A Lackluster Character Brings the Whole Thing Down

I was going to say "A Lackluster Main Character...," but really any lackluster character hurts your story, because people invariably feel the deficit of attention to detail and they focus on it. I got to page 16 of my script and hit a wall. I thought this was because I was rusty, then I thought it's because I'm a terrible writer (oh, woe is meeeee). Now I know: my main character is a bore.

For some reason I thought that a mopey, slightly depressed and perpetually stepped on individual would be stimulating. The idea was that through the whole alien incident she would find her backbone and arise a self aware, empowered woman. Good, right? No. Boring. I'm putting the audience through 45-60 minutes of pathetic pouting and downcast eyes in an alien movie! This does not work.

So here's the new idea: we replace this powerless and putrid HR drone with a poised and powerful analyst, hired by the company to basically fire people. On the outside, she is in control. On the inside, she's pregnant by a much younger, much stupider man/child, her parents are splitting up and she is now faced with a crazy scientist-type who is convinced there's an alien invasion going on. Her structured turns to chaos, chaos forces change and from that a new structure.

The idea of a seemingly confident woman being stripped of her control only to find a higher sense of all she pretended to be is infinitely more interesting than taking a puny, wet blanket and forcing her to be confident. It's just better.

I think it's better.

I Don't Write Too Good These Days

I considered committing the double grammatical offense of using "to" instead of "too," but you know what, I think you get it. Ugh, I can't explain my frustration with how rusty a writer I've become. While I was off getting a monetarily useful education, my part-time hobby/dream/someday possibly monetarily successful writing went underground in my brain and digging it up again has proved a little more difficult than I thought it might be.

Since Monday, I've written 15 pages and one long narrative outlining the entire story. Still, only 15 pages of actual script, and those were come by with great wailing and gnashing of teeth. And internet surfing. And Millionaire Matchmaker viewing (you know, cable is as much a curse as it is a wonderful, wonderful blessing).

There are a couple of things that I have done right, I think. The first was to write out a narrative of my screenplay, from beginning to end, as if it was already completed and I was giving a detailed account of the movie to someone else. This really exposed those weak areas of my story, as I could imagine what that other person would say at certain points, both flattering and not so much. The other thing about this is it forced me to make decisions I was putting off, and it also showed me when I was making a character do something that was outside the realm of belief for that character, which I then had to fix before moving on.

The other thing I did was I actually sat down and wrote the thing. No, seriously, it's astounding how much writing does get done when you sit down to actually write. And one of the most important principles to follow when writing is to press through. Don't leave the computer because you've suddenly hit a part of your story that is hard to figure out. Set a page goal, or word goal, and don't get up until it's met. Internet shopping? Fine. Check your email inbox? Sure. But you don't get to shut the computer down for the day until your goal is met.

So, to recap, keys to writing: write. Every day, if at all humanly possible. And don't give up.

Out of the Frying Pan, Now Suspended in that Dead Space Preceding the Fire

What have I been doing!? No post since February! And the last two not real posts, anyway. Taking a look back, I Graduated nursing school (hip-hip-hooray), sold a house, moved to another state and now I have a whole month before I start my residency/job. So of course, I'm going to write a screenplay. No, not write a screenplay, finish a screenplay. A first draft of a screenplay. Yeah. That sounds good.

But what to write? I have a really fleshed out alien rom/com (I may have mentioned it), however looking back at all my notes and my first 50 pages I realized that time and distance had given me something: insight. It's terrible. I'm a terrible writer. It's almost ridiculous how blind you can be to your own terribleness.

So what now? Rescue this pile of worn out plot points and two-dimensional characters from their mediocre imprisonment, or start anew? Start anew with what? It's been two years since I've fleshed out anything; is this going to be like riding a bike (easy peasy) or playing Moonlight Sonata on the piano (not a chance in hell).

It's so depressing to spend time and energy on something you're not proud of, and I'm afraid I have at least four more scripts like this before I really hit some kind of stride. Might as well add this alien thing to the body count. Seriously, a romantic comedy with aliens? When has that ever worked? Ever?