I've got a possible lead on a possibly interested party for
Blood Relations.
Other than that, not much progress on the feature film front.
In other news, I've been developing a science fiction concept and story which I hadn't yet decided what format to present it as. A feature? A short? A television series?
I worked out the plot, and realized it could go any which way. I asked my friend and fellow screenwriter,
NoPants and she suggested TV series.
I had thought along those lines and had worked out some plots and characters, so I thought, "Okay, I'll do it as a TV show." I wrote some more notes and thought some more. (Sometimes ideas take a while to perk.)
And then I wrote the pilot in two days.
Been polishing here and there, but basically it 'sploded from my head to the page. I kept coming back to the computer every available moment and sometimes for a whole night of moments, because the story wouldn't wait, wouldn't die, and I HAD TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!
I love it when that happens.
So I'm back to the working on ideas phase. Writing outlines for a season of episodes, character sketches, essentially the show bible. Which is sort of backwards, I know.
I know that the characters wouldn't be real enough for me until I saw what they did, heard what they said. Until I could follow them around for a day.
Here's a couple of block quotes from JMS:
Mark Twain said, "Never write a scene until you have finished it to your satisfaction." Meaning in your head. You should always play the scene over and over in your head, filling it out further and further each time, until you can play it like a movie. Then, when it's all worked out, you sit down and transcribe it.
This is kinda how I work. I finish a scene, load up what I need to do in the next scene...and distract myself, here on the boards, doing something else, and gradually filling out the scene over and over until it's crystal clear. Then when you sit down to write it, it goes quickly.
Also helps to type 120 wpm, but the other helps a *lot*.
and...
My structure is always very tight on these things, in the sense that I plan out the basic *spine* of the novel. I know I'm starting at point A, I want to end at point Z, and I want to hit a certain number of spots along the way. Then I start writing. Once I've committed to that STRUCTURE, everything else becomes expendable or fluid. I've had background characters suddenly lurch into the foreground, and major characters (or characters I *thought* would be major) fall into the background. Sometimes, while chugging along the structure highway, I'll see something interesting just off the main road, and I'll go poke around in there for a while.
Basically, I like being *surprised*. And I think, in general, that readers do as well. At no time do I diverge from where I want to go; the spine never alters. But the details are absolutely fluid.
When I write an episode, I do exactly the same thing. I *HATE* to outline; I think it freezes the story too much. So in general I just sit down at the keyboard, knowing the title of the episode, the primary incidents that have to happen, and a few character moments, and start writing. And things suddenly occur to me, I get surprised by moments when the characters turn to me and say, "Hey, stupid, don't do THAT, do *THIS*." And I go where they tell me. The result is that the scripts I write tend to be VERY tight: they go where they're going, and move like a house afire...BUT there's the real sense that ANYdamnedthing can happen at any moment, because I'm not locked in.
My fastest, easiest, most satisfying, most fun scripts I've written have had only the most roughest of outlines. I want to start here, end there, and hit these stops on the way.
The Knight in Question was one of those.
I had 3 characters I knew very well, and I had sort of an idea for a villain and perhaps a smidgen of a plot, little more than "...and somehow they do something really cool, each using their own abilities and [our hero] gets recognition and rewards at the end." That's it.
Along the way, I discovered a villain, some sympathetic henchcreatures, and the plot, and we had a merry romp until the end.
Then, in editing, I could see, "Okay, see, this bit, this was cool, and is very important to the story, but this other bit," I said pulling it out with tweezers - and occasionally, a chainsaw, "that bit didn't work, so it goes." There were plenty of gags I thought of along the way which were funny, but weren't connected with the plot. (The plot, which I discovered at the end, then cut out stuff that didn't belong.).
I have always had JMS's trouble with outlines. It kind of takes the fun away. You've already written it. It's done, right? I'm with the "follow the characters around all day and write down what they do" camp. The stuff I've written based on outlines either varies wildly from the outline, or comes off very stiff.
So what happened? I think I DID write the outline - in my head - I just didn't write it down first. I kept it from myself until I was ready to see it. This is why writing about writing is hard. It's confusing sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time. Okay, I'm going to stop babbling at some point.
So I've got an original pilot spec to send around. I mean, who am I kidding? I've never sold anything. I've written and helped make 22 episodes of a web based series, I've co-written and produced a radio comedy, and I've written a well-loved
Corner Gas spec which won a contest, but was too late to be made into an actual episode. Nuts. So will my show be made? Will my pilot be shot? Probably not, but it makes for a good writing sample. In a recent
Canadian Screenwriter on specs, quite a few of those interviewed said they'd rather read something original from a writer, see their unique voice on the page, rather than do someone else's material, albeit well.
But I'll do all the prep writing anyway, just in case.
Hey, you never know. It could happen.
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