Writing Again
Ups and downs. In the third act of this latest screenplay.
I have an issue where I’ll outline from start to finish — at least the basic events of what will happen — but instead of sticking to the outline (in which I’ve invested several pages), I’ll go in a different direction when I actually write the screenplay. This allows for some wonderful moments to happen that I wouldn’t have conceived in the planning stages, but then I’ll have an ending that’s not consistent with the tone or the themes I’ve established in the previous two-thirds of the movie.
What I wish I could do is somehow leave room for all of this magic to happen in the outline. I’d rather rewrite in that stage, than try to rework themes, ideas, and characters after writing 120 pages of a screenplay. If it’s not evident by now, I don’t know how to do a proper rewrite. The only thing I’ve ever rewritten was the first draft of Swing Away, and that involved writing a draft, then writing a second version of the screenplay that was nothing like the original thing — I essentially wrote a second movie of the same idea.
I’m reading The Wrestler right now, and it’s unbelievable. It’s the kind of story that inspired me to write movies in the first place, about human beings and their “ordinary” lives, but that somehow feels so Shakespearean that you wonder how a movie about real people could grip you the way it does — I mean, what’s so exciting about a washed wrestler who’s estranged from his daughter and works at a deli?
Anyway, Robert Siegel’s script got to its current version after going through fifty drafts. And I’m like, life is short. Do I even have that long to polish off an idea? I need to get good at writing as a whole, and I don’t know if that’s going to happen through developing one thing (maybe it’ll happen if given the chance to develop a multitude of ideas? That could take years!). I feel like my execution is never going to be on point though if I can’t fully realize these germs of creation that I plant in the screenplay. I’m not going to be able to pay my bills with a screenplay that’s a half-baked soufflé of ideas, but I need to figure out a process where I can develop them fully without spending an exorbitant amount of time rewriting.