My Screenplay Update

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

          I’ve had a full week preparing for deadline for the magazines, preparing for company, entertaining company, and welcoming a new puppy. I was so busy, I didn’t even think of this week’s post until 11:04 PM Sunday. (With a midnight deadline looming, I don’t have time to waste.)

          I also had a huge week working on my screenplay. I was inspired by the TV show This is Us when Sly Stallone was encouraging one of the characters, coincidently named Kate, to follow her dream to become a singer even though she was in her late 30s. He told her not to listen to other people who said she wouldn’t make it. Nobody believed that he could write the screenplay for Rocky in three days, but he did.

          I had never heard that before. He wrote a great screenplay in three days. I’m guessing he had been thinking about it for some time, but he wrote it in only three days.

          I’m not shooting to write mine in three days, but I want it done by the end of this year. So I worked on it among all the other things I had to accomplish this week.

          Along the way, I came up with an excellent tangent project that should make the screenplay a more enticing project.

          I wrote all this down in my monthly notebook. I know I harp on this, but filling a notebook a month enriches my writing. The empty space allows my thoughts to wander and wonder—and come up with brilliant and creative ideas.

          You meet your muse on the page. I’m not the first to say that, but it’s the truth.

          If you are serious about being a writer, you have to write. If you don’t have assignments or a book or other project that you are working on diligently, then pick up a notebook and fill it in a month. See what you have to say. You will be pleased and surprised as well as following your dream.

2017 Writing Projects List

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

As a magazine editor and contributing writer, I have paid assignments for two magazines. As a freelance editor, I have paid projects. As a freelance writer, I have goals I’ve set for myself. I plan on writing about 410,000 words in finished pieces this year.

          Here is my current 2017 writing project list:

Magazine assignments:

(numbers will change as page counts go up or down by eight pages depending on ads)

12 Thoughts from the Editor columns, 450-500 words each

20 Q&A articles, 1,200-1,400 words each

50 articles, 800-1,200 words each

4 book columns, 500-1,000 words each

52 Facebook thoughts/book reviews, 250-500 words each

Total: about 100,000 words published

Blog:

52 posts, 250-500 words each

                                                Total: about 18,000 words

Freelance:

4 articles, 1,000-1,500                   

Total: about 4,000 words

Works-in-Progress:

Screenplay:

         Finish roughing out the plot.

Writing in proper format.

                                      Total: about 10,000 words

Book:

          Still roughing out the details.

          Notes and text, about 30,000 words

         

                                                Total: about 30,000 words

Fill 12 notebooks (80 pages each) with jottings a la Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, about 20,000 words each

                                                Total: about 240,000 words

Backpack Literature, 300-500—depends on assignments I audit

                                                Total: about 10,000 words

My planned word count total for 2017 is over 410,000, using averages. 
(Before editing and rewriting, the count will be over 500,000.)

I’ll post the actual word counts weekly to better keep me on track.

January 1-7 word count:

          Facebook    259

          Blog Posts   398 (current and future posts)

          Screenplay    75

          Book            181

          Notebook   3,403

              Total       4,316   

   

Screenplay: Writing the Picture by R. Russin & W. Downs

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

          Updating my Personal Screenwriting Class:

I just found the book I really wanted and needed for My Personal Screenwriting Class entitled Screenplay: Writing the Picture by Robin U. Russin and William Missouri Downs. Both graduates of UCLA School of Film and Television who wrote every day and eventually sold screenplays, their book is a truly useful and often funny guide that gives you the basics, excellent advice as well as stating mistakes to avoid.

The authors give examples of screenplays, formats, and discuss line by line what should be there and why. They give terrific explanations of what works and what doesn’t. Then they share what readers for production companies are looking for as they read screenplays.

This book is well organized and easy to read. At the end of each chapter are exercises that get you writing the screenplay you’ve dreamed about in the correct format.

