Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off to Work We Go....

Some time back in March or April I was suddenly inspired to write a fantasy romance action movie. My main goal was to write something that'll appeal to the pre-teen/ teen girls. I wanted to create the same feeling girls get after seeing Kate & Leopold, except instead of "sigh...I want a 19th century Duke as a boyfriend", change that to "sigh...I want a thief from a distant land as a boyfriend."

Both the rough draft and first draft got very positive response from my female readers, but they also pointed out that it's a total mess. The structure was in shambles, lots of things didn't make sense. I got some bones but didn't have the flesh. But, through the murky disorderly script, they saw something they liked. Some scenes created the reaction I wanted. That was really all that mattered, since I don't mind fixing up a script as long as it has appeals. The worst that can happen is to write a perfect script, and no one wants to read it. Or just no one wants to your script, period.

The next draft I clarified a lot more of the world. Like writing any fantasy, I pulled out my hair trying to figure out how to get the logic in my head to make sense on page. Or figure out which of the logic in my head doesn't actually make logic sense. I wanted to create a Greek pantheon universe, where the people don't view the gods and rituals as a "religion" but as a way of life. Even after setting up clearer rules and putting in the god's story, my fellow leagues still pointed out a lot of things that didn't make sense, but more than that, I had to fix up my structure. The inciting incident was happening on page 50. Disaster.

I am now on the third draft of the script, and it seems to be the only thing that's going well currently in my life. The inciting incident is happening on pg 15. The end of first act at pg 37. Much closer to the mark. I've really strengthened my antagonists, and I have a clear view of where is this going scene by scene (for the next 30 pages anyway...). On the other hand, I look back and realize that, much of the rough draft is gone. The scenes that I originally wrote for the squeal factor are almost all tossed out to make way for plot-focused scenes. That, or maybe there're still there, I just no longer see it objectively. (I have a bad habit of hating all my jokes after reading it 3 times.) Sometimes I'm afraid that while making it a clearer, better, more professional script, I'm also butchering it. And maybe, the 4th or 5th draft what I have to do is to go back to the very beginning, the original goal, and have my focus for that draft be to make it young and fun again. Not that, er, it's not young and fun now.

The Writing Week part 33

I did something this week, which I’m not sure how I feel about. Long story short, a literary manager in L.A. had contacted the League a while back. I sent him my “Sin City style” spec in response to his query, and he claimed to really like it. Flash forward about six months, and nothing really came of it. Since a few of us are on the verge of sending out queries, I figured I’d drop him a line, a sort of pre-query burst query to someone I already have a bit of history with. So, Wednesday of last week – following a League meeting that left me feeling pretty comfortable with the state of my post-Apocalyptic spec – I let him know I had another script. He asked me to send it over.

While I say that I left our last League meeting feeling good about my script, that does not mean that there was nothing left to be done on it. There were some (mostly minor) rewrites that I had to do. There was no timeline for contacting this manager, but for some reason, I was itching to drop him a line as soon as I could. After sending him the email on Wednesday, and getting such a rapid response from him, I felt obligated to get him the material ASAP. That is why Wednesday night I worked for nearly 4 straight hours toughing up my script. It is also why I woke up and spent another hour doing tweaks before work on Thursday.

All told, I think that the end result was successful. My hesitation to feel 100% comfortable with it, though, comes from the last minute nature with which I did the revisions. Normally, I like to be able to re-read every draft I write from start to finish, no matter how little has been changed. I didn’t get to do that this time, and even though I read the specific scenes I had changed a half dozen times apiece, I still went to work on Thursday feeling as though I’d missed something. I don’t know that anything actually did escape me, but my inability to read all 105 pages straight through this time unsettled me. It still does a bit.

At any rate, we’ll see what happens. This week will be dedicated to going through the post-Apocalyptic spec once more and writing short horror scripts. For anyone interested, visit http://mandy.com/1/jobs3.cfm?v=29272782 to find out a bit more about Hotel Guignol, a web-based series, akin to The Twilight Zone, that needs 5-10 minute horror shorts set in a hotel room. It could be good short screenplay writing practice, as well as a fun way to pick up 100 bucks.

