momentum

Crafting a tale to thrill, astonish, and exhilarate

Maximum Z adventure, choices, confidence, determination, development, draft, editing, genre, momentum, outlines, output, pages, perseverance, persistence, polish, problem-solving, productivity, project, pulp fiction, rewriting, scenes, screenplay, screenwriting, script, sequence, spec, story, storytelling, Uncategorized, westerns, writing , , , , , , , , , ,
mad-scientist
Those fools at the film academy dare call me mad? I’ll show ’em! Mwahaha!

2017’s writing got off to a pleasantly rousing start with the commencement of the first draft of my latest project: the pulpy adventure spec.

Yep. After years of working on the outline, I finally decided to take the plunge and write the damned thing.

Seeing as how this is a genre near and dear to my heart, I dove into the opening sequence headfirst and just had at it, surpassing the original goal of completing at least 2 pages a day by two and a half times that amount. Add to that the 4 pages for yesterday, and that places me further ahead than anticipated. It’s not expected to maintain this kind of output on a daily basis, but no complaints so far.

That being said, upon reflection, the latest scene still leaves a little to be desired, so an impromptu rewrite is already being planned out and will be implemented straightaway.

A few alterations have also been made in regards to the overall writing process.

First, even though the outline needs to be rock-solid before starting on pages, the scene descriptions are sometimes a little vague. “Big fight happens!”, that sort of thing.

When that happens, the focus shifts to plotting out the beats of that particular scene. How do things play out so it tells the story and moves things forward? Is it accomplishing what it needs to? It’s quite helpful, and helps prevent a lot of frustration in trying to think up stuff on the spot.

Another is fully embracing the whole “just get it done” attitude. Write it down and move on. There’ll be time for all that fancy-pants editing and polishing stuff later. It’s also been noticed that sometimes the first idea is still the best.

And in what may be the most important development, seeing as how this is at its core my interpretation of the old pulp novels, I’m doing what I can do to really make it read that way. One could even argue that writing the western was just a warm-up exercise. The writing in this script might be a little more over the top than usual, but that could be exactly what it needs.

Even though it’s a screenplay, I take a certain pleasure in coloring things a slightly stronger shade of purple.

There’s no specific target deadline for completing this draft, but hopefully it won’t take too long. For now, I’m just enjoying the ride.

It was good enough for Spielberg…

Maximum Z dialogue, feedback, flashbacks, imagination, Jaws, momentum, rewrite, scenes, screenplay, screenwriting, script, Steven Spielberg, story, storytelling, westerns, writing
quint
“Eleven hundred men went in the water. Three hundred and sixteen men come out. The sharks took the rest.”

There’s a pivotal scene in my western where my main character reveals why she does what she does and what made her the person she is. Nothing too complicated. Just a couple of lines of dialogue.

It took a few passes to whittle it down so it got to the point fast and in as few words as possible. I think it works quite nicely.

It’s been suggested how this was a great opportunity to apply the “show, don’t tell” rule and make it a flashback. The logic being that since it’s such an important moment, showing it, rather than just her talking about it, would have a greater impact.

I’m not so sure about that.

I don’t have a problem with flashbacks, but have always tried to avoid using them. I guess I see them almost as a cheat; possibly even lazy writing. Like you can’t weave that information into what’s happening now, so you stop the action to show it. But once you interrupt the momentum of your story, it’s not easy to get things back up to speed.

And sometimes a flashback just isn’t necessary.

Consider the scene from JAWS pictured above with Quint’s story about the Indianapolis. Should we actually see what he’s describing? Highly doubtful. Part of why that speech works so well is how it’s delivered. You can see and hear what that experience did to him. How you’re imagining it is much more terrifying than anything they could show. The speech would lose its impact if we were concentrating on the action, rather than what Quint is saying.

Sometimes just a line of dialogue or two can be just as effective, if not possibly more so, as pausing the action for a flashback. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t use it. If you think it’s the most effective way to make your point, then by all means do it.

Just make sure it’s a solid fit.