Weekend Progress

Aftershocks - I did indeed finish the rewrite on Tuesday night, then gave the rewrite to 7 or 8 friends on Wednesday. Quick feedback from the first 2 was positive. Pleased with myself, I took the long weekend off. Then today I emailed it off to the script’s new representation for their notes. We’ll see what they think.

Supervillain - I tossed around a few replacement titles all weekend and ran them by a few friends. Everybody’s a critic. I narrowed those down to 5 lucky finalists (I thought I could decide on 1 but no go) and emailed those to Supervillain’s producers. I think I’m in good shape - I thought they were pretty good and I can live with pretty much any of them. Suggestions are still welcome…

Hancock - helped me out (I think). Good numbers. Now we have to take advantage!

Wall-E - saw it on Friday with the wife and kids. I am a huge Pixar fan and I was not disappointed. That said, I think the claims of “Best Picture” contender are somewhat overstated. Best Animated Feature, sure, but Best Picture material? I liked it but there are a couple of Pixar features I’d rank it below. More discussion soon.

Script Updates

A few things hopping right now:

- Supervillain: Things are still moving forward with the investors, but the rate of speed has not picked up. Yesterday I was told everything is cool, but my producers are looking for other opportunities just in case. With that in mind, this weekend’s opening of Hancock may do great things for my script. When Supervillain made the rounds of the studios, readers liked it but conventional wisdom said that superhero comedies always flop. We’ll see what Hancock has to say about that. So the producers are readying Supervillain for a renewed studio push.

And then there’s the title - “Who Wants To Be A Supervillain?!”. Now, we all love the title and all the game-show desperation it brings. But it does seem a little, well, Y2k. Yeah, dated. At least for getting shown around the studios. If the movie ever gets made, we’ll see (by then it will be WAY dated…). But for showing it around, it needs a little refreshing. Any suggestions? I have the perfect title, but I stole it from a friend who has been trying to get a project with the same name going for years, so I really shouldn’t use it…

- Aftershocks: I’m currently finishing up a mini-rewrite (somewhere between a polish and a rewrite) for the script’s new manager/agent to spiff it up before it gets sent out. This rewrite is somewhat… experimental for me. Not “experimental” in that the script is getting any weirder, but “experimental” in that I may end up chucking it completely and reverting to the original version. I have received quite a few sets of notes on it lately (from Abbot and elsewhere) and after talking with the script’s new representation I decided to address some of the more consistent observations. I have previously discussed the contradictory feedback the script has received (and all scripts receive), but I do have to admit that some points pop up somewhat consistently among those who don’t like the script. Those who do like the script tell me to disregard these points, and there’s the rub: sometimes the very thing a non-fan sees as a weakness a fan will call a strength. So it’s tricky. As I’ve discussed before, Aftershocks is an atmospheric drama, and some people love this. Others say it needs more drive and focus. So the question is: is it possible to crank up the drive a little without destroying the atmospherics that many readers love? We’ll see. The worst-case would be to screw up what is already there while trying to make tweaks to attract an audience that just isn’t going to like it anyway. I’m trying to find a middle ground. But if the feedback on this new version tells me that this middle ground is the worst of both worlds, then the rewrite gets chucked and the original draft gets sent out instead. So it’s still on the hard drive and waiting, just in case.

One more new scene needs to be finished (the scene is 85% done) and then another read-through to smooth things out and it’ll be ready for my agent. Then it’ll come back with his inevitable notes… The hope is to finish it tonight, or at least this weekend.

- Dead Guy and Psycho Ex: Oh, yeah. I’m supposed to be writing those too, huh?

Represented

Some news: The paperwork has been signed - Aftershocks has an agent/manager.

I’m psyched but realistic. The first time I got an agent I thought my troubles were over - they weren’t. Now I’m 14 years older, calmer, and wiser (well, maybe). We’ll see how this round goes.

You keep sending your stuff out, you might just get a bite. Get your stuff finished, get it polished, and get it out there. Again and again.

Fasten your seatbelts.

“Playing With the Pieces” or “Why It Takes Me So Long”

I don’t like to outline. I used to, I may again, but not right now.

In school I outlined - we all did. I wrote 3 features this way, with each outline getting better and more detailed than the last. I would refine the outline first and then write. If an idea came to mind while I was writing, I would stop writing, add the scene to the outline, and then tweak the outline again and again before resuming writing. By the third feature, my process was disciplined and precise.

And completely lifeless.

It was actually a chore to complete that third feature. Part of this was because I was writing the script on spec for a producer (based on his idea) who bailed halfway through, but the other part was because the writing was so lifeless - all the “fun stuff” had been explored and laid out before, at the outline stage, so the writing itself felt like dictation. The script turned out okay I guess, but the process was an exercise in drudgery, without life or spark or energy. Without discovery.

