#week419

[everyweekforayear]

BttF: FUSS cont.

STATUS SO FAR:

Day 1: Ugh. Not much. Creative Time: 30mins, way too early

 Day 2: No lunch work today because I was seeing a friend I haven’t seen in a while. Filled in a few elements into my script template but still hashing out ideas.

Creative Time: 20mins, before work; 20mins, after work

 Day 3: Lunch time stolen working on sorting out details of our new deck that we are going to be building this coming weekend. My father-in-law is going to be in town this weekend to help us with it so I’m trying to help him get all the details about the deck and all the materials squared away before he starts digging post holes for foundations. Found my lost screenwriting book and finally decided to try using it today. I’ve been inspired by the organization and structure of it. I think it will help me get the story to a place that works before I start draft long ridiculous scenes that don’t need to exist. I need to nail down the purposes of the beats of the story in order to be able to confidently write the script.

Creative Time: 20mins, before work;

 Day 4: Part of my lunch used for a work meeting. I did manage to use the second half of my lunch to organize my new outline. This is feeling like I’m heading in the correct direction.

Creative Time: 25mins during lunch; 20mins, after work

 Day 5: Outline go time involved stepping back, still working out the details of the story. I also transferred the “template” on the train but essentially filled in the blanks with my content now. Then I change and reordered a few things but the overall content is there.

Creative Time: 20mins, before work; 40mins during lunch; 20mins, after work

 Day 6: Still cracking at the outline based on the story telling model from book. It’s working well. I feel like the story elements are all still there but I'm narrowing down certain aspects with the help of this book as a guideline. Highly recommend it. I’ve read a lot of these scriptwriting book over the years but many of them are meandering or they don’t provide tangible goals or assignments to work towards. This book has that: https://www.amazon.com/Coffee-Break-Screenwriter-Writing-Minutes/dp/1932907807 To some, this book may provide a formulaic set up but I only believe that to be the case if you follow it that way. You have the freedom as the writer to modify it however you want. If you want to follow your story or your characters as inspiration instead of the structure, go for it. For me, this is working well.

Creative Time: 20mins, from the road; 40mins during lunch; 20mins, after work

 Day 7: Falling asleep writing but I managed to continue working on outline. My family was away on Saturday so it was just me in the morning. My father-in-law came by to help build our deck, but he arrived later today so I took advantage of that and wrote while I waited for him.

Creative Time: 90mins, after waking up on my own, not the will of my children or my alarm clock.

 CONCEPT UPDATES/CHANGES: I was hoping to have this new outline done but I have a few more pieces to spell out and organize with more confidence before I can move to the speed draft. None-the less, we will call this phase the speed draft. I'm hoping to push through the outline during the front end of the week, then work on the speed draft after that.

 PICTURES/NOTES: (I might drop a link to my fill-in-the-blank outline)

 THIS WEEK RUNNING TIME: 6.42 hours

FINAL RUNNING TIME (SO FAR): 11.25 hours

[everyweekforayear]

Forum: Follow Unfolding Scenes and Stories

I was working hard on a deck this weekend so I was exhausted and will likely be today, but I need to find time to make this work.

 THIS WEEK:

 FORUM: Follow Unfolding Scenes and Stories

 1 WEEK GOAL: To expand the outline to be fuller and have more beat by beat notes so I know where I need to start each scene and where it needs to end. Knowing where the scene needs to end up will significantly help me build dialogue in a way that is direct, clear, and within the characters and their world.

 BOILED DOWN CONCEPT: The concept is unchanged from last week at this point. I am debating how many side stories I want to have. Shows with expansive casts can be successful but they can also be overwhelming to manage and hard to follow, especially in the beginning of a series. I want to perhaps delay revealing certain aspects of the show in as much detail right out of the gates. How much of the FBI arc do I reveal in this episode, or Eric Erron, the advocate for the missing children cause.

 PRIMARY REASON: I think this story has potential. I feel like that will often be the answer to this questions, so maybe I need to consider a different question, or maybe that question only appears on the first post of the project.

 ON DECK FOR NEXT WEEK:

 Not 100% sure. I'm guide my by book and the outline and I will see where it goes. Not sure if I will magically be able to start doing dialogue next week. I imagine realistically, the outline will see be in the fine tuning process. Then perhaps I will add 2 more weeks for dialogue development.