persistence

From the archives: Knew this wasn’t going to be easy

Maximum Z action, comedy, determination, disappointment, fantasy, frustration, outlines, perseverance, persistence, screenplay, screenwriting, script, short films, writing , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Allow me to offer up a literary amuse bouche before moving on to this week’s hearty entree.

Some good progress on the rewrite of the fantasy-comedy – about halfway through the outline. Taking the “write it out one scene summarization at a time” approach. It includes lots of notes to myself, significant editing, and some rearranging/inserting of scenes from multiple previous drafts.

Decided to do the same for the action-comedy outline. Quite eye-opening, and what feels like a pretty good foundation. Still a ton of work to do, but off to a good start.

Looking forward to the ongoing work on both.

But let’s switch gears and focus on what this post is all about. WordPress has added a feature that shows you posts that appeared on the same date in the past. Since this blog has been around since 2009, something pops up just about every day. Such as it was with this one from July 3, 2020 (everybody remember the fun that was lockdown?), and everything in it still rings true.

Also of note: I mention the idea of writing – and potentially making – shorts. Nice to see that part actually came true.

Enjoy.

Many, many years ago, while attending the Screenwriting Expo in the City of Angels, one of the seminars I went to featured an “industry professional” as a speaker. I put that term in quotes because I couldn’t tell you who it was or what they did. Maybe a writer-producer or something like that. It was good enough for the folks running the Expo.

There were probably 20 or 25 of us in the audience. This guy walked to the front of the room, and the first thing he said was, if you’ll pardon my paraphrasing:

“I don’t know who any of you are, how experienced you are, or how may scripts you’ve written, but I can guarantee that just about all of you will fail at this.”

Well, ain’t that an encouraging lead-in. Everything he said after that is pretty much a blur, because I found it to be…

Shocking? Most definitely.

Disheartening? Pretty much.

Accurate? Maybe. But he was speaking from his experience. No doubt he’d seen an endless stream of writers come through, give it their all, and despite their efforts, subsequently crash and burn.

It’s easy to overlook the fact that this was well before you could make a movie with your phone and a laptop. Resources and DIY filmmaking opportunities were much more limited than they are now.

His comments really struck a nerve. Is this what I, along with everybody else in the room, should think? Were we just wasting our time? Were our chances THAT small? Should we just give up and go home?

I couldn’t speak for anybody else, but I had a little more faith in myself than he did.

Like I said, I forgot everything after his opening – the sooner I got him out of my head the better – and gradually replaced it with a few thoughts of my own:

-Yes, this is a HUGE mountain to climb, let alone get to the top. Is that intimidating? Hell yes. Is it going to stop me from trying? Hell no. Much as it sucks, it’s better to try and fail than to give up entirely, so I’ll keep trying. As long as it takes.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll continue to do so: I really like doing this, and even though I’ve endured my fair share of disappointments, I keep going – because I like the process of writing.

It’s taken me a long time to develop my skills just to get to this level, and I know there’s  room to keep improving. The challenge to myself and my writing abilities is one most welcome.

-Do I have a chance of eventually being able to call myself a professional writer? Hard to say. Some might say I already am, but that might be an individual matter of perspective. For me, until I see my name onscreen accompanied by “Story By…” or “Screenplay By…”, it doesn’t apply. my efforts will continue undaunted, unabated and undeterred.

Count me among the writers who are content to just be working. Sure, a huge paycheck would be great, but I’m also cool with writing a low-budget horror, or taking on an assignment, or doing an uncredited rewrite. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE WORK. The more I get to do it, the more I’ll enjoy it.

-For a long time, it was always “I need to find that somebody who says ‘yes’; somebody to open that door for me”, and to a certain extent, that still rings true. Getting representation, meeting with REAL industry people, and so forth.

But in the meantime, there’s absolutely nothing stopping me from making my own stuff. For the past few months, I’ve been dabbling with writing short scripts. Five to 10 pages, a handful of characters, one to two locations. Something that presents not only my writing skills, but also that I know how to tell a story in the most visual way possible.

Added bonus – a ridiculously short production time. It could be made over a few days (or a long weekend) with a minimal crew.

Feedback and notes from writing colleagues who’ve also made their own short films have been helpful and encouraging.

All of this, of course, will be a little more feasible once society slowly returns to “normal”. Until then, I’ve got plenty of time to prepare. Why not start creating our own opportunities?

-As much as I dream about all of these great things happening, I’m also a realist. I know that the journey to achieve this kind of success is a very, very long and tortuous one. Disappointment abounds.

I’ve no intention of giving up, no matter how frustrating things get. And there will be A LOT of frustration.

This is what I want to do, and despite all the negatives, I still enjoy doing it.

Thus the soldiering forward continues. Shoulder to the grindstone and all that…

First hard part’s out of the way

Maximum Z action, comedy, determination, development, editing, encouragement, outlines, output, perseverance, persistence, progress, scenes, screenplay, screenwriting, script, sequence, spec, storyline, subplots, writing , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bit of a breakthrough for the action-comedy spec this week – I wrapped up the outline.

It’s done, but not totally done.

It still needs a ton of work, especially regarding the development/placement of several subplots, but the primary storyline is there, ready to be hammered into better shape.

Despite it all, I’m thrilled to have gotten here. There were many times over the past few months I’d get concerned (read: stressing out on a regular basis) I’d never figure things out.

But I stuck to it and eventually did, and am very happy with it.

Skimming through the whole thing in its current state, there are probably a lot of scenes and sequences that’ll get trimmed, cut, or drastically revised, but that’s expected. And that’s not even taking into account the aforementioned subplots.

I’ve written before about my astonishment at how other writers are almost assembly line-like regarding their output. It’s just not something I’m capable of, and the slow, slow progress for this latest project is just another example of that.

But I also realize that when somebody reads one of my scripts, they definitely remember that it’s mine – the story, the characters, the voice. If my taking the time to do that for each script means a smaller output than others, that’s fine by me. Same conditions apply this time around.

I was wavering between diving right back into this one or shifting to one of my two rewrites. I think I’m leaning towards the latter. I haven’t done as much with those two the last couple of months, so it’s probably better to let the new one simmer and work on those.

Then when I’m ready to jump back into this one, it’ll be with a mostly-all-there outline (and most likely a lot of “This is better than I remember” and “I don’t remember writing this”).

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.

Seeking the un-familiar

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Some good progress on the action-comedy outline this week. A little further into the second half of Act Two. Act Three still looms, but it’s getting there.

The biggest challenge has been coming up with scenes, sequences, and scenarios that – as far as I’m aware – haven’t been done before, or are at least a new take on a familiar concept.

Not as easy as you would think.

The last thing I want is a reader to say “That’s just a ripoff of _____”. I don’t like it when I see it in somebody else’s script, and I definitely don’t want that to happen when they read mine.

But a new spin or something totally unexpected that gets the needed result? Yes, please. I love when I’m able to do it, and really appreciate it when I see it in somebody else’s script.

This is most likely why this outline is taking longer than expected – a significant percentage of this is just me figuring stuff out. There has been a lot of jotting stuff down – numerous pages of ideas, many of which will most likely not be used, but I’d rather have that than not enough.

A pleasant side effect of all this churning out of ideas has been the addition of a few inspired solutions out of/through a few story issues. Nothing major, but enough to help keep moving things along. Still ironing out the details.

Going this whole process and filling in all these blanks remains the biggest challenge. But I’m fairly confident once all those blanks are filled in, going through and fine-tuning (along with the inevitable continuous rewriting) what’s there will be much, much easier.

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.