Tantrum
What is hell but a child in the throes of an uncontrollable tantrum.
Meant to post this last night, but after a full day of work, zoom school, and seemingly eight hours of my youngest screaming and throwing plastic trucks, I was drained.
But…
I did get quite a bit of writing done last night. Don’t know how. But I found myself in the zone after wolfing down a scoop of peanut butter and chocolate ice cream.
A quick recap:
Been working a TON of character development on my new pilot - wounds, flaws, skills, relationships, wants, needs, etc. I’ve got a ton of notes and ideas. Some solid choices but not confined so there’s room for my imagination to wonder and let the character develop organically.
After feeling pretty good about where my character work is, I decided to work on the actual pilot - like, what is this story really about and how to tell it in an entertaining and emotionally-charged way?
For previous scripts I’d do some light character work - a conflict, motivation, obstacle paragraph or so - and then move on to an outline that really turned into a series of garbage bins where I’d drop in a shit-ton of ideas and just plain crap. Then I’d whip into the first draft and hope for the best. Sometimes the story worked; sometime it didn’t. Oftentimes issues that I found in the script could’ve easily been fixed or addressed earlier if I’d just plan better.
I realized the process that I relied on for writing scripts wasn’t solid. I needed to really reflect and examine the steps I take to creating a story.
All of this might seem like pedantic, trivial nonsense - especially to pro writers - but for me it’s been a game changer. I feel more connected to my characters and story. And when I return to my notebook - I work from a notebook at this stage - I’m always finding new and interesting ways to engage with the story and let the characters blossom.
Now that I’m feeling good about my characters, my next step is to figure out exactly what this pilot is about. And to do that I need to revisit my logline and then brainstorm how that logline evolves over a teaser and 5 acts (this is my standard structure so far).
Basically I spent last night revisiting my original logline, making edits and adjustments to fit the story that surfaced during the character development phase.
Then, for the teacher and each act I wrote a logline from the MC’s perspective - what do they want in this act? what’s stopping them? what’s at stake?
This part was super tricky and hard as hell! As a writer I tend to start from the macro, the concept/idea/theme, and drill down to the micro. In this case, I’m starting from a macro place but I feel like I’m drilling into the micro a lot quicker than I usually do.
So, like my youngest son who spent the day kicking and screaming, I spent the night kicking and screaming in my brain trying to flex a muscle that isn’t used to lifting weights.
But what I learned from my son that can help me with my writing is that all bad moments eventually fade away. As challenging as last night’s writing was, I know tonight’s will be better, stronger.
Tantrums are nothing more than unacknowledged feelings reminding you they’re still there. They just need to come out for a bit.
Today’s Accomplishments
Revised logline for new pilot.
Sketched out the loglines for the teaser and each act of my new pilot - I also titled each act after a song or song lyric.
Tomorrow’s Goals/Tasks
Revise loglines for each act and then email to accountability group for feedback.
Work on CASUAL analysis.
Story Worthy Moment
I mean, I spent the day with a screaming, crying 6 year old who wouldn’t accept any help and couldn’t calm down for nothing.
In terms of story….?
I think there’s definitely a scene to be had somewhere. I mean, a cranky kid, an overworked father, and overly-overworked mother, an apartment. I’m pretty sure things could escalate quickly.
