Slight Deviation

So I'm writing, but not Dark Disciple. I'm revisiting a picture-book manuscript and will be sending that out to publishers who accept unsolicited material. I'm excited to do this as it's a short-term project that should get me re-engaged in Dark Disciple work.

And if it results in publishing something that wouldn't suck either.

The picture book is a retelling of an old Russian fairy tale about a thumbsized man who is essentially a djinni in a bottle. In my retelling he's freed from a sketchy imprisonment by a boy named Josef, and his skeptical little sister Ekaterine.

The more I think about the thumbsized man's imprisonment, the more I realize it's heavily inspired by the Looney Tunes with the singing frog in the time capsule.

Hmmm... might have to work on that. Or not.

Anyway it's a tight and captivating little story that I came up with about 6 years ago while rocking my son Joe to sleep. I'm very excited to shop it around and see what happens. I have two other Josef and Ekaterine stories. One has Ekaterine squaring off against the antagonist from Gogol's The Nose. Yes - it's the Nose himself! And in the other Josef and Ekaterine team up with a Taltos and his two brothers to rescue the Spring Fairy from Chudo Yudo the 9 headed dragon.

Good stuff...

I'll be back to Dark Disciple before Thanksgiving. Promise.

Back at it soon

It was a long Summer with very little writing, and the Fall has brought good news and bad news.

The good news is that I should be getting some time freed up to focus back on my writing, and this project in particular.

The bad news is that my wife's job is evaporating due to the economic downturns. It's not even a stretch to say that. Her job was in IT for a bank, supporting one of its lending lines that they're shutting down.

But we're rolling with that, and her newly freed up time will be spent doing any number of projects you just never have time to do when you have a job and two small children.

Anyway, my birthday present to myself will be restarting this project. I also hope that I get the president I want for my birthday since this anniversary of my entrance to this world is November 4.

More in a couple of weeks.

That darn Act 4!

So I roughed out Act 3 a few days ago and now I'm launching into Act 4. Essentially I've got 25 pages to finish out the movie. 25 pages equals 25 minutes. Problem is, in my head I've only got about 10 minutes of story left!

Ai-yi-YI!

So now I've got to wrack my brain for alternatives, and figure out how similar movies have done it. I've managed to inject a single twist, but it's not very inventive. I'll have to let this stew for a day or two. I'd like to get Act 4 nailed before next week.

This writing stuff is HARD!

Act Three!

I got Act 3 roughed out - and I do mean ROUGHED out. Man, I gots a lot of ground to cover in my Act 3! A lot! I've got:

• Bad Guys Close In
• Whiff of Death
• Chase scenes
• Nerdy acolytes we just learned to like getting eaten

It's a lot.

It felt good, and a little frenzied to get back to work at it tonight. It's amazing to me that I get so much done in about 30 minutes. Quality might be questionable, but on the other hand I've thought about this story so much over the past few months that I'm firing out scenes like a T-Shirt cannon.

Who ever thought that up? Seriously. Why did we need a T-Shirt cannon in our world?

Act 4 is coming up. I can hardly wait.

Missed Milestone

So, I didn't get the scenes done by month end, but it's not the end of the world.. The Litany of Excuses will not be recited, but let's say that I'm optimistic that I can crank out Acts 3 and 4 next week. I got Act 2 roughed out last week - including fixing a problem with it. I noticed that every scene was pretty much in the same general location and thought "booooooooo-RING!" So I threw a little something in there to break up the monotony and give a little foreshadowing for "The Bad Guys Close In."

I'm actually pretty happy with what I have so far, and I'm totally stoked to press on!

Oh, and after seeing the tragically awful Johnny Mnemonic recently I'm thinking Dina Meyer for Wells. I'm also seeing someone like James Marsden for Porter. I liked him in 27 Dresses - I thought he did a nice job with a scuzzy veneer on a good heart.

June's Closing In

So, this whole idea of having my scene board done by the end of May -- WHAT was I thinking? Was I thinking that I actually have free time or can stay up until 2 am every night like a twenty-something lackabout?

anyway...

I have Act 1 roughed out - though it's light. Only 7 scenes and I should have 9 or 10. I have some ideas on how to flesh that out (not flush it out, you Iron Mountain PM readers), so I'm not too worried. I need to inject the actual Disciple into Act 1 so she's not a complete surprise in the end.

My real worry here is time. The in laws arrive on Thursday so my time has been consumed by making the house look less like a neglected pre-school.


Still, I think I can get it done.


If anyone actually wants me to post the scenes as I'm laying them out, let me know via comment or email. I may wait until the board is done so I'm not distracting myself with the transcription.

American Idol and Screenwriting don't mix

OK, so my duh! moment this evening was realizing that trying to write some scenes while watching the American Idol finale show with my wife was not going to be effective.

DUH!