So with my fourth feature I decided to try an experiment: I would take the 4 structural chunks of the script and only look at 1 at a time. I could outline, use index cards, anything I wanted, but I could only work on 30 pages at a time - thinking about anything beyond that 30-page unit was off limits until it was done and polished. To challenge myself, I consciously tried to write myself into a corner every 30 pages. And each section would end with an ambitious climax or cliffhanger, one which I had no idea how to top or get out of. It was great.

The good news is that this fourth feature ended up being Aftershocks, still the script I am most proud of. The bad news is it took 7 years to write. I honestly had no idea how to end the thing as I would set it down and then pick it back up months or even years later, letting it breathe as I worked on other scripts and other ideas in between. False starts and dead ends on the second and third acts took years. But once I figured them out… well, as I said, I’m pretty proud of it.

Something changed when I started writing Aftershocks: I started writing an idea that

Quotes of the Day

Last night the wind was whisperin’, I was trying to make out what it was.
Last night the wind was whisperin’ somethin’ - I was trying to make out what it was.
I tell myself something’s comin’
But it never does.

- Bob Dylan, 2001

Stay close - something might be comin’.

- Robb, 6/5/08

Loglines

I just renewed one of my scripts on inktip.com and I need new loglines. I am happy with the loglines I have on there currently - and I have been for a long while - but that is the problem: they have been up there for a long while.

 

The site advises that writers change/improve their loglines fairly regularly because there are a finite number of companies searching the site, and if a producer sees your logline and thinks s/he is not interested, and then s/he sees the same logline still up there month after month for years, s/he will surely recognize it and think (a) I didn’t want to read that then and I don’t want to read it now or (b) that script still hasn’t sold? It must suck. The logic goes that shaking up your loglines will make them appear new and fresh and perhaps emphasize other aspects of the script which may then appeal to that producer who has read right over it many times. My current loglines have been up for at least 12-18 months, which is much much longer than they suggest before changing them.

 

Hey, I’m stubborn.

But I’m also happy with the current versions. These are the loglines that need to be replaced:

Aftershocks: Jim Noone erased his memory, disappeared, and adopted a new identity to escape his past. His plan worked perfectly - until the woman who loved him follows one last hopeless lead to find him. Semi-linear “puzzle” movie with a twist ending. Character-driven drama.

I Hate That Guy!: The world’s biggest a$$hole has had enough of the world’s biggest saint and decides to bring him down. Raunchy dark comedy - Hard “R.”

Thoughts? I am particularly reluctant to change the Aftershocks logline because I think it communicates quite a bit in a tight package. But then again, the logline hasn’t generated many hits in quite a while.

Like they say, writing is rewriting.

Which Story Should You Write?

Back when we were discussing Abbot Management and the various issues related to feedback, a friend emailed me a very simple yet profound question:

How do you know when to listen to feedback and change your story?

This question really gets to the heart of it. Superficially, it is pretty easy to know if you agree with feedback telling you beef up a scene, hit a story point harder, punch up dialog, etc. But what about real, substantial change? What do you do when listening to feedback would fundamentally change the very story you originally set out to tell?

In terms of Abbot’s feedback on Supervillain, one of their readers wanted more comic book superhero action. He said this is what the audience expects and what the genre provides, and despite an action-oriented opening and climax, my script suffers from a lack of it. Superhero action is fun, it’s visual, it’s dramatic and external, and it fills seats and sells popcorn. He’s right. But here’s the thing: it is fundamentally inconsistent with my premise. In my story, the superhero desperately wants comic book action - it would solve all his problems. The superhero tries to get it, he makes pitiful ill-fated attempts to generate it, but there is no superhero comic book action. This is the source of the comedy. That’s my premise. So if you add comic book superhero action to my premise, you get… a different premise.

It would be like adding a time machine and car chases to Aftershocks; these would transform it into Back to the Future. Back to the Future is fun and Back to the Future is great and Back to the Future is better than Aftershocks, no question. But I didn’t want to write Back to the Future. I wanted to write Aftershocks.

So what do you do? I can hear all us artist types laughing, saying it is obvious that this reader

When Do You Get Your Ideas?

Ideas are funny things. I seem to get my best/most interesting ideas (story-related or otherwise) when I am busy doing something else. If I sit down at the computer needing to come up with a great idea, I can’t do it. But get me busy doing something completely different, and I just might come up with something.

After months of dead ends, I finally got the idea for the (twist) ending of Aftershocks in the middle of the night, when my then-18-month-old son woke up crying and wouldn’t stop. As I trudged down the hallway to his room 99% asleep, it just hit me. The direction it took me in was a complete surprise. Years later, I got the idea for Psycho Ex while walking him home from school one day. As he spoke it was obvious that he had a serious crush on his first-grade teacher, and as I listened the idea materialized. And while I was out mowing the lawn last Tuesday, a trailer-worthy one-liner for Dead Guy was suddenly just… there.

