script doctor eric

Wikipedia is my sister! My daughter! My sister! My daughter!

Maximum Z Civil War, loglines, research, screenwriting, script doctor eric, story, train, Uncategorized, Wikipedia

My apologies for a lack of posts the last few days. A combo of extra hours at work, family stuff and just being busy kept me away.

Progress on the second act of LUCY has been slower than I’d like, but that’s okay. Better to take my time than constantly be fixing it later.

I got some very nice feedback from a fellow writer about Act One. He’s read some of my other stuff and was quite enthusiastic about what I’ve got so far. Although he’s not crazy about the main character being a woman, I think it makes for a slightly different approach, as well as being somewhat original.

Because I’m trying to keep this story as historically accurate as I can, I’ve been using various websites as reference guides. The Civil War, trains, and so on.

And of course, Wikipedia. I’ve gotten a lot of very helpful info from it so far. It is truly invaluable.

Throughout the events of the story, I’ve been establishing that several of the characters will end up in California. This includes the love interest and the villain, who has also stolen Lucy’s train. I pictured a big finale taking place IN California. Sounds awesome, right?

The story starts in the East just as the Civil War is ending, then gradually heads west. That means the trains would need to make their way across the country, which would be 1865.

I wanted to make sure this was plausible, but Wikipedia informed me the driving of the Golden Spike in Utah was the birth of the Transcontinental Railroad. In 1869. Which is 4 years AFTER this story takes place.  Which means I need to CHANGE SOMETHING!

Either I move the time of the story ahead, which destroys that whole “end of the Civil War” aspect, or I change the locale of where the story ends.  As much as I hate to do it, it’s easier to go with the latter.  One of the many rules of writing is “kill your darlings,” so it looks like I’ll being committing murder-by-author in the next few days.  Like I said, it would be great to have the showdown in California, but it just won’t work.  Time to dive back into Wikipedia and find out where gold was plentiful before the railroad.  Denver might work.  A showdown on railroad tracks through the Rockies has potential.

I was originally hoping to be done with the outline by the end of the year, but that ain’t gonna happen.  I’ll be happy if I get to the midpoint by then.

-I sent the scene rewrite back to the director a few days ago, and have heard nothing back.  I don’t know how he feels about it, and he said he wanted to shoot the remaining scenes tomorrow (Sunday).   As always, I wish him the best of luck.

-Even though I thought I was done with it, I sent the logline to NORTH POLE NOIR to the logline contest yesterday. I don’t know what kind of a chance I have; I’ve entered it before, but with no results.  This time he seems to want more Christmas-themed ones, so maybe this time.  Fingers crossed.

Okay, maybe

Maximum Z adventure, contracts, loglines, outlines, screenwriting, script doctor eric, story, Veronica, writing group

Good meeting with the writing group last night.  I read the first act of LUCY, and got bombarded with questions.  Some I was even prepared for.

When I explained I liked the action aspects (as did some of the members), I wanted to try and expand on Lucy as a character.  They responded with suggestions covering aspects I hadn’t thought of.  Which is how these things usually work for me.

Somebody suggested having the bad guy be connected with Lucy in such a way as to provide a good, solid twist later on in the story.  Maybe.

There were comments about how historically accurate this was supposed to be.  That I’m not too concerned with.  It’s fictional.

Another suggestion was that Lucy needs a sidekick, or else it isn’t believable that she can do all the things I have her doing up to this point.  She’s not superhuman.  I wanted to avoid the idea, but more than one person made a good argument about why it would work.

I gotta admit.  They made some good points.

And since the story takes place in the Civil War era, I had considered putting a character who used to be a slave somewhere in there.  This could work.  But would it fit in the story?  Oh yes.  Quite nicely.

Still haven’t worked out the bounty hunter angle, but I’m getting there.  Slowly, but still getting there.

While I was hoping to start the slight rewrite/moving forward phase today, I had to put on my metaphoric Dad hat and take V to assorted appointments.  So my self-imposed assignment begins tomorrow.

And still looking forward to it.

But I think what was especially nice was as the evening was wrapping up, my friend, the one who I was in the previous group with and we kept the last remnants of said group alive as long as we could, said she really liked what I had so far for LUCY.  That means a lot.

Again, there feels like a ton of potential in this story.  And I plan to make the most of it.

-*Sidenote:  When I originally came up with this idea, I developed the logline for it.  Which has since changed.  Since then, I have submitted said logline to the usual contest.  That’s about four weeks, complete with four straight losses.  So I’m calling it quits.  I’d rather focus on getting LUCY developed and written, rather than worrying about if my logline passes muster.

Besides, I won once, and that’s enough.  I shouldn’t be greedy.  Yeah, it would be nice to win again, but the script is more important.

Words to live by indeed.

