mystery

Find a tone and stick with it

Maximum Z characters, comedy, creativity, feedback, jokes, mystery, outlines, protagonist, rewrite, scenes, screenwriting, script, story, storytelling, tone, writing
Something in this seems a little out of place
Something in this seems a little out of place

I used to dread getting feedback. It always meant having to go back and rewrite something.

Fortunately, I’m well past that and now appreciate how necessary both feedback and rewriting are.

Feedback makes you learn to value the necessity of hearing how somebody else interprets your work, and more importantly, how to be objective when it comes to really understanding what they have to say.

While working on the outline of my mystery rewrite, I looked for opportunities to put in an occasional joke (read: cheap laugh).

The problem, according to my top feedback-provider, was that the jokes, while understandable for their intent, were totally wrong for this kind of story. They make my protagonist come across as an idiot and the action comes to a screeching halt each time. And since this is more mystery than comedy, they shouldn’t be drawing attention to themselves like that.

There were other notes besides this one, but this one really struck a nerve – in a good way. I’ve been working on rewriting the jokes to make them a better fit within the context of the story, rather than have them be glaringly obvious and out of place.

As you create the world of your story, you have to make sure all the elements combine to make a believable scenario. This goes way beyond the story and the characters – take everything into account.  If something seems out of place, fix it or get rid of it.

And if you’re not sure, that’s what feedback is for.

Think of it as a story renovation project

Maximum Z creativeness, creativity, editing, ideas, mystery, outlines, plot, productivity, rewrite, scenes, screenwriting, script, story, storytelling, structure, subplot, writing , ,
This is kind of what it feels like
They’re the writers and the house is the first draft. See? It’s a visual metaphor!

When I started this rewrite, I wanted to really shake things up and take it beyond just putting on a new coat of paint and rearranging the furniture.

This had to be really different from what it already was. Major changes require major brainstorming and planning.

The starting point was breaking down the previous outline on a scene-by-scene basis. What worked? What didn’t?

One subplot has already been cut because it just didn’t mesh with the rest of it. A more suitable replacement has been developed, and not only does it still work for the story, it opened up more possibilities.

Each scene is still evaluated to determine how it advances the story as well as how it fits in to the plot.  Yes, some darlings must be killed as work progresses, but if they don’t serve a purpose that supports the overall story, then they weren’t needed in the first place. Maybe they can be reconfigured and used another way.

Working through all of this reminded me of a significant bonus to writing on a regular basis – your creativeness gets a constant workout, which has made it slightly easier than expected to come up with ideas of how to make a scene stronger or at least more effective.

And since this is a mystery, it’s extremely important that all the intricate details are in place. Clues and red herrings are in the process of being planted, a key factor of which is making sure their place in the puzzle is organic, and not shoehorned in.

Taking a steady, methodical approach to this has made it not as imposing as originally expected.

When I started this rewrite, I had the standard fear/concern that I wouldn’t be able to figure things out and come up with solutions.

Now, not so much.

The writing sprint: no training necessary

Maximum Z comedy, creativeness, creativity, ideas, inspiration, mystery, productivity, proofreading, rewrite, scenes, screenwriting, script, spec, story, storytelling, westerns, writing
race
It’s not about speed; it’s how you handle the course

Finally, finally got to type in those illustrious words FADE OUT, which brings the first draft of the western spec to a satisfying close.

It’s very tempting to read it and see what needs work, but at this point, I’m opting to let it sit in hibernation while shifting the focus to the rewrite of the mystery-comedy.

While the previous draft is a more solid foundation than I thought, there are still some ideas I’m looking to incorporate.

Rather than jot a few down at a time, or hope inspiration hits every once in a while, I’m opting for a method that’s proven quite helpful in the past: the writing sprint.

Set aside 30 minutes. Just you and a blank page (paper or digital – doesn’t matter, although digital might be easier & faster to work with). Once that timer starts, write out scene ideas as fast as you can.  Don’t stop to think if they’re good or not. Just crank ’em out.

It’s not a bad thing to write what you already have, but maybe you’ll come up with something you never thought of, or suddenly hit on a solution to a problem that’s been bothering you.  Feel free to even take things a totally new direction. For now, there are no bad ideas.

It’s possible you could run out of gas before time runs out, but push yourself to keep going.

Once the 30 minutes is up, take a look at what you’ve got: a ton of (mostly) new material.

Pick and choose what works for you now, but make sure to hold on to the rest. Inspiration could hit from any of them, and you never know what might come in handy later.

