Frenzied Scripting: This Time, I Mean It

So, I mentioned the other day that I'm still hard at work on my semi-failed Script Frenzy piece (A quick review. I went through multiple revisions, broke the 20k mark on several occasions but never managed to put together a finished product. I “won” the Frenzy by stapling together a few different versions into a Frankscript monster but it was, I still feel, a hollow victory.). And, now, I've completed the necessary outlining work to begin my next, and hopefully last, final push to get the damn thing done. It's been a long, slow laborious process, but if there's one thing I've learned from June it's the “screenplays are structure”. You just can't drop into a script and write your way out of it. You need to have a plan, an outline, an idea of how to get from the beginning to an end. I maintain it doesn't have to be concrete but having once again gotten another brilliant idea about how to do my script, I've spent the time making sure I've blocked out all the scenes and twists and turns before I actually started writing them.

The big change of the moment is a drastic overhaul to the beginning of the film. Originally I was going to open with a LoTR-esque historical set-piece, a pivotal battle between good and evil that set the stage, thematically, for the rest of the film. But set several years before it and only loosely connected with the main thrust of events. It might have been a cool scene but it wasn't doing the story any good – it made me rush the rest of Act I, for example. Now, I'm heeding the advice of Mr. Asimov, who I once read suggesting that a writer should start as far along into the story as possible.

It requires some tweaking, though. It marginalizes one of the main villains (I have five. Feature creep in action.), who was supposed to be introduced during that fight. Now, he doesn't appear until the final act. Which, I think, actually works since, if this were a more traditional story, would be the big, bad, evil mastermind behind all the ills befalling our heroes. This isn't exactly the typical story, though, and he's much more reacting to events rather than controlling them, so I kinda like that he's kept a mysterious, off-stage presence for much of the film. And when he shows up he should very much be playing against type – I do so love playing with audience expectations.

But, on the plus side, moving the opening of the story up allows me to expand the role of another villain and make them much more central to the story. Much more threatening, too.

And, I think, the story benefits from starting at a place other than a big huge set piece. It's, ultimately, a very human story about very human people so it needs to start on a smaller, more personal level. Which is what it does now. And, having sketched out the flow of the entire story, I'm pretty sure it's much stronger for it.

It's all outlined out, all sketched out. And I've thought my way through most of the plot holes and snares, figured out the motivations and the mechanics of how to get from scene to scene. Now I just have to start over from Act I, Scene I and work my way forward. I think, even working moderately hard at it, in about a week or so, I can crank it out. Definitely by month's end. So, expect some more updates about that progress to follow.

Probably some excerpts, too. I haven't written much at the moment, beyond some snippets that I didn't want to disappear into the black hole at the center of my memory. None of which is particularly good and probably won't survive the rewrite. My favorite of the bunch is this little bit from a character called the Dollmage (Don't ask.), who's a hoot to write:

DOLLMAGE

You dance, too!

MAGE

Thank you but no.

DOLLMAGE

You're boring.

MAGE

Yes, well...

DOLLMAGE

Stop boring me or I shall be cross with you.

It's funny because she's completely crazy, you see. Or, actually, you probably don't. Oh well, the Dollmage is one of those characters that's taken on a life of their own. She was originally going to be a bit part but she's such a little scene stealer that I just had to write her into a much bigger role. Not the one I was talking about earlier, that's another guy. I think, to the average viewer, a little of her is going to go a long way because she's like Shirley Temple crossed with Jeffery Dahmer. But that little bit just captures her character - that of a particularly sharp kind of innocent nastiness - pretty well. Did I mention she's, like, 8? No, well, that 's kind of an important point...