Russin and Downs cover every genre with their suggestions. They presume you have a story in mind so they want to help you polish it as well as look professional when you send your screenplays out.

I wish I had found this book years ago. I can only imagine how many screenplays I would have written by now. However, the important thing is that I found it so I’ll be completing my screenplay sooner than I thought—and in better shape thanks to the authors’ wise insights.

My Personal Writing Class--Screenwriting

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

The fun has begun. I picked the books I’m using as textbooks and I’ve read the two books I’m using as reference guides.

I read Story by Robert McKee a while ago so I could review it. It’s inspiring so in the back of my mind I decided I would try screenwriting at some point. I have it on my desk for reference along with The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller by John Truby which I read recently. The overview information from these books helps clarify my thoughts as I complete the exercises in my textbooks.

I started my personal screenwriting class with 90-Day Screenplay: A day-by-day guide through the process of getting your screenplay onto the page by Alan Watt. (I enjoyed following his 90-Day Novel workshop even though I’m not a novelist.) He makes writing entertaining and challenging. All the questions he lists makes you dig deep and discover surprising things about your characters.

As Watt points out on Day 7 on page 39: We are less interested in our protagonist getting what he wants than we are in seeing how he gets what he needs.

The exercises on page 42 ask you to write as your protagonist from six different points. If you let yourself go, your character will “speak” telling you things you didn’t know, hadn’t considered, and/or that explain his/her motivation.

One of the prompts is “The last time I cried was when…” Well I had never considered my protagonist crying. As I started to complete the exercise, I realized he had teared up while driving on the main road back into his hometown after almost a decade away which is at the beginning of my screenplay, but he had cried when he left suddenly without explanation to some important people in his life then, people he wanted back in his life now. I may or may not put that he cried in the screenplay, but it gives me insight into a vulnerability of my character.

I will be honest and share that sometimes I do the 90-Day exercises for two or three days at a time in the beginning because they are short (20-30 minutes) and engaging. This makes me feel I’m immersed in my project quickly. As the exercises take more time, I may only complete the exercises for that day.

I have a notebook dedicated to this book so I can see my progression. It also makes it easy to refer back to my answers as I move forward.

I’m alternating reading chapters from Now Write! Screenwriting with Exercises from Today’s Best Writers and Teachers edited by Sherry Ellis and Laurie Lamson and Writing the Romantic Comedy: From “Cute Meet” to “Joyous Defeat”: How to Write Screenplays That Sell by Billy Mernit.

I’m using one notebook for the exercises in these two books. Each entry is headed by the initials of the book and the page number of the exercise. I’m also using blue ink for the exercises in Now Write! and black ink for Writing the Romantic Comedy. This makes referring back to answers a bit easier.

My favorite section so far (I’m on page 38 on May 31^st when I wrote this post) from Now Write! is on pages 3-5. Mardik Martin, who wrote Raging Bull, discusses that audiences identify more with the conflict than the character. Observe people around you as they deal with conflicts. Collect anecdotes. But he also states on page 5: Remember, you can only steal so much from real life. The great writer uses ingenuity to combine characters and their situations.

On page 25 of Now Write!, Paula C. Brancato, who wrote Subterfuge, discusses that writers have many more ideas than they use. I enjoyed the exercise on page 27. There is a story setup then you are asked to jot down as quickly as possible 20 possibilities of what happens next. Find out how creative and clever you can be.

Writing the Romantic Comedy is more of a big picture viewpoint of your screenplay at the beginning. Lots of details and examples about screenplays: Point of View, Characters, Plot & Structure, Dialogue, Settings, etc.

Exercises start on page 29 and they are all about your screenplay so you need to have a good idea of your plot and characters by this page.

My screenplay plot and characters are taking shape.

I hope your projects are going well, too!

A few weeks after I wrote this post, I discovered Screenplay: Writing the Picture by Robin U. Russin and William Missouri Downs. This is the book you need for this class. See post dated 8/10/15.