The plus side is that I actually GOT SOMETHING ON MY BOARD!
That makes me happy.

I got the opening scene figured out. I struggled a bit with the conflict, but realized that it was Man vs. Society as Porter is hassled by some so-called legitimate journalists in the parking lot.
I also got the scene where Porter confronts Wells on her porch, they fight, and she kills him.

Digression - One thing that I find amusing about this process is the directness of laying out scenes and beats for a screenplay compared to how you tell a story. Your story will be excruciatingly built. You'll keep your audience in suspense. There will be some question as to what just happened. In the short story I wrote that I'm using as a base for Dark Disciple, the second scene I describe above has pithy fight dialog and ends with Porter seeing a bright light and feeling himself fall into it. (The story is from his point of view.) In the beats and the scene description I boil it down to Porter confronts Wells. They fight. Wells kills Porter. No subtlety or nuance there.
Just the facts, ma'am.

Anyway - I can sleep tonight because I feel like I really started.

Oh, and I spilled the beans about this project to my team at work today. MORE PRESSURE!!! WOOT!

Scene Board

Last night I made my scene board. There's nothing on it yet, but its emptiness haunts me. Nature abhors a vacuum and so does my creative need -- or backlog of guilt and shame -- whatever.

Yesterday over my lunch I re-read the section from Save the Cat on building the scene board. When I got a free moment last night I found an old, giant clipboard that I salvaged years ago. I don't know what it's for. I think it was some sort of medical clipboard. It's like 30" x 30", has two clips on it, and a cutout carrying handle. I always thought it would be good for sketching.

But I digress...

So I found the old clipboard after the kids were sleeping and while the wife was out with the church ladies (lower case "c", we're Episcopalians) and taped off my four sections. Then labeled the rows Acts 1 through 4, and taped a post-it pad to the board for easy access. I've decided to use post-its since it's a clipboard, not a bulletin board. I may regret that decision later when the post-its start falling off, but I just wanted TO GET IT DONE!!!!

I'll get my initial scenes from the beat sheet up on it tonight, take a picture and post it tomorrow.

As always, it feels good to get the project rolling again.

Interlude 1 - When the cat's away

Been pretty quiet here and don't I know it. I started this blog as a way to guilt myself into writing by pointing my friends at it. I figured that the pressure that someone might be checking my progress would be enough to inspire me to actually keep writing.

I was only partially correct. I feel the guilt, but I'm not moving forward very well with my writing. Sure, I have all the excuses everyone else has. Well, everyone with a demanding day job, 2 small children, a house, a spouse they want to spend time with, and a modicum of a social and spiritual life. What I haven't had is a plan. As a software program manager, you might wonder how I made it this far with a writing project without one. I suppose it's because this has been a low priority. So now I need to ratchet it higher.

I won't bore anyone with details on a project plan. But here's the next milestone - my scene outline will be done by June 1. And here's the biggest milestone - my script will be done by August 9. Or at least the full first draft.

Man - I can feel the guilt pressures building already!

By the way - thanks to Kimmer and Kat for the small comments that started my avalanche of guilt.

Saving the Cat - Part 3 - Back to the Beat Sheet

As I read the prior post I thought I had to do some major rework of my beat sheet. Either I was wrong or I got lazy as there's not a lot of changes. A little more detail to make it readable to someone who's not in my head, and some small content changes. But I think this was more of a tweaking phase. Bottom line: I'm ready to move on from here.

Title: Dark Disciple

Genre: Buddy Love – the more I think of it and watch “Buddy Love” movies the more I realize that this movie is about Wells and Porter’s relationship formation. Sure, there’s a horrible servant of the Dark Lord of the Pit they’re trying to stop, but the real story is between these two.

1. Opening image (p. 1): Night. Exterior. Busy parking lot. Porter's car pulls into the parking lot. It's LOUD and filled with mobs protesting capital punishment. Porter gets out of his car alone.

2. Theme Stated (p 5): Someone comments to Porter, "You’re a real end justifies the means kind of guy, aren’t you?" (Having trouble with the theme.)

3. Set-up (pp 1-10): Intro to Porter as a loner, despised by others as a tabloid journalist. Driven and hard-bitten. "Save the cat" moment when he protects/offers comfort to the “Pied Piper's" mother. Intro to Wells as a medical examiner. Intro to the Dark Disciple in the crowd. Walk through the Pied Piper’s execution. Porter seeing Wells capture the soul. Show Porter making glass dagger, or at least starting to in his car. Porter stalking Wells to her house. (Phew! That’s a lot of action in there I think. But in my original short story I think it’s less than 10 pages too.)

4. Catalyst (12): Fight on Wells’ front porch. Wells kills Porter.

5. Debate (12-25): Wells interrogates Porter. How can they find the Dark Disciple? Learn about Necromancers. Reveal on Witch hunters. Decide they will have to work together!