Woody Weekend

Woody Allen's annual new film opens this weekend. The reviews I've seen so far for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" all seem to be relatively positive thus far, but I'm still a bit skeptical. His new movies movies have always been an annual outing for me, but they've become more and more of a chore. I have to see them, even if they'll inevitably disappoint. The buzz around this new one, though... I hope it's true. I guess I'll know when I get around to seeing it this week. Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz will help.


I hope I'm posing for photos like that when I'm his age. Hell, I'd take now, even.

A few links for this Woody Weekend (heh, heh):

Scott Tobias posted a recent interview he conducted with Woody Allen this week.

I know there are a few die-hard Woody fans (heh, heh) in our audience and in the league. (Backer - are you out there?) For those of you who aren't, here's a pretty good starting point:The Onion's Primer to the Woody Allen canon.

And a few promising reviews of the new movie: The AVClub, Time Out New York, The New York Times, and USA Today.


I'm surprised how many critics have danced around the Johansson/Cruz "lesbian liplock" (thank you, Page Six), considering all the hub-bub there was around it earlier this year. At the very least, dear readers, you know I'LL be blogging about it.

On the pointless remake front...

Hey, it's been a while since Hollywood had pointlessly retreaded old ground, and we've got a week to go before the next big, pointless remake hits theaters. In case you're feeling like you're having withdrawal:

MTV is remaking The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Why? Whyyyyyyyy?



Anyone wanna take guesses now for the casting?

Trailer Trash VII: Night of a Thousand Cats (1972)

"When the cats are hungry, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"



This is one of the many "animals gone bad" horror movies I picked up during my VHS-collecting days. These genre seemed to really blow up in the wake of Hitchcock's The Birds and by the end of the 1970s it seems like humanity was wiped out by everything from chimpanzees to frogs to... earthworms. But more on those in future posts.

Obviously the highlight of this trailer is the "free burial insurance" they offer the audience right at the end. I know that's a cheesy gimmick, but what if someone DID die during the screening? (Someone REALLY afraid of tabby cats, of course.) Would the theater be legally obligated to bury them? Any lawyers should feel free to chime in here.

Other golden moments:

At 0:04 - That's a LOT of cats in that there tiny cage. If this movie were to be shot today, they would probably have to CGI them all.
At 0:27 - How long does this lady have to stare at severed heads before she screams?

Watching this trailer, can anyone guess how the movie ends? It's obvious from the minute and a half we see here.

(Belated) Competition Re-cap

Since this site is about our climb up the screenwriting ladder, from the ground up, it's only fair that we document our lack of success, as well as our successes. As you have probably read, most of us tried our hands at the competition circuit this year. Three of us entered the Scriptapalooza Screenplay Competition, and four of us entered the PAGE International Screenplay Competition. While scriptapalooza is a lump competition, PAGE is divided into genres; Onyx submitted his historical script; Zombie sent into the comedy category; DOA entered her thriller, and I was Mr. Action/Adventure. July and August was results months.

The first round of results brought good news; all four of us in PAGE advanced to the quarter-finals. Of 3,865 scripts, we had all made the top 25% - impressive, but to be honest, I think we all felt entitled to that. We didn't want to jinx ourselves, but after our four years of formal training and our continued writing since, I don't think any of us saw the results as a surprise.

Next, though, came a big hit. Not one of us advanced in Scriptapalooza. Before I go on, I should mention that we had a feeling (correctly, it turns out) that Scriptapalooza, without its genre breakdowns, would be more of an uphill battle. Of nearly 4,400 scripts, just barely the top 9% advanced. OK - we weren't in the top 9%. Unfortunately, we had no way of knowing where we stood. Were we in the top 15? The top 25? No way to tell. Good thing we were still in PAGE, at least.

For a bit. PAGE announced their semi-finalists not long after Scriptapalooza's news came out. Onyx and I were actually on our way to D.C. that weekend. We both got out of work early and were hoping to catch a 4PM bus. I'd asked Zombie to text me if word came in after 3PM, when Onyx and I left for the bus. At 3:06, my phone dinged. Results were in. After bumbling on the sidewalk for a minute, trying to decide whether we had to know right then or if we could wait an entire bus ride from NYC to D.C., Onyx and I decided to head back to my office and see if we'd made it. Again, disappointment across the board. Not one familiar name popped up. C'est la vie.

