Last week went rather smooth. I developed the Main Characters, Subplot Characters, and Supporting Characters who’ve all grown to be…a passionate bunch of people to say the least. They know what they want and have no problems going after it/each other.
I was able to knock out the sequences/chapters in a bout a day and a half. Was able to conquer the hurdle of transitioning the first half of the story to the second half. The events in both halves were easy to break down, hash out, and connect, but the linking between the two halves was a little harder. Only because the reasons for both main characters to continue through the rest of the story had to be really strong and compelling. I just wanted to get it right. I didn’t want the transition to become a plot hole later on. So, I took my time with it, thought hard on it until I was satisfied with the result. Which I am.
So, now I’m laying out scenes and loving it. Just for a short while, in some very small way, I get to be a director of sorts and layout the whole film as I see it with my mind’s eye. How one scene leads to the next, the back and forth volley of intercut scenes. Right now, I don’t have to worry about action, description, dialog, and white space. It’s all about how do we get from here to there with a hard focus on the purpose of each scene.
- What’s the next scene?
- What’s the purpose of the scene?
- Does an existing scene serve this purpose already?
- Can I still tell the story without this scene?
- What happens in this scene?
Over and over and over again each scene is scrutinized. Though I stared with a ton of scene ideas for the script a good deal of them could not pass questions 2, 3, and 4.
After the last couple days, I find myself 60 scenes deep into the scripts layout and still going strong. I’ll really be pushing myself hard this week to finish the layout for the entire screenplay because this is my last week working on this project until April. In March, it’s back to the second draft of “Things People Do”. After I finish the scenes for SHOTGUN, I still have to write the synopsis so when April swings around all I’ll have to do is write the dame thing already, ha.
So, that’s the plan, and as usual, I’ll keep you posted.
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