6. Break into Act 2(25): They decide to work together. Porter tells Wells they'll "need some things” which brings us to the Secret Lair of the Witch Hunters.

7. B Story (30): Porter's world. They travel to a Witch Hunter sanctuary to get some stuff to face the Disciple.

8. Fun and Games (30-55): Wells' and Porter's "buddy love story" as they get to know each other and become friends. We learn more about Porter and the Witch Hunters through the expository mechanism of nerdish witch hunter monks trying to impress Wells with their wealth of knowledge on Disciples and the gear they have to kill them. Reinforcement of Porter as a heart-of-gold behind the tough guy exterior. This gives us our “fun” moments with the nerds-around-a-hot-chick syndrome. (Have I mentioned that Wells is an understatedly-hot babe? Jessica Biel in glasses, or Mira Sorvino with black hair.)

9. Midpoint (55): (False success) Porter feels on top of the world as he realizes he has a new friend and ally in the war against evil.

10. Bad guys close In (55-75): Disciple's minions attack the sanctuary. Not quite sure what the minions are but they’re scary and kill nerdy monks like nobody’s business. (Sorry nerd lovers, but you shoulda known it was coming) Despite all the cool gear they can pull out, Porter and Wells flee for their lives with little more than what they started with. But they go after the Disciple in her lair. Where another fight ensues.

11. All is lost (75): This fight goes poorly for our heroes, too. Porter is left for "dead" on the floor, looking at the Disciple's reflection in a shard of broken mirror. (Hint: He’s going to make a Glass Dagger like he did to use against Wells.)

12. Dark night of the Soul (75-85): Wells is being interrogated by the Disciple, while Porter lies seemingly dead in another room. Wells begins to think that all is lost.

13. Break into Act 3 (85): Back to Porter on the floor. We hear Wells being interrogated in the distance. Porter blinks, and rises.

14. Finale (85-110): Big fight. Glass dagger comes in handy and WOW – we see that it really does do what Porter said it would do back on page 14. So does Porter's new knowledge that he's already undead. After their triumph Porter confronts Wells about being undead, and learns that she doesn't know what might happen for him next.

15. Final Image (110): Dawn breaking. Porter and Wells drive together down a quiet country highway, in silence.

All right – so I think this is good enough. Now I have to set up The Board…

Saving the Cat - Part 2

Okay, having tweaked the one-liner to the point where I think it conveys a sense of the story content, the story's inherent irony, and its primal drive, it's time to move on to the beats. I think of these as the movie's pivotal moments and memorable scenes.

Mr. Snyder has a fabulous tool to make this easy to lay out called the Beat Sheet. It not only tells you what the beats are, but when to plug them into a spec script's table of contents.

Quick side track - one of the things I love about Save the Cat is that it doesn't get caught up in any pretensions about creating a great work of art. It tells you how to write a spec script that is sellable.

Now, back to my beat sheet.

Beat Sheet


Title: Dark Disciple

Genre: Buddy Love (I'm still struggling with this because I want it to be Golden Fleece or Monster in the House, but I think it's really Buddy Love. I'll explain this in a later post.)

1. Opening image (p. 1): Night. Exterior. Busy parking lot. Porter's car pulls into the parking lot.It's LOUD and filled with mobs protesting capitol punishment. Porter gets out of his car alone.
2. Theme Stated (p 5): Someone comments to Porter, "You'd sell your soul to get what you're after." (Having trouble with the theme.)

3. Set-up (pp 1-10): Intro to Porter as a loner, despised by others for his "cover" profession as a tabloid journalist. Driven and hard-bitten. "Save the cat" moment when he protects/offers comfort to the"Pied Piper's" mother. Intro to Wells as a medical examiner. Intro to the Dark Disciple in the crowd. Walk through the execution. Porter seeing Wells capture the soul. Show Porter making glass dagger, or at least starting to in his car. Porter stalking Wells to her house.

4. Catalyst (12): Fight on Well's front porch. Wells kills Porter.

5. Debate (12-25): Wells interrogates Porter. How can they find the Dark Disciple? Learn about Necromancers. Reveal on Witch hunters. Decide they will have to work together!

6. Break into Act 2(25): They decide to work together. Porter tells Wells they'll "need some things."

7. B Story (30): Porter's world. They travel to a Witch Hunter sanctuary to get some stuff to face the Disciple.

8. Fun and Games (30-55): Wells' and Porter's "love story" as they get to know each other and become friends. We learn more about Porter and the Witch Hunters. Comic relief from some bumbling monk-types who fawn over Wells. (Nerds around the hot-chick syndrome.)

9. Midpoint (55): (False success) Porter feels on top of the world as he realizes he has a new friend and ally in the war against evil.