While we were on the bus, Zombie actually shot me another message, saying that one of the guys who had advanced in Onyx's historical category had actually won first place in another competition a year earlier. That got me thinking: what do the competitions accomplish? In theory, they can earn a writer representation or a deal. In practice, it seems that so few of the winners get anywhere with their scripts because of the competitions, and those that do most often find success with small companies based in Europe or elsewhere. I know I have no right to be picky at this point, but the truth is that the magnitude of the script I'd submitted was such that I don't think I would have felt comfortable with a small, Eastern European company I'd never heard of producing it for a couple million dollars. I'd submitted a blockbuster, a behemoth of an action movie the likes of something Warner Brothers would do.

We ended the competitions feeling a bit down, a bit turned off to the whole process. Then, came one last email. PAGE informed all contestants that the competition was extremely close this year, and a tie-breaker round had been used. Ok, fine. Well, it turns out that DOA, Onyx, and I had made it to that round, and though we didn't advance, we were informed of the strength of our scripts and urged to refine and keep submitting them places. It actually took me some time to decide how I felt about knowing that. One the one hand, it was solid reassurance that the script I'd worked on for a year and a half was not complete crap. On the other hand, the script wasn't good enough to move forward, and I wanted to know why. Of course, that information didn't come.

In the end, I decided to feel good about my script, rather than ruin myself wondering why it didn't go further. Success in the competition circuit, much like finding an agent or a producer, is probably dependent upon luck - at least after a certain point. Maybe we got a judge who just wasn't into our stuff, or not digging it that day, or just in a foul mood. Maybe we had one typo, whereas the competition had zero. Maybe it just wasn't our day. Maybe we have work yet to do. At the end of the day, though I didn't win either competition, I wouldn't say I failed. I don't think any of us did. And we're certainly not giving up. The climb continues.

4 Quadrants of Growth

Working at a small movie distribution company in the less-than-usual nonsense New York, I don't really get much big company pep talk. I do, however, have them relayed to me through my sister. One snippet that really caught my attention was the Quadrants of Growth (or something like that). Here's how it goes: you start out Unconsciously Incompetent (1), and move to Consciously Incompetent (2), then (hopefully eventually) move to to Consciously Competent (3), and finally one day you (will hopefully) be Unconsciously Competent (4).

The example given is driving. You start out as a kid sitting on your dad's lap turning the steering wheel and thinking you can totally do this. That's Unconsciously Incompetent (1). Then come 16 and first few days at driving school, you realize, wow, I totally suck, and become Consciously aware of your Incompetency (2). Because of this, you start practicing, and with hard work you become Consciously Competent (3) where you can actually drive well. But only when you pay attention and not be stupid and cocky. This is why there are so many teen driving accidents. Then over the years, driving well (should technically) become a second nature and you are Unconsciously Competent (4). Congratulations.

If you don't factor in the talent limitation and go for the be-all-you-can-be view, this quadrants can easily be applied to writing. Everyone who writes continually are moving their way through the 4 quadrants. The question is, where are you? The thought deeply bothers me. There are time which I feel I'm at Consciously Incompetent (2) moving toward Consciously Competent (3). During my more cocky moments I feel I'm already at Consciously Competent (3), and soon I'll become Unconsciously Competent (4). This is usually when I finish a draft (usually the first draft) and feel, hell yeah, this rocks! Give it 2 drafts and I'll be done ...Then the first round of critique comes around and I go home thinking, wow, I'm probably still Unconsciously Incompetent (1), moving to being consciously aware that I REALLY GOT TO STEP UP MY GAME. After sleeping on the comments, I then usually look back on the script and think, it wasn't bad, it just wasn't good enough. Yet. Hopefully. Maybe. Please?

The other question is, how long before I become Unconsciously Competent (4). There are days and nights which I wave my fist at the sky and think (due to poor sound proofing) I WILL BE GOOD DAMN IT! But when? 30? 40? 50? The number keep growing. I don't mind hard work, but traveling two-steps-forward-one-step-back is a honest but slow journey. A friend recently told me that she does believe that my writing has improved. But how much? An inch? A pound? If 1 is for monkies at typewriters and 100 is for the Bible/Shakespeare/What-Will-You, where am I? Meanwhile, I guess there's nothing to do but to keep trucking along. At the very least, I got my inciting incident happening at page 15 this time. I can still hear Zombie cheering at the news.