Nice

Maximum Z adventure, Cat Ballou, characters, Hollywood, movies, plot, screenwriting, script doctor eric, story, treatment, Uncategorized, westerns, writing group

Do you remember the very last Calvin and Hobbes?  I don’t have it handy, but it talks about all the possibilities that await you/us out there.  How metaphoric.

That’s how LUCY is starting to shape up.  The more I think about what I could do with this, the more positive it feels.  To quote Steve Allen, this could be the start of something big.

No, really.

The writing group came over last night.  If we were able to stay a little more focused, we’d get a lot more done.  But I digress.

There were only five of us, and everybody ‘checks in,’ which means they give a little update as to where they are with their material.  A status update, I guess.

So when it came to me, I explained how I was abandoning BABY LIKES JAZZ because of my inability to write comedy, then explained how I came up with LUCY STEELE.

It got a positive, enthusiastic response.  Which was awesome.  They liked the concept, the story (such as it was) and the potential.  All of which I am also excited about.

I started compiling a list of everything that could possibly be connected with this story, including whatever I could think of regarding westerns, trains, post-Civil War America, and so on.  Not surprisingly, the list keeps getting longer.  Although I don’t plan to use everything, a lot of it could factor in somehow.

I feel like I’m on the cusp of having a plot-point outline done; still needs some fine-tuning.  Once that’s ready, I’m hoping a lot of it falls into place.

I’ve also been trying to figure out supporting cast, but I really want to have fun with this, so I may let my imagination run wild on this.  For some reason, the idea of a medicine show huckster-type character popped in and won’t go away.  That could work.

And a bounty hunter.  And a handsome authority-type figure (US marshal/cavalryman/etc).  Still working on those.

I’m also reminded of how much I enjoyed CAT BALLOU, which is also one of K’s favorites.  An often-overlooked western-comedy with the surprisingly-funny Lee Marvin and a catchy theme song.  I think I’ll have to watch that again to get a better sense of a female protagonist up against tremendous odds.

Once I get started, I suspect writing this may be as fun as DREAMSHIP was.

Not to get ahead of myself, but maybe this could be THE ONE that does it for me.  And that would TOTALLY AWESOME.

Of course, I have to write the damn thing first.  Well, one step at a time.

-Once again, I did not win the logline contest.  Ugh.  I’m seriously considering giving up entering.  Or at least giving it one or two more tries, THEN giving up.

Sorry for the delay

Maximum Z Disney, running, screenwriting, script doctor eric

I haven’t written/posted in a couple of days because I’ve been out of town.  For THE RACE.

The Legs of Steel are now on the mend following my running the 2010 Disneyland Half-Marathon.  My time: 2:02:30, which is 2:31 more than the last one I did. Three years ago!  There’s hope for me yet.

I am sooo grateful it was cool and foggy.  If it had been sunny and warm/hot, I don’t know how I would have done.  There were times I felt like I wouldn’t be able to finish, but my body overruled my brain and I kept going.

Once again, K put it in perspective.  If I had trained more, I would have had a better time.  So, I’m going to really have at it in order to be ready for New Orleans in February.  I’m hoping to get at least 1:55.

And our time in Disney was fun, too.  Hot, but fun.  V discovered a love of rollercoasters.  Except for that big one in CA Adventure.  She didn’t like that.  Or Indiana Jones.

K also commented that I was born to steer the boat on Jungle Cruise.  Can’t argue with that.  We also noticed a lot of multiracial families and a TON of tattooed patrons.  There were also a lot of overweight folks, but that’s expected…

On the writing front:

-I talked to that life coach from the logline contest last night.  He was really cool and had some helpful things to say.  I didn’t know what to expect, but was hoping he wouldn’t be some kind of Tony Robbins ripoff.

Quite the opposite.

He used to work in the industry, but has since moved on.  He mentioned a lot of his clients still do, which is very interesting.

He liked what I said about myself, and suggested trying to get involved with some networking.  Only problem – I’m up here and they’re down there.  I think there may be some ways to accomplish this online, so that’s something to investigate.

He also offered to try and send some potential event leads my way, which means I may be heading south again.  I’m thinking November-ish.   Provided, of course, that this doesn’t fall within the ‘Hollywood shutting down for the holidays’ timeframe.

It also seems like the man behind the contest is also a great contact to have, and is worth establishing more of a connection with.  His basic script analysis package is $99, which isn’t too steep; just more than I can currently afford.  I’d like to do that soon as well.  I think if he likes it enough, he’s willing to pass it on to more industry folks.  And that would be awesome.

-I re-did the first act outline of BABY LIKES JAZZ, using my notes from BABY BOOM as a reference point.  Problem is, apart from these changes, I like how it all unfolds later on.  I also noticed a few holes that need to be taken care of.  That might be harder to take care of than I anticipate, but I’m not too worried.

No Movie of the Moment tonight, but we’ve got IN THE LOOP and the first season of PUSHING DAISIES in the house.  One of those tomorrow, so hang in there.  Suggestions are always welcome, too…