So this week should see the start of the heavy lifting, really digging into the script and getting the "muscle draft" well underway. For those not familiar with that term, I'm pretty partial to it - it's basically your structured word vomit, heh. I'm a writer who tends to spend a ton of time bogging down and editing and re-editing my pages as soon as I write them. I mean, you can do it, but you're basically trying to form a second and third draft right then and there, which isn't the best idea. It can take hours to get past a single page in that manner. The muscle draft is getting your scenes laid out on the page with your best effort at dialogue and scene descriptions, but not something you're ready to hand over to Universal tomorrow, heh. That's what the second and third passes are for, cleaning up your first draft, making it readable and pretty for your readers on down the line. The muscle draft is your blueprint.
I can't stress enough how much of a breakthrough it was to go all the way through my story, and have every scene outlined in Final Draft's note cards view. It's huge - I actually enjoy my story a hell of a lot more now, and am really excited about where it's going, now that it's all laid out in front of me. It probably took me a bit more time than expected, as a 40+ scene outline is wont to do, but I definitely discovered what works for me. Here's to breakthroughs. This week's goal: I'm likely aiming for the 20-page mark, at a minimum. I have a little over four weeks before my first draft is due (a self-imposed deadline; train yourself for the real deal, when a studio hands you a rewrite project due in 8 weeks), and 20 seems like a solid number for week 1 since I already have some of Act I in the bag. Happy writing, scribes.
0 Comments
So now onto the real reason for this blog - to keep on top of my progress in my latest screenwriting project, and share the successes and pitfalls as I make my way through my first real screenplay.
To give you sort of a snapshot of where things stand, I had my initial concept - a young man and his uncle head to Alaska's Aleutian Islands to mine for gold, unaware of the dark past the uncle hasn't divulged until now, which they both must deal with in the present - and a loose idea of the events that transpire. Yeah. That didn't work for me, heh. I felt so stuck, I didn't like writing the pages not having outlined what was supposed to happen next - I needed a roadmap that was much more specific. So, roughly half way through Act I, I have spent some time really setting up all my scenes. This has really turned on the light for me, I now feel like once I'm done with the scene-by-scene breakdown, I can write much more smoothly and swiftly. So, onto the weekly goals, which will be an ongoing checkpoint in these blog posts, at least as it relates to the project development. Weekly Goal: finish the scene descriptions and get on with the writing. I'm roughly halfway done with the scene breakouts, and anticipate one more writing session to get it all completed and fleshed out. I may need to make one more pass to ensure they're all descriptive enough, so that I don't spend time dwelling on what actions or dialogue needs to take place in a given scene, and can just knock out pages. Once this is completed, I really do expect the page count to increase dramatically. I don't see any reason why I wouldn't be able to knock out 10 pages in my typical two hour writing sessions, it seems like a fairly reasonable expectation. We'll see if that matches reality, of course. Happy writing, fellow scribes. Pound out those pages. So the Writer's Guild elections are over, in what has definitely become a hot-button year with the impasse against the ATA talent agency conglomerate and their packaging practices. David Goodman triumphed in a major victory over Phyllis Nagy, with record turnout at the ballot box. WGA members made it be known, loud and clear, what their preferences are moving forward.
While I was never in bed with the idea that the WGA should concede some points to the agencies regarding the way packaging fees are distributed, as well as getting cut out of backend profits, the jury is still out with the idea that standing pat is going to be an effective negotiating tactic. Look, I'm all for standing up and saying no, you can't cut us out of these deals. But at the same time, if the ATA thinks the WGA's stance is ludicrous, what is there to build off of? Someone has to give. In the meantime, how are the majors going to operate without writers? The only company I've seen really moving among writing deals is Verve, which signed off on the CoC early in the game. I can't imagine big-time players like CAA and WME want to sit it out altogether. Each side has their leverage points - the WGA with the talent obviously, but the agencies have the big-name connections. I'll really be curious to see what comes of the next sitdown by Goodman and the ATA, it should be pretty telling to see if both sides are warming up, or still want to sit on their hands and wait for the other one to make a move. I wanted to share the resources I've come to rely on and trust in the industry - from motivating me to get my start, to making sure I'm formatting script elements the proper way.
It all really started with talking with Jeanne V Bowerman on Twitter. She was fantastic, as I really had no idea where to start, what to read, what software to try. She's the Editor of Script Magazine, so not exactly someone that you would expect to stop and help a complete noob. Not that she'd likely recall, but I met her at the Screenwriter's World Conference in August 2014 - I was probably so excited to meet her that I came off as a complete schoolboy, heh. Lately, it's been reading Mark Sanderson's book, 'A Screenwriter's Journey to Success'. Mark has been a working screenwriter for the past 20+ years, and imparts invaluable advice to every scribe trying to make it in Hollywood. So far my biggest takeaway from his wisdom is about acting the part - being professional in your screenwriting career, setting aside and protecting your time to write (especially critical for those of us with day jobs - for now), getting the drafts done and completed, holding yourself accountable. I love reading the "war stories" from things that he's been through, it helps you prepare for what lies ahead. I also have to give special mention to Scott Myers' website, Go Into the Story. An absolute treasure trove of interviews, writing tips, scene breakdowns, and industry news - all things Scott keeps up with on a daily basis, which is sort of amazing. When it came time to start my project, I needed to know how best to format elements on the page correctly, by and for Hollywood standards. Enter Dave Trottier. His 'Screenwriter's Bible' is simply, hands-down, the go-to for any and all formatting questions. He goes through every tag, heading, parenthetical, and how to use them in proper context. I'd simply be lost without it. I tend to start my "second job" in the evening, picking up with the latest industry news on Variety.com and Deadline.com, two industry-standard news sites. You have to stay up to date on the latest projects, or at the very least which scripts have been recently purchased or optioned. I have a print subscription to Variety, though it's only weekly and most of the news I'm aware of already by the time it reaches me in Washington State, but it's a good summary and features other great columns. Finally, back to social media: the writing community on Twitter is fairly active, using the hashtags #screenwriting, #scriptchat, and #amwriting. Jeanne and other guest moderators host a one hour weekly tweet-talk called Scriptchat, Sundays at 5pm Pacific. I also find the \screenwriting subreddit on Reddit to be somewhat useful, though it's a lot of egos and people being dicks to each other. So there's that. "To Last Week Tonight."
Heh, just kidding. This is my screenwriting journey. There are many others like it, but this one is mine. And you're all welcome to come along. To provide some background, I've been interested in writing screenplays, and trying to transition to working Hollywood writer, since 2014. I've been working in tech almost my entire life, and I'm just now starting to get serious about the writing, heh, five years later. It's been such a hesitant road for me to actually put something down on paper for all the world to judge. But if I don't at least try, then what good is the actual attempt? It's time. It's time to sack up and push forward. So what you'll get here are a few things: my daily progress on my current project (though not an exact play-by-play, I can't give too much unregistered intellectual property away), as well as musings about the industry and current and historical film reviews, as I screen them. This is a place to talk screenwriting, script development, professional development, as well as any and all films. I'm a movie buff, I've easily seen 2,000+ titles, so I definitely love cinema and look forward to batting ideas back and forth. So what are we waiting for? Let's go! |
AuthorI read. I write. I watch a lot of films. ArchivesCategories |