I’ve Written the Beginning, the End, but I Have Nothing for the Middle
Creating a Character, a Story, a Life
I am currently working on my senior thesis film. The plan is to do all the pre-production work this year, and start the production next year. I am now in the phase of writing the screenplay, and I don’t think I have struggle this much before.
I’ve been going back and forth on different ideas for weeks now. The big question was wether I should make a comedy (which I haven’t for two years) or back to drama. I finally decided to go back to drama due to the fact that the story is a extremely complex and difficult one to tell. The premise of the story right now is about a family of three. A single father with two sons. The older son (the protagonist) is living under the shadow of his over achieving younger brother, and kind of decides to give up on trying and starting to go astray.
The problem I am trying to tackle includes the society expectation of what a man should do, and what a older brother should behave. The lack of female character in the family and story, what kind of difference would it make if the female of the family is still around? The relationship between father and son, between brother and brother. As you can tell I am starting to let this get out of my hands, especially wanting to make this a 20–25 minutes max short film.
The way I usually approach writing my screenplay is that I often have the full story line set up in my head before I start writing, and as I write, I make adjustment to the story. But this time I am completely stuck, I have the beginning and the end of the story, but have a huge hole I am trying to fill with all the ideas but no actual content. For the first time, I finish writing a scene and ask myself “now what?” I have no idea what happens next. It’s as if I am reading a book or watching a film I have never seen before.
Yes I do have some time on my hand, but time is running out, and I am not getting much support from my teacher or classmates. I am in need of inspiration. I am in need of change. I am in a dark room with only walls. I need that crack of light call creativity. I need the key to get me out of this limbo.
