I BROKE THE STORY!!!

9 days ago I implimented my "5 Cards Created or Altered a Day" strategy for developing a screenplay.

This evening (well, yesterday evening by Normal People schedules, really -- this is around 2:00 or 3:00 pm for me) I created a decent breakdown for my movie!

I'm NOWEHERE NEAR writing the actual script pages yet, but I can at least see the light at the end of this particular tunnel!!!

And since this is meant to be a free workshop and guide to help YOU write YOUR screenplay, I'll explain what happened.

Okay, when I reached dead ends with the cards, I'd work on character stuff and emotional stuff. I even researched the layouts of ranches and ranch houses so that I could plot action from room to another if necessary. (Which ended up being very helpful, though not in the precise way I imagined.)

I worked on different aspects of the story as they came to me -- without ever really breaking a sweat, I might add; if you're frustrated and dispondant you might want to take a break for a few days and give yourself permission to have fun and come back fresh next week -- and got to know what I COULD about the world I'm creating.

Then today, frustrated at my lack of significant progress (AND after having allowed myself to slack off one day too many) I sat down with a copy of the pilot to VERONICA MARS -- the teleplay by Rob Thomas -- and just read, and it was the transition from Act One to Act Two that seemed to break a damn in me. I decided to break the story up into 15-page sections and just figure out where each section begins and ends.

That's it, that's all... I was just going to figure out the beginning and ending moment for each of the 8 15-page units that make up a 120-page script.

This was so that I could figure out where the holes are in my awareness of the story. It also was to help me figure out where some of my cards might go.

That ended up giving me a very clear workable structure that I KNOW is a safe starting point. The structure I came up with tonight is solid. It can and WILL be better as I work on it, but what I came up with tonight is absolutely good enough.

So now my job will be to turn what I've created tonight into notecards, and begin making those notecards more detailed. I have 3 characters I need to come up with names and personalities and wants and desires for, and I have several death scenes (I'm writing a horror flick) that I need to really massage and tease out. Then the rest is finding the precise moments when all my character stuff is going to play out (so that you care about what's going on and the jeopardy of a killer is ACTUALLY SCARY).

But I have contrsucted the diving board that will give me enough lift to finally get me into the pool.

Okay, that's a lame metaphor. Sorry. But you get my point.

Anyway, I have more work to do on my cards, so Bye for now.

And good writing!!! :D