Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Rewriting on faith

I'm writing a second outline for my script. I need to keep the first act mostly the same, but completely rewrite the second and third act. It's actually taken me longer to put this together than the first version.

The first version was pretty broad. Not a lot of killing - a lot of almost killing. Now that I'm turning this R rated I'm killing bitches left and right, which is tons of fun, but a completely different direction from what I had. What I had before was also a series of physical comedy moments - pratfalls, people just missing each other, goofy stuff. Now I have to turn that into absurdist humor. It's causing a few problems.

I'm having trouble keeping a scene I really like because a character who needs to be in a particular place at a particular time is now somewhere else. I've spent like two days trying to reconfigure scenes to make it work.I'm about to bust out the index cards.

Right now I have most of the script outlined, then a gap, then more outline. Part of me wants to just start writing and hope the problem solves itself when I get there, but I'd rather solve the problem now.

This whole process involves a lot of faith. I keep thinking about it every night, going over the possibilities, playing with ideas. Imagining what would happen if I totally changed everything. Every night so far I've thought up a new scene I like, so I just have to believe that eventually I'll figure this out too.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, rewriting takes a lot of faith. Faith that you'll figure it out eventually if you just keep playing with it.

3 comments:

  1. Rock that shit Emily. Good luck and have fun.

    Don't be afraid to outline some really stupid shit just to fill the page. You never know what obscenely silly idea will spark a galactically awesome one.

    -Jim

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's a good point. Sometimes stuff that sounds ridiculous ends up leading to something cool.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm going through something similar with my script. I'm keeping them main character and basic premise and pretty much trashing the rest. Hard but strangely liberating. Gonna try get it right this time....good luck with your script!

    ReplyDelete

Please leave a name, even if it's a fake name. And try not to be an asshole.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.