Well, the lunch time “writefest” on my NetBook has been working out well, that is when I’m not interrupted by the phones and the erg to help my co-workers when we get a big rush of customers, situations, and fires to put out.
I’m inching along at a good pace all things considered. Really excited about this script, so much so that I wanted to share a small sample of what I have so far. The situation that Patty finds her self in, is a bit of a pickle for sure.
It’s the opening of the film, at least the current opening, and it flows into the conflict, well a couple different conflicts. It’s about four pages. I didn’t want to post anything until I had the first ten pages written, but I thought, what the hell why not see what you guys think of it so far?
For those of you who don’t know what the story is about, take a look below.
TO TURN A BLIND EYE
It’s always been easier for Patricia Cole to ignore her husbands episodic bouts of infidelity, but After two children and years of letting her pain fester, she is at her wits end and determined to confront him about his latest affair.
Just when she is about to confront her husband, Patricia loses her nerve yet again. At the same time, another person steps into the picture, another person who has a bone to pick with her husband, another person promising a more permanent resolution to both of their problems.
Patricia Cole is faced with two options, either save her husband from the dark fate that is to befall him, or do what she’s always done, and simply turn a blind eye.
Screenplay Sample Below (Rough Draft)
scribereglyph 
I really like your format here
LikeLike
Thank you, thank you. Glad you like it.
LikeLike
I like this. What made you starting writing screenplays?
LikeLike
Thanks, I’m glad you like it so far.
What made me start writing screenplays? Well, I love film, always have, and the through the years, the stories that have always stuck with me or touched me the most have been films. When I get ideas for stories, I see them like scenes in a movie from the start.
Also what draws me to screenwriting is the drastic time difference between cranking out a script versus a novel. Not saying that it’s necessarily easier to write a screenplay than a manuscript, it all depends on the writer, but for me screenplays have a much faster turn around time. There are some other factors though. The length of the story is a big one for me. If I have a big’ol epic tale like my fantasy story “Amachi”, I’d rather do that as a book, but like with “Things People Do”, it was originally going to be a short story, so I turned it into a screenplay.
A novel or epic can be hundreds to thousands of pages long across multiple books, where the average screenplay is like 125 pages. I just do the math and look at the most efficient/effective way for me to get a particular story done and out.
Take “To Turn A Blind Eye” for instance, all in all, it’s not really a big story. Right now I see it as a short film, it may get bigger though. I could just write it as a short story, but the way I see it in my minds eye, the effect that I want the story to have is better as a film in my opinion.
Last but not least, I like writing stories period. So why not learn how to write for the two mediums I love, books and film? They are two completely different animals to write for, so It’ll broaden my skill set as a writer overall and possibly open up a few more doors along the way.
That’s how I look at it.
LikeLike
So did you research the technique…the format?
LikeLike
Yes, I did research. With the help of two sites and feedback from other screenwriters.
Not really having the money or time to take a course on screenwriting, I found this site Screenwriting.info to be an absolute jewel for beginners. It’s a site that teaches/explains the basics of screenwriting with terminology definitions and visual examples of how the various script elements are used. It’s really great, bare bones, straight to the point.
Also, it doesn’t hurt to read the screenplays of some of your favorite movies to see how they were written and then compare it to how they were transferred to screen. You can find free screenplays to read on screen or download here Script-to-rama.com. Here is another site for screenplays: IMSD aka Internet Movie Script Database.
Then there are tons of screenwriting forums that you can post samples of your work on to get some feedback.
And of course, you can always buy/read books and take courses.
Whichever floats your boat or finds you lost remote.
In a couple of days, I’m going to have a Professional screenwriter look over the script for “Things People Do” so that I can get it polished real nice like and hopefully put it “out there”.
I’ll post progress of it here, on the blog of course.
LikeLike