The Writing Week (Vol. 6) part 280 - Prey to Patience

Patience is said to be a virtue, and for writers, it is a necessity. Nothing happens overnight. Even "overnight sensations" have taken years to develop and achieve success. When we had our freshman orientation at NYU, the League's instructors told us not to plan on selling anything until we were at least 35. I didn't know it at the time, but they were planting the all important seed - patience, my friends; it's all about patience.

There are two types of waiting that befall writers. There's waiting on one's self (waiting to develop that next project or complete that draft or edit the script). This waiting is conquerable; all you need to do to overcome it is write, work, drive yourself to finish. Writer's block is a part of this waiting, a threat to productivity, but it can be vanquished. Self-waiting (also called "procrastinating") is sometimes necessary, in the case of taking a breather between projects or in order to gear up for a major rewrite. Sometimes, it stems from being dry or in a rut or simply unmotivated. Whatever the cause, self-waiting is something we writers control. We can turn the switch on and off when we want. 

The second form of waiting, the waiting that I loathe, is waiting on others. If you've ever asked a friend or colleague to read a script, you know this waiting. If you've sent out query letters (read: emails), you may have knows this waiting for three or six month increments. And, if you've been fortunate enough to get notice from an agent/producer/manager, you have further experienced this type of waiting. With my post-Apocalyptic spec, I waited about four months between my initial querying and landing a manager. I then waited another four months for that manager to get his crap together as he jumped jobs (twice) and neglected to inform me of where he'd gone. Then, I got a new team, and collectively, we re-worked the script and waited another six months to attract a bigger producer. More rewrites followed (for a year), and then we waited for a mega-producer to attach him/her self to the project. When that didn't happen, we waited for buyers to cough up money. I'm still waiting on that (though, with zero expectations that script will ever sell.)

In the midst of all that waiting - and I certainly don't mean to sound bitter; I'm actually not at all, mind you - I remained productive. I churned out the first drafts of a couple scripts that weren't quite right or weren't working. Then, about a year and a half ago, the producer we had attached after the six month waiting stint called and offered me a spec writing job. I jumped on it, and it has since become known here as the sci-fi collaboration. For eighteen months, I worked and reworked it with my writing partner. Finally, about a month ago, we settled on a draft both of us liked a lot. We sent it to his manager, who also liked it, but who had concerned that it was becoming too similar to something already in development. Unfortunately for us, the potentially competing picture is shrouded in secrecy, so - for the pas three weeks - we have been waiting to see if anyone can find out any more about it. More waiting, and not the self-driven kind.

Yesterday, I decided to be proactive when waiting on others. I emailed my collaborator and asked him if he thought it was worth me reaching out to my agent about the script. I haven't been in touch with my agent in nearly three years, because I haven't had a product ready for him. I'll admit that part of my desire to reach out was to plant myself back on his radar. Part, obviously, is to further our script and see if he has connections and insight that my collaborator's team doesn't yet. He responded, and I have sent him the script. Sure, I'm still waiting, but with another possible opportunity on the table.

Speaking of waiting, a couple months back, I wrote a children's picture story book. A friend in publishing took a look, loved it, and gave me notes. I shortened it, per her suggestions, reworked it a bit, and made it even more visually stimulating. I sent it back to her... and waited. Unfortunately, my friend got intermittently ill and busy, and my book slid to the back burner. (I can't fault her at all, as I've done this with others' work in the past, too, as much as I am disappointed to admit it.) Still, I was waiting. She had told me she could connect me with literary agents, and yet, the ball wasn't rolling. Through my work in theatre here in NYC, I had access to children's theatre makers with contacts at agencies repping the exact kind of work I had produced. After deciding I was done idly waiting, I became proactive again. I sent my other connection an email, and by that afternoon (far as I know), my book was off via email to his agent contact. I'm waiting on a response from that, but at least I have another ball up in the air and can dispense with the wringing unease of another potential in falling by the wayside.

My friends, you, too, will find yourself waiting while playing this game. It's all about how you spend your time that counts. 

The Writing Week (Vol. 5) part 235 - Stuck in the Muck

Curse you, Act Three! Two projects I'm working on this month, and on both of them I slammed head first into a very big and seemingly insurmountable wall after wrapping Act Two. The torture! Three days spent staring at a blinking cursor on the demon thriller, writing a couple lines for some throwaway description, only to follow it up with the ever-depressing...