So glad I didn’t listen to myself

Maximum Z characters, comedy, dialogue, Frank Sinatra, ideas, mystery, outlines, Pandora, plot, reading, rewrite, scenes, screenwriting, script, spec, story, structure, subplot, writing , , , ,
How I originally intended to start this writing session
How I originally intended to approach this rewrite

Since it really has been years since I last looked at my mystery-comedy spec, and not wanting to be too heavily influenced by what I’d written before, I figured this rewrite would be completely fresh. A clean slate. Blank page from the get-go. A whole new ball of wax.

I sit at my desk, all set to open those floodgates. My notebook’s open to this new set of plot points, ready to be fleshed out. Pandora cranks out the sounds of the Rat Pack and the 50s jazz club scene (appropriate mood music for the story’s setting). A hot cup of joe within reach. Overall, a perfect writing scenario.

So what thought immediately pops into my head?

Yep. I’m gonna check out what I wrote before. But just out of curiosity. It’s not like I’m going to keep the whole story. Besides, it’ll be interesting to see how far my writing’s come since then.

This is also why you should never, ever throw away old material. You never know when you might come back to it.

I open the 1-pager. Okay, I remember this part. Wait. I don’t remember that. Whoa, where did that come from? Wow, this is a lot more detailed than I remember.

Finishing that, I automatically wonder how the script reads. A few scenes stick out in my memory, but most of it is long forgotten.

I’ll just take a look at the first few pages. Promise.

Hmm. Not as bad as I thought. Some of the dialogue is a little too on-the-nose. Too many adverbs. Character descriptions could be better. Some good set-ups I instantly recall how they pay off. This subplot’s a little weak.

A quick glance to the upper right corner to see what page I’m on. 26 already? Hokey smokes, this thing is flying by.

By now I feel almost obligated to finish reading it. 35 minutes later, I did.

The overall consensus: still needs a lot of work, but a much more solid foundation to start with and there are some ideas I’d like to incorporate. It’s kind of reassuring to know I’ve already taken care of a lot of the heavy lifting.

A few days ago, I was concerned this was going to be a real slog, but now – not so much.

Good and not-so-good

Maximum Z creativity, loglines, mystery, outlines, screenwriting, scriptshadow, writing gigs
much nicer to be thinking out here

Working with this director is becoming an exercise in keeping my sanity in check. We had a brief conversation the other night about what exactly he wants, or at least is looking for, in this short project.

I came up with something I thought was pretty unique and, according to a friend who actually writes mysteries, contained some good setups with a “sucker punch twist” at the end. I’ll take that as high praise.

But it didn’t jibe with what he wanted.  Because he’s been reading some mysteries on his own, including a few Sherlock Holmes.  He says there’s a pattern to be followed. Victim, clues, solution.  And he also has a list called something like “50 rules of mysteries”.  Oh dear lord.

I offered that if you saw 4 mysteries, and 3 of them followed the same pattern and the 4th was different, wouldn’t you be more likely to remember the different one?  Didn’t work.

While he appreciated my take on the story, he wanted the more traditional approach, but also to punch it up even more. “Go bigger” seemed to be his mantra.  For some reason, he again referenced INCEPTION. I really hope he’s seen more movies than just that.

He wants the outline by Tuesday, which I’m fine with. Most of the story is in place. I just need to move a few details around.  But he wants a ready-to-go draft by January 1st so he can immediately start on pre-production and casting.  Based on how his previous project progressed, I think he’s being a little too ambitious.

The only positive spin I can put on this is that it’s really testing my abilities.  On several levels.  I don’t mind. It’s good exercise, writing-wise.

Now, while I probably should have been spent time on his outline, I opted to do some more work on DREAMSHIP.  I had two scenes that seemed way too similar, and my protagonist was being more reactive than active.

Implementing the changes wasn’t as hard as I expected, and I think both turned out better than before.  Honestly, this thing is really coming together.

-Just a brief note on something going on over at ScriptShadow. The First Ten Pages competition is taking place this week. Readers were invited to send in their log line and first ten pages, and the rest of the readers would vote on which ones looked the most interesting.

I meant to take part, but never got around to it.  I don’t know what kind of chance I would have had. After reading some of the 50 finalists, I can’t help but wonder if some of these people have a grasp of what is expected of them.  Some of the loglines were just too confusing, or didn’t make the story sound interesting.

I always thought the logline summed up the protagonist’s objective, who/what stands in their way and what could happen if they don’t achieve that objective, all in a way to make the reader/viewer want to know more. How do you screw that up?

Apparently quite easily.