Pre ScriptFrenzy Frenzy

On By C. L. BlackeIn ScreenwritingLeave a comment

If you’ve ever tried to write a 90 page script or a 50,000 word novel from conception to completion in 30 days, you’re just as crazy as me. What I’ve found from multiple attempts is that it can’t be done. At least, not with anything worth a damn at the end of the month. I’ve read different blogs and posts by participants that all say the same thing: they went off on tangents just to hit the word count. They wrote characters who had no purpose, they wrote plots that led nowhere, and they often wrote a mess that was not even rewritable let alone revisable when they were done because they did not want to fail.

What is the purpose of this? Isn’t the point of writing to express yourself in some way? And hopefully to become published? Do we really have time to write a bunch of crap that is basically useless and would take way more effort to fix than to just spend quality time writing quality prose? Granted the allure of finishing a feature-length screenplay or a novel is enticing especially if, like me, it takes you years to complete one, but I find ScriptFrenzy and NaNoWriMo incredibly stressful. I blame that on poor planning. (Plus the fact that I always start late anyway.)

Last year, I tried to participate in ScriptFrenzy by writing a screenplay I had conceived of at age 11. The only problem was, I had tons of research to do for it because obviously it had changed in concept in some ways, and I labored over the opening scene for about three weeks until I decided that it just wasn’t gonna happen.  Had I taken the time to get all of my pre-writing done ahead of time, I might have had a better shot.

Likewise, I tried my hand at NaNoWriMo one year. I’m used to writing novels, so I didn’t think it would be that bad. And although I tend to write without a whole lot of focus, I do spend much of my time editing as I write, which does not work well with time constraints. It could take me an entire weekend to write one chapter of 7-10 pages. But it’s a damn good chapter.

So the advent of 2012’s ScriptFrenzy is almost upon us. (It starts on April 1st in case you’re wondering.) And I vow to complete a screenplay based on my WoW character’s secret life. (If you’re interested in what this entails, follow my blog at www.rumertales.wordpress.com) But in order to complete this insane quest, I’m going to spend the month of March doing all my pre-writing exercises. And I’m going to share them with you, so you too can succeed at ScriptFrenzy.

I know what you’re thinking. “Why should I take advice from this nobody? She can’t even finish a screenplay in 30 days?” Well, I’ll tell you. I am somewhat adept at the art of screenwriting. I’ve studied it at UCLA and I’ve taught Introduction to Screenwriting courses at Westfield State University. I even presented my Capstone seminar on screenwriting.

So there you have it. I’m an expert and you should listen to me.

For the next four weeks, I’ll be posting a series of exercises meant to focus your ideas into a cohesive and fluid storyline. You’ll learn how to write a premise and create a beat sheet, how to create characters and scenes, and how to structure your story using the ten elements of screenwriting.

And if you don’t want to listen to me, you should listen to this guy: Robert McKee, screenwriting guru and author of Story. http://www.mckeestore.com/Robert-McKees-book-STORY_p_11.html

I can’t promise anything, but if you join me, you might just finish that script after all!

Dreamweaver

On By C. L. BlackeIn Craft WorkLeave a comment

Even in my dreams I like to control things because, last night while in one, I thought up an idea for an adult novel. I know, what the hell do I know about being an adult let alone writing for them. But it seemed kind of cool and I ran with it. Three women, all friends and all with their own expertise, run a business. The business happens to be procuring real estate for vacation homes. One woman is an expert in real estate, another in travel, and the third in design or something. Clients would approach them to find and decorate a property overseas.

So it wasn’t exactly thrilling.

My brain then transformed the idea into three elderly women in the jewelry business who had their own reality show. Two very stark and emaciated women enter the shop looking for jewelry to complete their outfits of sheer belly dance choli tops and harem pants. Neither woman had ever worn anything that was related to monotheism.

I can’t make up this stuff.

But even when I awoke, I thought there might be something to my original vision of three friends in some kind of cool business together. What the plot could be, I have no idea.

Coincidentally, my friend relayed a dream she had of us about to fight high school zombies until she becomes scared and runs away leaving me to kill them all myself. Now this is a story! But not one I’m going to write.

These thoughts of dreams led me to come up with the writing exercise I’m sharing here.

Take one of your dreams and write about it. The homework I gave my friend, who is distraught over her fear of zombies, was to rewrite the dream on paper. I told her she could be scared and run away, but she must write it into the story that she returns to help me kill all the zombies, and we are victorious.

The dream of my designing women is a bit harder to work with because nothing much happened, but I still think there might be something to these characters if I could put them into action.

You never know, one of your dreams may end up being the next vampire cult phenomenon.

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest

On By C. L. BlackeIn Craft Work1 Comment

So there’s a contest going on hosted by Amazon to find new voices in fiction. http://www.amazon.com/b?node=332264011

There are two categories: General Fiction and YA Fiction. Luckily, I happen to write in the latter category, so I’ve decided to enter.

The title of my novel. Image stolen from the band of the same name's website.

Unfortunately, after revisiting the novel I wanted to use, I realize it kind of sucks. Oh, I used to think it was all that. In fact, it was the greatest thing I’d ever written and couldn’t possibly ever write anything better. What an idiot.

