Mental Flotsam, Mental Jetsam

Because the only thing that beats going crazy is going crazy with somebody else

Thursday, January 26, 2006

*Taps Head, No Ideas Come Out*


I appear to be in the thick of a nasty case of writer’s block. I hate the stuff. Hate, hate, hate it. The screenplay I’ve been working on for months, whose first draft went so swimmingly, has evidently dried up. I can’t put word one on paper.

Shit.

The story has been bouncing around upstairs for quite some time. It was a solid idea, it just needed putting down on paper. Which I did. And I was pleased with it.

In reviewing the traits of what makes a quality story (The Screenwriters Bible continues to be worth its weight in gold); I found that it’s lacking in a few elements, so I went back to the drawing board.

I know what I want to change. I know what I want to retain. I know that certain events need to be re-sequenced. I’m even changing the ending. For the life of me, I cannot make it happen. I even attempt to muster the gray cells to tackle the issue, and my mental engine just quits.

Maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me something. Maybe I should keep a bit more of what I was planning to change, and look for other ways to make the alterations I’ve intended…

What’s the crucial revision? I need to make the protagonist more active, less passive. He needs to make certain events happen, not merely watch them occur and then react. The first idea I had toward that goal hasn’t resulted in so much as one typed page. So it’s safe to say that’s out.

Something’ll come to me, sooner or later.

I hope.

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