It feels like someones put life on slo-mo at the moment. Must be something to do with the fact I have two weeks off work from next week and it can’t come soon enough.
I’ve got as far as arranging to go over to Screen South at some point next week, and have handed the final(ish) cut of SToA over to Daz to start working on the sound and music. He says he can get a first draft of the music done over the weekend, so I should have something half decent to show the Screen South gang.
Apart from that everything feels like it’s been soaked in treacle. Slow, slow, slow…
The new screenplay is starting to come together. I’ve made some major changes to the main character’s back story, making him a bit more interesting, and mysterious, but it takes a while for the new info to filter through into the story and get him ‘in my guts’ as one of my lecturers at college was fond of saying.
One other thing I’m trying with this is to not plot in so much detail. OK, so I’ve plotted roughly in my head, and I know, at least in principle, where the main characters should be at the end of each act. But instead of plotting every single detail, so that I end up writing by numbers, I’m trying to use the storyform and PSR from Dramatica to guide writing the first draft, rather than plot to the Nth degree. I guess, I’m starting to appreciate what Sam Snape told us last year.
One thing I’ve found is that it’s easier to get inspiration while in the flow of writing, than by trying to meticulously plot each action and step of the journey. I want to try and get a more organic feel to the story, something I feel my previous efforts have lacked. And those moments where you’re writing away and you suddenly get a perfect moment of clarity, where everything just reassembles itself in your head into the most exciting twists and turns of events are absolutely priceless, a real natural high.
This seems to be working so far, with about four scenes coming out in the past few days that have, without really trying, been better fits of the PSR breakdown than I could ever contrive by plotting alone.
It’s all very mystical really.