Day 10 - Act One Or Bust

Okay - it's Sunday and the World Cup is about to start.

This week I have two goals in mind. Write to my act one break in my screenplay by Day 14 and write 20 new pages in my novel.

The major act breaks are always my favorite scenes because they are usually where I have the clearest focus on my story. They are the beats that come to me first. So as I approach the end of act one - let me share with you a list of things you will want to accomplish in the first 25-30 pages of your script.

In the outline the first act will have ten story beats. Sometimes you'll have a sequence of short scenes that equal one beat, only count these as one beat. A beat is something that happens that moves the story forward - by revealing character through action. In the first act these beats should pull double-duty and not only reveal character, but also set up your story.

There really shouldn't be any scene in your first act that only serve one function. Right now I have a "place holder" scene which is introducing the main character's spouse and showing "why they got married." This scene is merely there to show the good side of the hubby, before everything falls apart. Hopefully when people read this scene they will like the hubby. This is important because later I will make them hate. And I need the audience at this point to be fooled along with my main character. But, I'm not satisfied with the scene because it is only accomplishing that one purpose. It feels empty.

What I have to do is go back and set up some issues to play out later, set up some attitudes that can be changed, set up some bold assumptions to be undone. Also, I need to reveal something new about my main character. That's a lot of work for a one and a half page scene, but that's the challenge.

You can't let clever dialogue trick you. (And it will try to trick you. Look at me, I'm so funny, I can stay even though I'm not pulling my weight. Bull!)

Now, I say "place-holder" because I'm not going back NOW to fix this. I have simply made a note to myself and I'm moving forward. There are many discoveries to take place on this journey. Who knows, by the time I finish the vomit draft I might start the entire story in a new place in the next draft. Or maybe not. Maybe this scene will survive. Maybe not.

At this point, my job is to keep going.