, reading, rewrite, screenplay, screenwriting, script, story, writing , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

Some appropriately metaphorical posts

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While I continue to chip away at progress for my assorted projects, I’ve been seeing more than a few posts from other writers on social media about their significantly faster results.

“I finished this draft in two weeks!”

“Just wrapped up my third script of the year!”

Jeez, I’m hoping to get three scripts done by the end of the year. If I’m lucky.

All of this reminded me that everybody writes at their own pace. Some people are more productive, some not as much. It all comes down to “just get it written”.

It also reminded me that I’ve written about this before, so thought this was a good opportunity to revisit a few of those posts, along with some that are kinda-sorta related.

Enjoy.

Run at your own pace

My race, my pace

It is most definitely NOT a sprint

Second half is all uphill

Comfortable shoes will also help

Start with the ending, work backwards

Maximum Z action, comedy, determination, draft, editing, ideas, outlines, perseverance, persistence, rewriting, screenplay, screenwriting, script, writing , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Working on actual pages for the action-comedy spec has been quite an experience.

Up until a few days ago, I was writing only what I had for each scene in the outline, focusing primarily on “what’s the conflict here?” and “does this move things forward?”

However, two things kept nagging at me.

The first was that I got to what the outline lists as around page 40 or so, meaning just a few more pages to that page 45 twist. Except it’s actually on page 30, so more fitting for an end of the first act.

That leaves me with two choices: stick to the outline as it’s written, or come up with additional scenes to flesh things out. The most likely plan of action is to adhere to the former, work my way through the whole thing, then go back and apply the latter.

But that leads me to the second issue: I haven’t finalized exactly what the ending is. Maybe a more appropriate phrase would be “I have a few ideas for what it could be, but haven’t fully decided”.

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t go into this with no ending. It’s just a little vague, and solidifying it would probably be the best course of action.

As much as I would love to keep moving forward with pages, there may be a short pause while I figure out what all of this is working up towards and then reverse engineer my way back to where I am now, or possibly even all the way back to the beginning.

This is still a first draft, so anything and everything is worth trying. There’s one idea in particular that’s especially appealing, so I might tinker around with that and see what happens. Setups and payoffs are already being considered.

Also important to keep in mind – the ending has to really emphasize/showcase my protagonist’s arc, and how she’s changed. Everything she endures over the course of the whole story has to come to the perfect conclusion. Challenging, but not impossible.

I was looking through all the notes I’ve been jotting down for this story, and there are a lot more than I remember. Some I don’t even remember writing, so it’s very cool to have all this material from which I can pick and choose what works best and where it could potentially factor into the story.

It may even be time to break out the index cards, and that’s saying something.