Before the Fade up

Here it is. My writing before the actual writing.
I’ll back up.

I’m writing a screenplay at the moment and to all of the writers out there, you know the most frustrating part? Starting the opening scene. Well, o.k. Maybe more frustrating is having a screenplay no one wants to read, film, or option. That’s a more popular setback, I would suspect.

I’m very grateful. I have a career in film, a book I’ve optioned to adapt for the screenplay, a crew ready to film it, actors ready to star in it and distributors ready to make money with me on it. Now….what’s next? Oh yes. Writing it.

I invite you to hop on this journey of madness with me: Being pressured by having too much of a good thing already in place. Has that ever happened to you? With me, not so much. So I’m in an adjustment phase. Or…we can just call it what it is: Procrastination.

Writers write. I’m going to try to log on as often as I can and share with you how this writer takes this project to screen. Yes, I should be writing page 1 of the screenplay right now, but with this particular story, I’m going to stick to what works when layering the story with flavor.

Tonight’s assignment: Character biographies. Having these nearby offers an easy cheat sheet to both story and character development. It’s also something filmmaker John Sayles mentioned years ago as a way to get his actors right into character for the duration of the shoot. For me as I am writing stage still and not directing stage (yet), in the case of this particular script being an adaptation I want to make sure I’m including every necessary character and character flaw, and excising the non-essentials.

I’ll stick with this one assignment of character bios for now and hope I’m on to assignment number two by week’s end. I’ll check back with you guys then! Any questions/comments/advice please leave me a note. I love to read the writing that’s not my own. :)

Stay tuned!