Script Frenzy: Talking Myself Into It

As I said last night, I'm down to three script ideas and I'm trying to decide between them. Let me make the case for my current favorite - the one I'm calling “First Kiss”.

Basically it's a summer, coming of age kind of movie. Something like the Barry Levinson trio of Baltimore films or Christmas Story, among others. Set in a particular time, a particular place, and less of a story than a series character moments and vignettes. It's not a plot heavy, action driven story, in other words, so much as a collection of anecdotes strung together by a unifying theme. Taken together they add up to that elusive something more.

Which I think is going to work very well for me. I've never written a script (Well, a completed one. I've made a couple false starts this month for the experience.), after all, and I'm not exactly practiced with the form. This kind of movie relies less on hitting the plot points and more on establishing character through the subtle moments. Something I think I'm not too bad at. But it also means I don't have to intricately plot things out and go from point A to B to C to D. Instead, I can hop around and work on the bits I want, craft things scene by scene, and then plug them together – maybe changing a detail here or there – into a coherent whole. That sounds a lot like my preferred style of writing. And there are some other elements that should play to my strengths as well. So, from a logistical standpoint – a “can I actually write this” perspective – I think I'm solid.

It's also the script outline I've put the most work into. I haven't broken the rules by writing anything out but I've been steadily collecting ideas for scenes and arcs, as well as fleshing out character bios, and I have a pretty healthy document to work from. Always a plus. And the main character is one I've been meaning to use for a while – he comes from a short story I've never managed to write satisfactorily about a too-smart-for-his-own-good kid with a driver's permit backing into his principal's car (True story. Although it was actually the principal from my grade school.). Just haven't been able to get the tone right but I've developed that character and his quirks pretty well, I think. For this story, I'd be shifting his age downwards, and maybe throwing in an older brother learning to drive as a sidestory just so I can get that crash in there but it means I have a character ready to build around. So, from a preparation standpoint, I'm on solid ground.

As for what the movie's actually about, well, it's about a time and a place and how that affects the characters who'll be bouncing around it. It's about growing up and growing out and the sort of mundane adventures that entails. Since I'm still in that “write what you're familiar with” mindset (I don't believe you actually have to be intimately familiar with a subject, there's research and extrapolation that allow you to speak authoritatively to whatever you put your mind to, but it's easier if it's something you've personally had some experience. And it certainly helps if you're unsure about what to write.) so, for me, that's the suburban, metro Detroit area some time in the 90s. That's, you know, where I grew up and where I came of age so I have plenty of material to draw on. I figure I have plenty of material to draw on from my wacky family to flesh out a script, if I run out of ideas spun whole cloth from my own imagination. It's not exactly groundbreaking, breathtaking, boundary-shifting stuff but, given how I normally let my ambition get the better of me, I want to keep my idea basic and simple. Maybe the script will grow into something amazing but I want it to start from manageable seeds. So, storywise, I think I'm good. It'll take some research to get the details right but I like the topic and I think it can be interesting.

Now, just because I'm trying to keep things simple doesn't mean I'm not going to challenge myself. I'm the kind of writer, the kind of person, who likes to push my boundaries whenever I can. To test myself by doing something I've never done, trying something I might never have considered, especially when working on a project like this. Just so even if it blows up in my face, I'll have some valuable experience for the next time around – even if it's only realizing what I can't do next time. Otherwise, I get bored and listless pretty quickly. So, here, to keep myself interested, I'm going to do something I don't normally do much of and that's write about children. Really, write focused on children or young teenagers, which from my advanced years is pretty much the same thing. It's a task I've always considered very difficult and normally avoid. But it's the reason I want a youngish central character, to force me to deal with and explore the story from the perspective of someone so young and inexperienced. I took a writing class or two, once, with someone who liked to write almost exclusively from the perspective of children and she said she did it because it's hard to be naïve when you have the power of the author behind you. But, that sense of naiveté is, in a lot of ways, a good method of keeping your themes at the level of subtext rather than putting up giant neon signs and screaming them at your readers. It's a good exercise in being subtle, in so many words, and that's something I'd like to work on. Combined with working in an unfamiliar format I think I have a good set challenges ahead of me.

There are, of course, a few flaws. Although I have a lot of preplanning done, this story is essentially a big bundle of interlocking parts. Being able to work in discrete units might help me to make it through the month but it could also turn into an incoherent jumbled mass that spins hopelessly out of control as I add more and more to it. Given my tendencies ot might be better to have a more planned out script where I can work on taking things away.

Because it's going to be set in, basically, my youth, it's going to be a very personal movie. It might lead to rehashing and exploring details that I might not want to. Or not want to show to anyone who might recognize them, anyway. I don't want to write a roman a clef. But I do want to use that setting because it's one that resonates with me, if no one else.

And, although I have some idea of what I'm getting into, I haven't quite nailed down all the details yet. I'm not sure exactly what year it's going to take place, for example. And that would be an important point, wouldn't it? I originally wanted to tell a story about the closing of Tiger Stadium – about the melancholy transition from the comfortable past into the uncertain future - but that doesn't happen until 98~99. And that's a bit late because I was out of my teens by then (If not adolescence) and it also brings in things like internet messaging and cellphones and such that I'd like to keep away from, lest I spend half the film indulging my technology fetish – they're way too common to ignore by then. In the middle of the decade, I could replace the Tigers subplot with one about the Wings. Either how they were stunned in the Finals following the strike shortened '95 season or by the Avalanche in '96 or maybe the exaltation when they finally broke through in '97. Certainly fertile ground for a story but, really, I've used it as a backdrop for others already. And switching from baseball to hockey means I lose both the pastoral nature of the “national pastime” and the FLCL inspired metaphor of “swinging the bat”. That theme of sexual awakening is important since this is a film revolving around a boy getting his first kiss. Earlier in the decade you have the last gasp of the Tigers before they fell into disrepair – you get Cecil Fielder and the fading ghosts of the Roar of '84 – but that also puts the setting perilously close to the first Gulf War. It'd be hard to ignore that given recent events but I don't want to make war a central theme – this is a story about innocence, first and foremost. Much earlier I don't want to go, although there are the Bad Boys in 89~90. But, there, like with hockey, the season ends well before the summer and I'd like that underlying sports metaphor to carry throughout the film. Sigh, I think I have some more thinking and researching to do. Although....you know, I just thought of something in regards to the Gulf War. Another possible story arc that fits in with another sidestory I'd planned to include.

I need to go write that down before I forget it. But, before I go, I think that although it's not the perfect idea and I'm still somewhat skeptical that it's probably as good as I'm going to have by the end of the day. After all, if something better comes to mind, I can always drop this story and work on that. But looking over the pros and cons, I think it's a strong contender that should play to my strengths. And there's no obvious, deal-breaking flaw, just some pre-Frenzy jitters about things that might go wrong and problems I might not be able to solve. Yeah, okay, I'm sold.