And the Oscar goes to...

Every year, even before I settled on screenwriting, I have gotten this enormous thrill from watching The Oscars, particularly the awards for best original and adapted screenplay. The Academy always does this effect where they flash parts of the script over footage of the film. It completely wigs me out how easily words translate to a visual story. Its a miracle.

And you know what's also a miracle? In the course of a year and a half my writing has improved drastically. I was searching through my gigantic trove of Word files, looking for something I had written that could apply to the mindset of one of my characters, and I came across an old collection of scenes. They are terrible, just terrible. I use "really" in the dialogue and instead of letting the back story evolve organically I try to get it all out in paragraph of dialogue. Its truly awful. I'm happy to say I've improved imensly.

Moral of the story: Don't strand characters in phone booths in Texas

Nothing like the winning combination of free time, deadlines, and an abundance of coffee shops. In a week I made more progress than I had made in months. Not only did I make an outline (its organized by character, not strictly by order) but I also read an entire screenplay, gained wisdom, insight, inspiration, all that jazz, and I wrote four scenes, oh and  I did a bit of character research (that whole coffee house thing, but that's another topic entirely).

Outline: Its divided into four characters, and under each character I wrote "physical journey" and filled in the blank for that character. The "physical" journey is a somewhat loose term, its not like they start in China and end in France on some quest, but more like they hang out here and they're here, or they're with this person, and then they're with this other person. Under physical journey, I wrote "mental journey" which is much more crucial. The entire screenplay, what links these characters (other than the fact they're related) is that they all undergo some sort of mental transformation. Their perception of their universe, and themselves, is altered in some way. After I'd written a sentence about each character's mental and physical journeys, I listed under their names the scenes that are needed to communicate these journeys. And there it is, that's the screenplay. It's that easy. I've done the hard part, I already know all the scenes, now it is truly just the fun part. All I have to do is write it and enjoy those little surprises that happen when writing dialogue.

This being said, there are not only four characters, there are more, but the story is only told through the point of view of these four (this helps it feel more united, because these characters are all related) and the other characters exist to further the journeys of the main four. I refuse to think of the characters that aren't part of the four as "minor characters" because I really, really, really love them.
Reading: Thank goodness for the internet. I've been struggling to find a way to format some of the things that happen in the story. Screenplays follow this very strange and strict structure, and its hard to find ways to communicate less run of the mill ideas using this structure. None of the screenplay books I have address how to format what it was I was trying to do. So, I looked to the master, Alan Ball, the writer of American Beauty. I knew that movie had something similar to what I was trying to do so I decided to look out how he had formatted it. Thanks to my friend google, I found and downloaded the script in minutes. Its fairly straight forward. In fact, I realized, after I had gotten sucked into the entire script, that the whole thing is fairly straightforward. The man looks confused, all that has to be written is the man looks confused. "He turns, his face scrunched up, eyes furrowed together"  is not nescseary if all that is essential to communicate is that he is confused. I know this sounds sort of... obvious, but it, much like the simplicity of creating an outline, was an epiphany. I also realized, through my reading, that screenwriters have the burden of communicating two stories. There's the plot, the characters, the typical elements of narrative, but there is also this other...thing. This sort of elusive idea of communicating how the audience interprets the narrative, the freedom to say that only part of the scene is visible, or so and so is off camera, this added element to the story that, if done effectively, really enhances the story. It extends beyond the confines of literature because screenplays are only part of this whole other art form. That is what drew me to this medium in the first place. I'm glad I've remembered it.

Writing Scenes: Frank is my least favorite character. I don't understand him. I'm nothing like him. He's not very bright and I question his morals. I'n fact, I've done everything to try to keep him out. I've killed him off. I've shipped him off to Brazil. I've left him stranded in a phone booth in Texas. He was the last character to develop and I only kept him around because he was essential to plot and the growth of other characters. But, write what you know, right? So I made Frank resemble a hodge-podge of people I know. And suddenly, I like the character. I don't suddenly like them because they resemble these people, but my complex relationship with Frank's real life counter parts has sort of mentally battled out through him and writing about this character has become somewhat therapeutic. He is also lends himself to dry humor which is a always a plus. So, after I completed my outline and thought "Who do I start with?" I suprised myself and lept writing into Frank's story.

A wheel is a wheel.