BEAT HERE?

...as my next slugg line. From page 90 on, my script looks like a dalmatian. Every other page is dotted with bolded question marks and stopgaps to remind me to come back and focus attention on them. On Saturday morning, I churned out 6 rapid fire, usable pages. On Sunday, I scraped together 2. Monday saw 1, which I know is going to get deleted right off, and I think I got through  3 on Tuesday. 


It's not so much the low page count that irks me, though, as it is the fact that Act Three should write itself by this point. When Act Three is on the fritz, the problem is inevitably embedded in Act One. There are three other BEAT placeholders throughout the earlier portion of the script, and I have a very good feeling that some B or C story should fill those holes. More so, I know that whatever goes into those beats will lead to a successful third act. I hate adding what I feel are gratuitous sequences or even scenes, though. "Why is this in here? It's not furthering the plot." Breaking up beats isn't a sufficient answer, but if your ending's not working, you can bet that you're missing something earlier on.


There was some good to come out of the week, though. I "finished" Act Two for the demon thriller (finished is a relative term, since I know I'll have to do rewrites), so even though I'm kind of stuck now, I'm about 10 pages out from the end and I have almost a week in which to finish it. Yay for that. Also, I finally got the revised outline to my collaborator on the sci-fi project. I kept hitting the same late Act Two into Act Three obstacles with that project, but I think I sort of came upon a solution this week. We'll see what my writing partner says. And, if nothing else, that's one project temporarily off my desk, which frees me up for undivided focus on the intractable demon thriller for the remainder of the 30 Day Screenplay Challenge. 

The Writing Week (Vol. 5) part 210 - Talking Helps

Despite the fact that no member of The League had any pages to present at this month's meeting, we made it a point to remain on track and gather last Tuesday anyway. (I highly recommend that any group do this; sticking to the schedule - even when there are no physical pages to talk about, is a great way to maintain order and regularity, both as a group and as individual writers.) Surprisingly - or perhaps not so - it was actually one of our more productive meetings.


We went around, BSing for a long time, as is allowed. When we meet, everyone brings some food (mainly appetizer type things) and beer or wine for anyone drinking. We meet at someone's apartment - the same one, not on a rotating basis. It's a good time for friends to gather who might not otherwise see each other too often; it's also a laid back setting, which makes giving and getting notes comfortable and easy.


Once the snacking and catching up is done, it's down to business time. Normally, if there are pages on the docket, we'll start with whoever submitted first and go from there. Someone will say, "ok, you're up, Zach" (if I was the first to send, that is), and then the conversation kicks off. Each person receives however much time is necessary for everyone to get their opinions out. This usually takes about an hour per note-recipient, sometimes more if there is only one project on the table.


This past week, since there weren't pages, we just went around the circle and solicited updates from everyone one-by-one. Some people didn't have too much to say, "I'm working on this or that, but I'm not too far along. Here's a basic idea, but I hope to have an outline out by the next meeting." Others, like Jon and myself, were looking for a bit more in-depth analysis on our projects. I was still a bit stalled on my demon thriller, so I asked the group to help me talk through it a bit. 


I have to say, what I got was really valuable. I was looking for feedback on some of the bigger and more important rules of the world and the characters' motivations. By going around the circle after I explained briefly what I was looking for, the group was really able to weigh in and help me come up with some great solutions. I think I'm at a much better place now than I was before the meeting, which is a great feeling. If you're ever stuck, or if no one in your group has any pages, I genuinely advocate getting a meeting together anyway. Sometimes spitballing is the best remedy for writers block.


For now, though, I'm gearing up to head up to the Bocas del Toro region of Panama for some (hopefully) quality beach - and brainstorming - time.


Adios, amigos.

The Writing Week (Vol. 3) part 147 - A Story Structure Tip

Pacing is an extremely important part of writing. Solid pacing - knowing when big beats come, where the audience needs a short break, where all the highs and lows come - is an incredibly difficult thing to get down. It can take years of writing and many, many drafts of many scripts. I know I don't always have great pacing in my stuff, especially in first and second (and third) drafts. Effective pacing, however, will not only keep your audience engaged throughout, it will disperse information when necessary and - one of the first crucial steps in the process from page to screen for any script - keep your readers engaged.