I had shopped it around, got several rejections, and a handwritten note from one of the editors that said they really liked it but couldn’t use it at the moment. I was even allowed to send the first 100 pages to a literary agent based on my pitch. She told me she didn’t quite connect with the main character as strongly as she needed to.

Now after several years away from it, I can totally understand why. My protagonist is so guarded even with me. There’s nothing warm or endearing about her. Sure, she’s all tough and jaded, the kind of girl you want in a fight, but there’s nothing vulnerable about her.

I had a very sharp conversation with her yesterday (and yes, I was talking out loud). I told her if there’s one person she has to be honest with, it’s me. I can’t tell her story, and it’s a good story, if she doesn’t let me in. I don’t even know who she was before the story started. Oh, of course I know what happened to her (we call that backstory), but I don’t know what she was like. What were her hopes and dreams, who were her friends, how did she act? Believe me, I filled out all the personality/characterization sheets, but I was going on what she was telling me, and it wasn’t the whole truth. I’m not even sure if any of it was the truth or just what I was coming up with because she was not very forthcoming on her own. The main thing I’ve learned is that your protagonist cannot hide from you or the reader. Sure she can hide her true self from the other characters until it’s necessary, but in order to make a connection, she’s got to be real.

Good news: I might have gotten a glimpse of her last night, and I’ll be hounding her the rest of the day on giving me more. Bad news: from what she’s showing me, my whole story is going to change. Well, not the plot things, but definitely how she acts, how she reacts, the relationships she forms with people. I don’t think I can revise the first 3000-5000 words by the time submissions open, which consequently is at midnight. And though I’m a little more than bummed if I don’t get a chance to enter, at least I’ve been made aware of this fatal mistake. (Thanks, K, for that!) Who knows? I might just get accepted on another round of submissions.

The Rite: From A Writer’s Perspective

On By C. L. BlackeIn Motion Pictures From a Writer's PerspectiveLeave a comment

It’s four months in Rome. What could go wrong? Oh, you’d be surprised.

They say reality doesn’t need to make sense but fiction does, which makes me wonder what exactly happened in the real lives of the real Frs. Michael Kovak and Lucas because I had a hard time believing (and accepting) the storyline of The Rite. I could be biased; anytime I hear a movie is based on or inspired by true events, I tend to think they’re making it up just to increase sales. I mean, did we learn nothing from The Blair Witch Project?

Not that there is anything wrong with the actual elements of The Rite–most of them seem to be there: catalyst, internal need, external goal, opposition, darkest moment–it’s just that they are all squished into the last 2o (or 30 if we’re lucky) minutes of the film.

Enter Michael Kovak: a priest-in-training with no faith. Father Superior gets the brilliant idea to send him to exorcism school in Rome cuz, ya, that will help him. Maybe lectures aren’t Michael’s thing, so his teacher sends him to a little village in Florence to witness a real live exorcism. I’m fairly gullible, but even I don’t believe Rosaria is possessed. I think Michael hits the nail on the head (pun intended) when he states she was internalizing her guilt over being raped by her father and carrying his demon seed.

(One thing I would like to know is why doesn’t this happen more often? The possession part, I mean.  The other, I’m sure, happens more often than we know, and it does seem like the work of the devil, but not all victims go around speaking in foreign tongues. I guess I want to know why Satan/Beelzebub/Baal chose to inhabit a 16 year-old Italian girl. What exactly did he get out of it? She and the baby died, so…it seems rather anticlimactic and not really worth the trouble.)

We witness a few more possessions, a few more exorcisms, some of which are hoaxes, none of which are believable enough to force Michael to believe in God and take a stand.  What exactly pushes him over the edge? Is it realizing he just talked to his already-dead father on the phone? (I think I might have reacted a bit differently than sobbing on the bed if that happened to me. Just saying.) Is it the random voices in his hotel room or el mulo with the red eyes in the courtyard? Maybe it’s hearing Fr. Lucas himself tell us he’s possessed. (Again, I have to wonder why the devil chose him. Aside from the fact that Anthony Hopkins is a brilliant actor with a bit of crazy in him.)

Regardless, we finally hit our first plot point. Michael now has a goal, we know he’s searching for his own faith, why he has none, and that he’s recruited his friend, Angelsomething, to help him out.

The screenwriter shoots off the rest of the elements in rapid fire, wasting no time because he’s already over budget. Michael performs an exorcism on Fr. Lucas, it doesn’t work, his faith is tested, Angelsomething has to convince him to get back in there–he can do it, he’s not alone. (Usually, the opposition has much greater resources and is much stronger than the protagonist; however, Michael has the power of God on his side. Seems a lot like cheating, doesn’t it?) Michael tries again, this time he gets the devil to give up his name. (Baal’s screwed now.) Oh, it worked! Story’s over.

I’m not really buying that Michael suddenly finds his faith in God either. I don’t know if it’s just bad acting or not, but I tend to think it’s because we don’t get to see him really search for it, to really want it. The majority of Act Two should be the protagonist fighting against all odds to achieve his goal. Instead, Michael pretty much complains and denies his faith throughout the whole storyline until the very end, and actions speak louder than words. One can’t go from having no faith, to realizing you have no faith, to suddenly achieving faith. You kind of have to work at finding it. (In contrast, I totally believe Anthony Hopkins is possessed. The way he smacked that girl–freaking brilliant writing.)

