Okay, I've had a couple great days of good writing and I got some nice feedback on my novel. People seem to be as excited about it as I am. Nothing could be better.
But, in the screenwriting world here's what I've been through the last couple of days. My characters are running amok and spilling their guts. Which is great for me getting to know my characters, etc. but it's boring in a movie.
So what to do? How did I turn my scrambled egg surprise back into a lovely omelet?
As I went through what I had written, I referred back to my character arc and checked where my character was on her journey. Sometimes I found she was arcing too early - she's talking about stuff she shouldn't even realize yet. I either had to move the dialogue to later in the story or do something tricky.* Sometimes I found that I didn't need that dialogue at all and cut it. Other times, the dialogue fit.
Wow - thankfully - some of the new stuff actually was good dialogue that brought my two characters together. Well, that's what I hope. I'll know more after I get some notes this weekend. Until then, happy writing. I'll be charging ahead on my novel.
PS. I've had some emails from writers who are following the blog. Instead of answering each of them, let me remind everyone here. I started writing my 20th screenplay on July 1, 2010. I finished the first draft on August 2 and I'm now finishing the second draft at the end of August. I had a couple weeks of waiting for notes - which explains the gap in posting. If you want to read the entire journey you can start on July 1, 2010 the post is And So It Begins. Thanks for sharing. Hope this clears it up.
*It's a nice trick in a script to let your character get most of the puzzle worked out - only to miss that one big key piece that will bring it all together. Often, it's a helper character who "helps" her find that last piece. (They aren't called helper for nothing.)
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