When I write, because I work on so many action scripts these days, I like to outline before I start writing actual pages. This outline is always flexible, and the events, dialogue, and information within each scene often change from outline to page. What tends to remain more or less constant, though, is the structure - an informational and dialogue heavy scene here, followed by some action, followed by more info, and then, finally, an even bigger action beat. That is to say, the pacing remains the same, even if the content of the actual scenes does not. 

Pacing, though, also means something else to me. Rather, 'pace' does. I hit my writing stride, and I don't want to lose or lessen my pace. I'm churning out the pages, really getting into the meat of the story, and the last thing I want to do is encounter that dastardly League foe, Writer's Block. Sometimes, though, I know that I have Scene A just about completed, and I know exactly what Scene C will be (and sometimes even how long it will be), but I have no idea what Scene B is that connects them. Instead of losing a half hour or more - and, more importantly, the pace that I've been working at - trying to figure out what the bridge between them is, I skip ahead to the next scene. 

Writing out of order can be intimidating. I didn't used to like to do it at all. I know that some very successful writers love it - write the scenes as they come to them and then cue card them into place like a puzzle. That's not really my style. I truly believe that one scene informs the next, even if that's not immediately apparent from what's in them. Still, sometimes a writing streak is just too good to break up for a missing beat. in those cases, I bold the slugg line for the scene that needs another beat before it. Doing this reminds me that there's a missing jump before that scene, which I need to come back to. This can be as simple as two scenes featuring a large jump in time, which organically need something else to bridge the gap. It could be two scene with the same character, which don't naturally flow into one another. It can be any number of things. After I get my draft completed, I go back and look for these bolded slugg lines - usually two or three of them. I check those against the information that I know is missing from the script, bits of dialogue or action that inform the resolution, and see how and where they can be incorporated. I often find that, in the madness of writing, I left out something simple but crucial, and one of those jumped beats is the perfect place for it.

Torn

Lately I’ve been trudging through one of my worst writing slumps yet. It’s the kind of slump that forces you to sit in front of the computer for hours on end without banging out a meaningful sentence. Stretch that over a period of 3-4 weeks and you know what I’m going through. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the last bad slump I had was around this time last year, which happens to be one of the busiest stretches for me at work. It’s tough enough to get the pages flowing when you’re mentally exhausted by the time you sit at your computer, but it’s another thing when you’re mentally exhausted and you don’t know which of your ideas you should be working on.

I don’t have a manager just yet to tell me “That idea is great and it’s got current appeal. You should work on that now, I know just the person who would be looking for it.” It’s up to me to reach in and grab one of my ideas, which seem to be constantly shifting their order of potential and priority. Right now I’m torn between writing what I want to write and writing what I need to write. In one hand I have several ideas that are more high concept and big budget in nature. These are the kinds of scripts that I enjoy writing most, especially if I’ve got one that’s historical in nature. They’re my “want to” scripts. In the other hand I have a series of script ideas that are more low budget and contemporary. These are the scripts that I feel like I need to write, largely because they balance out my body of work. Of my scripts that are most industry ready, they are definitely expensive, hard sells. Another reason why I feel like I need to write some of these smaller scripts is that the stories are more personal in nature. There’s more opportunity for me to put first hand emotional experience into the characters in these stories than in the bigger, high concept pieces.

I suppose it could always be worse. I could not even have an idea to choose from. Instead, I have several ideas that I feel are all above average. I just keep going back and forth, struggling through a few pages of one script before having a mini revelation and deciding that the other project is what I should be struggling through. How do you gain momentum when you keep switching creative vehicles? I feel like ultimately I’ll have to abandon one idea and focus my limited energies on the other until things improve and the slump lifts, but there’s still the question as to which one. I’m curious as to what some of you might think of a situation like this.

If you’ve got a distinctly character driven story and a distinctly concept driven story, is there ever one of the two that’s the safest bet? I know that can depend on so many things, but let’s enter the realm of fantasy and say you’ve got the best concept driven story ever and the best character driven story ever, but you can only do one. Which would you choose?