I’m thinking the screenwriter could have gone back for a few more rewrites, weeded out some of the inconsequential details, worked on pacing, and found more creative ways to handle the amazing amount of backstory we had to watch for the first 82 minutes of the film.

The good news, though, is that Michael doesn’t have to pay back his student loans.

Insidious: From a Writer’s Perspective

On By C. L. BlackeIn Motion Pictures From a Writer's Perspective6 Comments

I’d heard from several reliable unrelated sources that Insidious was the scariest movie they’d ever seen, so I had to watch it. At midnight. In the dark.

Umm, not so much. Chock one up for creepy, discordant music, though, and some disturbing images of 1950s doll-like psychotic mannequins. But I’ve seen the fire face guy before in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, the old lady in my head while reading a book, and the little boy in the cap in my dance troupe. None of them are that scary. (Well, except for the old lady in my head.)

A few problems I had with the overall story:

1) The protagonist does not actually know he’s the main character until about two-thirds into the story. The entire first act and much of the second is based on Renai and her actions. She has a relationship with her children (well, ok, I don’t believe there was a need for Foster at all–the screenwriter could have easily had Josh “see” Dalton walking around in his astral body, which would have foreshadowed his whole childhood as an astral-projector), she sees the demons/ghosts/rip-off Buffy bad guys, she makes the family move houses, she contacts the priest, the mother-in-law, and Elise. She wants to be believed; she knows her son’s coma isn’t normal (if it’s possible) and she wants him out of it. (I think there could have been a nice scene where she actually talks to Dalton while he’s in it to reinforce her worry and her fears.)

2) Not one insinuation is made that Josh was having an affair. He was grading middle-school papers until 11:30 at night at school because they needed extra money for Dalton’s medical bills. Even I don’t believe it and it was the truth. First, teachers, correct me if I’m wrong, do not get paid overtime, and they aren’t forced to stay at school to grade papers when they can take them home and do it. Secondly, there is a completely missed opportunity to see Josh in his astral projection mode when he falls asleep at his desk. Yes, we see a black and white image of Dalton in his bed in a coma, but astral projection connotes movement–you travel to different realms. You do not just stand there. How is the audience supposed to know he wasn’t just daydreaming? (At the very least, we should have seen Josh in the scene at his son’s bedside.)

3) If I need to bring a character in (the mother-in-law) halfway through the story to explain something, then I haven’t done my job at creating my main characters or their backstory well. By the end of the first act, we should know who the main character is, what his external goal and internal need are, and whether or not he’s going to take up the challenge of achieving them. Unfortunately, Josh doesn’t even know what his goal is until Elise tells him he has to go into astral projection mode to find Dalton and bring him back. (This didn’t happen until I was completely bored and ready for the movie to be over.)

4) Nothing is explained. I’m so sick of watching scary movies that rely on flashing freaky images across the screen to divert our attention away from the real purpose of watching a movie–to be entertained with a story. I still want to know why the old lady chose to attach herself to Josh, why his mother could see her in the photographs (how could Renai see them for that matter?), what the point was of the demon/doll/mannequin blasting away the 1950s family, and who the antagonist was. If it was supposed to be fire face guy, I need to know a little more about him (like who he was before he died) besides that he sits in a pseudo toyshop/alchemist’s lab and listens to Tiny Tim‘s “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” (Incidently, antagonists have their own external goals and internal needs that motivate them just as protagonists do. The audience should be privy to this information as well–even better if you can make us sympathetic to the bad guy at the same time we want to see him defeated.)

I also need to know that Dalton can astral project and that he isn’t just scared to sleep in his room at night. Not to mention why they needed to move to the first house at all. Renai said she didn’t want things to be the same, she wanted to start over–start over from what? Was Josh having an affair? Did she just get released from a mental hospital? I need to know what happened before the story starts, so I can understand why I am coming in at this moment in time.

5) On the other hand, I do not need to know that Renai is an aspiring songwriter. While it’s a nice characteristic, it isn’t intrinsic to the storyline. She’s not even the main character. Isn’t there some detail the writer could have given Josh to actually make us sympathetic to him? As it is, he has no relationship with his wife or children and he doesn’t even take an active role in the plot until Elise tells him to.

6) And lastly, these malevolent beings supposedly want to inflict pain on the living, but I don’t see that really happening in the movie. There is that one dude who looks like The Crow/Joker, and he did try to attack Renai. But other than that, what is his purpose? I think this bit of action would have been better left to fire face guy. Oh, but wait, we’re not sure if he’s the antagonist or not.

There are some major elements of storytelling missing in Insidious, and it isn’t even scary enough to make up for it. Had the screenwriter just made Renai go in to get her son and had Josh lead her and Dalton out, some of the problems with this movie would have disappeared.  Renai would have achieved her external goal of rescuing her son and her internal need for being believed.

Like I said, “Some of the problems.”