Tonight Nina and I had a productive meeting over some all-you-can-eat tacos (always a catalyst for intellectual pursuits). I somewhat begrudgingly decided upon my script rather than my novel for her to project manage as we both agreed since it's the more violent of the two it's probably also the more badass. Although, I've been making a lot of headway on that story lately and I doubt I'll give up on it entirely to focus on my script. I've set a concrete goal of completing a project (now we know it's the script and not the novel) by the end of August. So, by August 31st, 2011 I will have a script completed, polished, and ready to move forward with. Hopefully a novel too.
It seems as though it will take the majority of my time for the remainder of summer. By the end of the week my application will be in the mail and/or submitted online as appropriate so all I need to do is send out prompts for letters of recommendation and then await my graduate school fate.
Our meeting tonight was fantastic in that it offered that much coveted though always elusive external perspective that you just can't get when you're only one human being. I realized how unimaginably tedious I had made all the elements that as of yet didn't connect, and had neglected to address the most critical aspects of the story, such as: What are the characters overarching motivations? What do they want? What is the overarching theme? What is the ending (the most important aspect of the story to know before you begin writing!)? What is at stake?! (I'm sorry Syd Field, I've failed you.)
Somehow I had, or thought I had, an inciting incident, and yet it didn't connect with any particular event and so incited... nothing. My next assignment is to fix that. Honestly, somehow I thought I had all of these major elements embedded in my copious disjointed notes, but after discussing them I realized they fell apart. It was really exciting, actually, because it made the story feel more alive. All this time it's just been ideas that no longer have any value in my head because I have nothing against which to justify them, and hearing them aloud is critical to knowing whether or not they work. Hearing my ideas spoken to another person is really the only way to find out whether or not they work. I find myself explaining ideas differently than I do for myself. Where details might suffice for my own explanation in your head to someone else they may seem flimsy and they instantly red flag themselves. It's a harsh process and I had to walk into it (or sit into it at a table with many tacos) trusting that Nina wasn't going to laugh at my cockamamie ideas or that they don't fit together. Yet. That's what this is for.
These are the types of puzzles my brain loves. I'll straighten all of this out, and I have faith in this story. It's going to be brutal and grizzly, exciting and suspenseful. At least, I hope it will. This is my first outing at a feature-length script and the first time I'm employing all the tactics I've read about in the last few months. Here's my final exam.
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