Lesson 27

[Jeanne Sanner]

Jeanne Sanner Solving Scene Problems

Okay. The only screenplay I have ever written was 24 pages. While putting that together in the class I took, we were told to make our scenes short and snappy, and we could always go back and add if needed. Currently for this class, my script is 103 pages and I have 102 scenes. Some are really short, and others are a little longer than one page. There is no way I can do this lesson in a short period of time if I am to do it well, but I am looking forward to investing the time needed to complete this lesson. I love the things we are to look for. I hope many of my scenes will be well done from the start, but I have my doubts. I have already learned a lot just by reading the lesson and I know I will learn a tremendous amount about scene construction as I do the lesson. Thank you for such a well-structured program; I just wish we could get feedback on our progress.

[Laurie Reilly]

Laurie – Solved the Obvious Scene problems. For the most part I solved the ‘obvious’ ones when I re-wrote the beats for Act 4. That said, I went through and tightened and looked in particular for cliche scenes (since those are the ones that bore me when watching a movie) I also think I may be too close to the scripts.. After the final lesson, I need to let it rest a bit and get some feedback from trusted readers.

[Margaret]

Margaret Solved Scene Problems

What I learned: Concentrating on one item at a time (looking for weak scenes) was easier than looking for 4 things in each scene, but it took me longer.

I realized my world wasn’t different enough, which may confuse the reader. I also realized that some emotions were lacking. Characters did not react as strongly as they would in real life.