This story won't stop changing. It's like an awkward twelve  year old going through a growth spurt, constantly outgrowing itself. Maybe it's a sign of being a bad writer, or an easily manipulated one, because these characters have suckered me into letting them run amok. I was plagued with the thought of "this is too boring, there are too many scenes that are filled with these really profound statements being said dramatically by someone going through an awkward revelation." The next thing I knew I had a frumpy character with a receding hairline standing in a dark alley with a gun shoved in his hand, and another character who I had assumed dead, instead being in a horrible car crash (their fault), killing someone in the process, becoming paralyzed and rotting the rest of their life away. And since they're sort of inadvertently orchestrating the whole thing by the discovery of a bunch of stuff they filmed years prior to the main action (is this making sense to anyone other than myself?), it is the discovering of the footage, of the car crash that leads Gwen, the closest thing to a main character, to a series of awkward and profound revelations. Essentially, its the same thing as it was, but with enough action to jar someone awake if the rather peculiar and probably too lofty for its own good, dialogue was lulling anyone into a slumber. The whole thing ends up sort of coiling around itself and blurring time and the role of one character in relation to another. Its also a bit of a caricature. It's about a family and the typical absurities of one (ugh, I'm writing one of those scripts), but its taken to these crazy extremes, hopefully without screaming "this is another quirky story about a dysfunctional family!" The themes in here, comming of age, love, lust, the pressures of society, strained relationships that people don't let go of, all of that has been done a million times. I'm trying to say something new about each of those things, express something that, while inherantly part of those themes, is not often championed or discusssed in literature. A lot of the story is told from these unexpected points of view, someone talking directly to a camera, or a third party filming something, or silently through a surevilance camera, or an email chain mediums where just get to witness a snippet of a situtaion or dynamic. My hope is that by altering the forms of various parts of the story, certain aspects of the situations or dynamics will be stressed in a subtle way. I came up with this philosophy the other day; there's only so many ways to reinvent the wheel. A wheel is a wheel. There is, however, an infinite number of points from which to view that wheel from, and with each of those vantages comes six new ways to express something about the wheel-ness of the wheel. That is, essentially, the heart of this screenplay I'm writing.

PS. I have discovered that I write like a mediocre Samuel Beckett imposter.

Half of Scene Missing. Missed Opportunity to Meet Edward Albee. Scriptwriting Hates Me.

I sign into the computer, just a few more awkward, tension filled lines to add to the scene and its done. I open it, click on its strange title, scroll down, and...half of its gone. The last half of the scene I've been slaving over for weeks is not there. As if I really needed one more scriptwriting disaster. I discovered yesterday that I manage to miss out on an opportunity to take a week long class, for free taught by my absolute hero. If I could choose anyone, and I really do mean anyone, to study the art of writing under, it would be Edward Albee. I worship his plays, particularly Zoo story, as if they were holy. A thick volume of his collected works sits beside my bed. He is the most phenomenal writer to ever walk the planet. When applying for a weeklong program that offers both film and playwriting, do I happen to click on the list of who teaches it? Of course not. Why would I apply for playwriting? I did that last Summer. I should look more well rounded to colleges, I'll apply for something else. In an effort to look good to college I missed an opportunity to meet my hero. So, how I'm consoling myself over this by making sure every single scene I write from now until January, when hopefully I'll be going to the same program (yet begrudgingly not in a discipline taught by Edward Albee), is worthy to be read by the great Mr. Albee. My plan is to track him down, I mean, how big can this place chock full of two-hundred selected high school seniors be anyway? And run up to him shouting "Mr. Albee! You are the most influential writer I have ever read, I would be honored if you would read this scene and give me some feedback. I would value your critique more than anyone else that has ever walked the earth. Please." And then I'll shove a scene into his old, wise hands, and try not to have a brain aneurysm over the thought of Edward Albee reading my work. Of course though, because clearly luck is not on my side, one of the scene's I was considering to be a candidate for the feedback of Edward Albee, is half gone. I don't understand why it's gone, I press save after nearly every line, I'm always cautious by protecting my agonized over stuff, and yet its not there. This may be the most disappointing thing that has happened in my writing career since I was in third grade and the fifth grader in charge of typing up everyone's poetry to be sent to a contest changed the tenses of all my verbs and made all of the nouns plural so it sounded like a backwoods bum with no teeth had written it. Needless to say, I didn't win the contest. I probably am not going to get the adoring feedback that I've daydreamed about for years from my absolute hero either.

Reflection 10.11.10

I've been writing the screenplay for about a two months now. I've got a, well, a something, that loosely resembles  an outline, which is really more of a series of nouns and a lot of "Scene 13, THAT scene" which is enough to remind myself of what I should be writing for scene 13. I know the story well enough that the lines between where it ends and I begin are kind of well, non-existent. I mean, I've only been writing it for nearly four years, as long as I've been in high school. But, last night something insane happened and I decided I was telling it all wrong, and that is was quickly becoming the sort of  lying, manipulating, formulaic screenplays that lead to forgettable movies that say nothing about truth or the human condition or any of that. As much as I talked about being cutting edge, this story I'm writing sure as heck wasn't. Though I'm not entirely sure how to fit into its new mold, or how the jumps in time are going to function in a non-gimmicky sort of way, or how I am going to fit yet another person into my menagerie of characters, I am however sure that this is how it has to be told, even if that means sacrificing parts of the story that I thought had "classic appeal" or "Oscar buzz" written all over them. Oh, and I changed the name the title of it, its less pretentious, there's no alliteration, and its not as "indie," now its just one word, one noun; Sweater.