10. Bad guys close In (55-75): Disciple's minions attack the sanctuary. Wells and Porter go for the source. They find her and initial fight ensues.

11. All is lost (75): Fight goes poorly for our heroes. Porter is left for "dead" on the floor, looking at the Disciple's reflection in a shard of broken mirror.

12. Dark night of the Soul (75-85): Wells is being interrogated by the Disciple, while Porter lies dead in another room

13. Break into Act 3 (85): Back to Porter on the floor. We hear Wells being interrogated in the distance. Porter blinks, and rises.

14. Finale (85-110): Big fight. Glass dagger comes in handy. So does Porter's new knowledge that he's already undead. After their triumph Porter confronts Wells about being undead, and learns that she doesn't know what might happen for him next.

15. Final Image (110): Dawn breaking. Porter and Wells drive together down a quiet country highway, in silence.


This really needs some work - which is a great realization! I basically grabbed this from an email exchange with some friends a few weeks ago. Now I see how rough it is.

Back to the BEAT BOARD!!!!

Saving the Cat - Part 1

Several weeks ago my old friend Pete told me to get the book Save the Cat by Blake Snyder. Now, I'm certainly no authority on screenwriting and have not yet sold a screenplay developed by Mr. Snyder's process, but I am at least a bit of a journeyman, if not an expert, about Process. From that perspective I really liked what Mr. Syder had to say, and thought it a worthwhile endeavor to try my hand at the Blake Snyder Method.

If nothing else, at least it caught my interest enough to get me motivated to try my hand at writing a screenplay. That's worth the cover price in my opinion.

As a side note - the book is a highly entertaining read.

Anyway, as an added motivator, I decided to post my progress in a place where my friends could chide me into keeping up a reasonable pace. That's where this comes in.

As another side note - I plan to post a number of other writing projects here.

So, here's the result of the first step of the Blake Snyder Method - the one liner and title:

A witch hunter from a secret Vatican order forms an unholy alliance to take down a servant of Hell before she can strike again - Dark Disciple

TV 2.0 Pitch

It seems easy to see where televised entertainment is going. With more and more pop-up ads on the screen, product placement, competition with dorm room videos, and the tsunami rise in popularity of online, interactive entertainment. I just want someone to make the leap sooner than later.

And of course I'd love to get a check out of it.

So here's my pitch.

You've got a TV show. You've got actors and writers and sets and all the things that make look just like something else that's successful.

Now let's make it different.

Your scene is moving along. The drawn-out romance between buff-doctor A and hot-soccer-mom B steams the screen. What line will fall from Doctor A's ruggedly sculpted lips?

Let's poll the real-time survey running in the lower right hand corner and see what the audience is frantically typing away while Hot-soccer mom's blonde hair ripples across her shoulders, neck arching, cheeks flushing --

HEY! t00b_b0t378's suggestion is flagged -- it flashes bright crimson on the scrolling window -- on the live set it appears in the teleprompter and Doctor A utters the words his long sought love has longed to hear!

"Damn, I wish I were a man."

Well, maybe not, but now the actors spin into a frenzy of improv for the next 45 seconds, before the pre-recorded segment saves them from the bedlam t00b_b0t378 and random timing caused.

But it doesn't stop at randomly selected dialog posts. The show polls for which "prop" to be used in the next live scene - will it be a can of Red Bull, the spiffy new phone from Verizon wireless, or a Hot Pocket? Who knows? Who cares? The audience cares because the ticker across the bottom of the screen and on the website are telling us the next live scene is a police prisoner interrogation, or in a confessional, or a steamy romance scene.

The audience's power extends past dialog twists though. The show polls for which character dies in the plane crash, or left the positive pregnancy test on the bathroom sink, or knows the truth about buff Doctor A's plumbing. The audience interacts with the story, drives it, tweaks it, directs it.

Sure, there are writers. There has to be continuity, and you can't do the whole show live.

Sure, there are commercials. But there's also product placement that not only advertises the product, and two or three others, at the same time, but also forces the audience to ponder each product before voting to have Soccer-Mom B pull it out of her pilates bag.

But then there's the audience, sitting on the other side of that forth wall, and shouting suggestions through it.

The only question is - what kind of show can make this leap?

You can't make it strictly a comedy -- too hard to make it funny all the time.
You can't make it strictly a drama -- too hard to keep the continuity.

But there is a perfect genre for this, where any twist of plot can be untwisted. Where any apparently odd slip of the tongue can be explained away in next week's episode. Where dramatic pauses are normal, and can cover for that actor checking the teleprompter and deciphering the line "ur 2 hot!" before he speaks...


Prime Time Mexican Soap Opera.

That's what I want to see. Beautiful people of all ages having their strings pulled by millions of viewing puppeteers, and having the mayhem of this week's episode be sorted out next week, or compounded with interest.

Bring it on!