Just over a month ago I noted that I had finished a draft of a script. As I said, the script went out to my early readers. In that month I've gotten a reaction to reading part of the script from one person. The other two haven't read a word. To be fair, one of them had a heart attack during that time, so that person can (probably) be forgiven for the slow response. In general though, this has been frustrating. I really want to get moving forward and I'm stuck waiting for other people.
Sigh.
But, in the meantime, I have not gone back to older scripts to see if they needed any work. Instead, I started an entirely new script. Two disconnected ideas collided in my head. This is how my scripts generally start. I took those two ideas and quickly developed an opening scene. And then I paused and wondered what the actual story was. This too is how many of my scripts start. It also explains why I have so many incomplete scripts lying around. But this time I thought back to one of those incomplete scripts, my first actually, and realized I could put those two things together. And then yet another idea came sailing out of the blue so I jammed that into the mix and discovered the whole thing was starting to rumble forward and come to life.
In my writing it seems that I need more than one idea to make the script move forward. I often take a singular idea and head off to the races. These usually collapse after 10-20 pages because that one idea can't drive anything. It takes a second idea to create some friction and develop some momentum. And the more ideas I can throw into the mix the better it moves.
But things seem to really come to life when I start to hear the characters talking. Today I was walking to work and thought to myself, "Okay, what's going on in this scene?" And I put two major characters together and let them talk. And they did. All of a sudden they were chattering back and forth in my head, and it didn't feel like I was pulling the strings. They were saying what they needed to say, regardless of what I though. I'm aware that may make me sound like a crazy person. So be it. When I've developed characters sufficiently, they start talking. And they tend to develop personalities and styles at this stage. It's my favorite part of the writing process. It stops feeling like work for a little bit. And the characters often surprise me by what they say and do at this point, which makes the story theirs, not mine.
So, if you are one of those early readers, don't feel guilty. I've found a productive way to spend my wait. I might not even notice how long you take right now. So don't worry about it.
No. Worry about it. Seriously. You're killing me. My head is likely to explode if I don't find out if this damn thing is working yet or not.
