For want of structure

By RosieNo Comments
I'm really struggling to make pages at the moment. I think the 60-min TV format is confusing my brain. I'd just got my head around the 110-page movie format, with my BS2 in hand. Also, most of my televisual input comes from the States. Or via Doctor Who, which is also 45m. (And was simply AMAZING tonight - the proof that a well-structured and carefully thought out season can really make a finale.) Therefore, the sixty-minute piece of television has thrown me for a loop. I've gone with a three-act structure, because all television act structures seemed geared towards adverts, which is inappropriate for the Beeb. But I find myself flailing wildly at page 35, wondering where I'm going to dredge up another 25 pages from. I'm probably good to end at 45, tbh, and that's because I'm so used to that length of television making sense. Either I need to take in more one-hour dramas or I need to seriously rethink the middle...
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Just a few lines more

By RosieNo Comments
You may think that this scrabble for pages is a little, well, arbitrary. Why does a screenplay have to be 110 pages anyway? And the answer is, of course, that it doesn't. However, I am using the BS2 structure and, while the pages don't have to number 110, they do have to be in proportion. And now, finally, the first half of my film is 55 pages long. It also must be said that I'm not just throwing in things for the Hell of it. The scenes I've tackled tonight are the ones that have always felt not quite long enough, or ended too abruptly. Adding just a couple of lines of dialogue made the scene make sense for me, or left my dynamic duo with a reason for "sitting comfortably" instead of at each other's throats. I have six pages to fight for in Acts 2B and 3. Unfortunately, I have a couple of scenes that are short by necessity, and I...
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Page 100

By RosieNo Comments
Inane subject lines aside, this is a good moment for me. Sure, it's not 110 and I still have to sort out the scene length in the second half of my film, but it feels good. I put it down to the three impending work deadlines hanging over my head. I always spend so much more time on my writing when I have other things I should be doing. My writing buddy is pushing himself through Script Frenzy this month. As I'm a NaNoWriMo veteran, I thought he was making a lot of fuss over nothing - until he told me his movie involved time travel. I thought an escape sequence through a steam clock was hard. Only ten pages to go!...
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The End

By RosieNo Comments
Every author breathes for those words. The culmination of an artistic journey, the deep sense of satisfaction an achievement that comes from typing six characters on a screen. Of course, the journey is far from over. I am twenty-six pages light, most of which live in Act Two B, but I now know where everything's going. I understand my characters and their journeys, and I can see where that pesky act needs to be hammered - the addition of a determined "recovery" montage is always a good way to pull the character out of the despair of the 'All is Lost' moment....
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