Lesson 7

[Danielle Dillard]

Vision: To write family stories that entertain and educate.

Wordsmithing… I’m telling myself not to do it. It’s hard but will continue to stick with it. Letting go of “quality” and focusing more on quantity is not that easy for me but determined to continue on.

[Paul McGregor]

Paul Continuing Act 2.

4. Vision of success from this program: I want to write scripts that become movies that change people’s lives.

3. I took a couple of minor scenes to work on and it was interesting how new ideas popped up as I wrote. I also discovered some minor characters to whom I want to give more substance. I’d like each minor character to have something intriguing about them; not tell their whole story, but leave a question mark after they fade from the scene.

5. What I learned from this assignment is that the high speed writing rules really do help. First, they help combat inertia. Paraphrasing Margaret Atwood: “If I waited for an answer to every plot question, I would never write a word.”

I found that some problems get resolved as you write. You don’t have to solve all the problems first and then write. It’s like driving down a misty road. As you keep driving forward, your headlights keep lighting up more of the road in front. You don’t need to see right to the end of the highway. Instead, it gets lit up as you keep on driving/writing. But you do need your Outline as a map to reassure you that you’re on the correct highway.

END

[Kristina Zill]

Vision: to master screenwriting so that I can turn my ideas into salable scripts.

What I learned: how to overcome resistance and get words on paper.

Last Sunday, I was able to devote a chunk of time, and I wrote 22 pages! Then I had a couple of days where I was too tired at the end of the workday. It wasn’t that I didn’t have time, I was just pooped.

Today is also Sunday, and I was at the part of the script in Act 3 where I hadn’t filled out the outline as well. So I set the timer for 5 minutes and kept pressing Repeat, and finally turned off the timer because I was cruising without it. I wrote 30 pages at record speed, and made it all the way to the end of the script!

Now, I have to say that whereas last Sunday’s output was pretty high quality, a large portion of today’s pretty much sucked. The dialogue is all on the nose. There’s repetition. But I got the basic beats in place. I will definitely be able to improve the scenes when we elevate the quality.

So for the rest of the assignments, I’m going to fill in a few scenes that I skipped that needed a little bit of pondering and research. And I’ll clean up and improve my Act 3.

I also added a supporting character or two since we did that assignment, and I need to go back and revisit that lesson so that I can clarify them a bit.

It’s going to be a busy week work-wise, so I’m glad that I was able to pull ahead in case I wind up bushed at the end of the workday.

So excited to see it coming together!

I hope everyone else is having a productive writing weekend as well.

[Paul McGregor]

Well done, Kristina! I think we’re all learning so much from this course. I totally agree with your comment about overcoming resistance and getting words on paper. Hal has provided some great encouragement with respect to doing just that. Hope your day job doesn’t leave you too exhausted this week. Good luck!