A regular cartographer

I spent some more time yesterday on outlines. I’m so freaking glad I did this. The story changes so much before you put it down on paper. It grows and gets better (I hope). Once you start to write a scene with dialog and descriptions it’s very painful to throw that out because it doesn’t serve the plot… and usually it detracts from the plot. My first screenplay had almost no outline. But it was a real talkie and I let my characters basically do or say what they wanted. It turned out fine, but it has played in nary a mega-plex and oh, yeah, it hasn’t sold or been made yet. I’ll try the measured approach this time.

Map Making

I outlined some more today. I need to see where I’m going so I can eventually worry about just what I’m working on in each individual scene.

Ideas are flowing, new scenes and character development comes to me as my mind wanders around the story. I now know what happened to mom because there were dishes to wash.

Still no names.

Back in the Saddle.

You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you.
-Bob Dylan

After the Red Sox lost in 2003, I swore that I would live by this Bob Dylan line. I’m going to make my own entertainment, control my own destiny and live my own life. I wasn’t going to waste my time and live the roller coaster of living life from afar. I’m too young to live vicariously through others. I might have my timeline off, but I seem to remember that is when I really got crackin’ on my first screenplay. I sat in the cold and drafty front room of my house and wrote. I can’t remember the details but in less than a year I had a screenplay. It helped that work was slow and I had much less responsibility at that point.

Two years later we have a world championship, a finished screenplay and unfortunately a false start or two on the second screenplay.

So now the season is abruptly over. I’m not too heartbroken. New York is also out of it and winning last year has taken the sting out of the loss. It’s time to start getting my kicks on my own again. I’m excited about writing.

I’ve been setting the end of the baseball season as a deadline for myself. After a few days of writing I have a very rough (and minimalist) outline and just under two pages. There are some very important pieces missing. The first thing I’m going to work on from here is character names.

Also, I’ve been researching. I wanted to write about a serial killer. After reading up, I had to rethink the relationships between the characters because my vision of these murders was a very two-dimensional.

One thing I also have to think about is, am I going to make this film? Today the answer is yes. I really don’t want to be a screenwriter, I want to be a director. The script is a tool to get me behind the camera. I will, however write the screenplay as if I was going to sell it. I want it to be polished and I want people to be able to see it because obviously actors and possibly investors will want to see it.

The cart is officially before the horse.