So the best question for what I’m getting at here is not “Where do you get your ideas?”, because we all get them from the same place: life. I think the more precise way to ask the question is “When do you get your ideas?”. What are you doing when most of your ideas come to you?

It seems like (for me at least) the mind wants to

Hurry Up And Wait

Not much posting lately - there are a few balls in the air right now but none of them are resolved enough to write a complete post about. Just when it looks like something is about to happen, there’s another pause to hold it up. So here’s the latest:

Supervillain Coverage: Last week I received the three rounds of coverage from Abbot Management. This proved to be no less complicated than the coverage for Aftershocks. The first reader happened to be the same reader who was negative about Aftershocks, but he gave Supervillain a “Recommend.” However, he had a lot of critical commentary and gave me fairly low marks - basically he felt the script was commercial enough for Abbot to get involved, but he believes the script will require a pretty comprehensive rewrite. His comments revealed that he may have a different basic philosophy than I have regarding what the story is about and what its content should really be, what the script should basically be about. This was… interesting. Thoughtful and philosophical musings about the primal relationship between the expectations of the reader and the writer will result from this some day soon… Anyway, that’s one recommend. And because it came from this particular reader, I thought I was in, no problem.

The second reader was not as critical in his commentary but passed on the script. After the first reader, I was surprised at this. I guess I interpreted the first reader to be the big hurdle, which he apparently wasn’t. So that’s 1 and 1.

The third reader loved it. Loved it. The kind of reader that actually makes the dream seem possible. This reader had been one of the readers who liked Aftershocks, although he was not the same reader that I labeled my ideal reader in that post. So, 2 recommends and 1 pass. This was the same score I racked up with Aftershocks, so I assumed I would receive an email fairly quickly with some discussion as the script made its way up the chain. But after several days, no further news. I’m sure these guys are busy and are reading plenty of stuff, and their speed is still astonishing. But again, no bottom line to report yet. I expect something fairly soon.

Supervillain Option: I checked in with my producers the other day for a progress report. The option lapses in a couple of months, so with an agent possibly interested I thought it best to catch up. They say they still have 80% of the budget committed and they talked to a possible money source a week ago who may be interested in footing the entire bill. So again, progress, but nothing definitive to report.

Dead Guy: The Good News is that act one is one scene away from being done. We have reached Syd Fields’ infamous plot point one. The Bad News is that this scene will begin on page 39. Yes, it’s way long. I’m up to 39 script pages/50 pages total with outline. The Very Bad News is that I still don’t have a firm enough grasp on The Line to take me through Act 2. Much more thinking work required. Have I mentioned that this may actually be a novel and not a screenplay? Dead Guy is about to move to the back burner to make room for

Psycho Ex: Currently at 45 script pages/54 with outline. It had stalled in the act two lull, but I’ve come up with a couple of ideas to make The Line stronger. It appears that the point/counterpoint strategy of writing two mirror-image scripts simultaneously might have actually worked for once: getting stuck on one has energized me on the other one. Imagine that.

It’s been crazy busy at work and will remain so through the end of March, so I may not make much headway for a while. As for The Challenge 2.008, the scripts appear to be moving in parallel as I had suspected, so the idea of a timetable becomes… complicated. That seems to be the theme these days.

Only one way to simplify everything: just keep writing.

Abbot Management Feedback: Aftershocks

[2/21/08 Note: In the weeks since I wrote this post, I submitted Supervillain and have seen only professionalism from these guys. As your personal guinea pig who came out alive, I recommend that writers submit their stuff and learn from the coverage.]

It has been about a week now since I received three sets of Aftershocks coverage from Abbot Management, and I’m still trying to figure out what to think about them. I am reminded of an earlier post which covered some of the same territory when I got coverage from BlueCat. But this coverage from Abbot was exponentially more… complicated.

The first reader loved the script - loved it. I wish I could just copy/paste his entire coverage here and walk away, but that would be less than classy. Let’s put it this way: on Abbot’s 5-point grading scale, I received perfect scores (5 out of 5) in Dialog, Character, and Pacing, with 4 out of 5 scores in Premise, Conflict, Originality, and Structure. Not only did this reader “get” the twist ending and grasp the solution to the puzzle perfectly, he found it profound and powerful. My favorite reader ever. My lowest score was 3 out of 5, and I only received that in one category: Clarity, which is understandable because Aftershocks is a time-jumping puzzle movie which is pretty demanding. Clarity has always been a concern of mine, because some people “get” the twist/puzzle and others don’t. His overall rating for the script was 4 out of 5 with a “Recommend,” or a recommendation that his company represent the script. Victory.

The second reader wasn’t quite as ecstatic (all 4s and 3s, no perfect 5s), but still gave it