Sunday, April 27, 2008

The Resurrection of Clyde Benner

A few posts back I mentioned that I was going to attempt to write a screenplay this month. I'm calling it "The Resurrection of Clyde Benner." I'm 63 pages in and have 37 more to go to meet the requirements of the Script Frenzy contest. Counting today, I only have four days left to write the remaining pages. That's hard, but doable. It's all going to hinge on my day off tomorrow. If I can knock out about 20 pages tomorrow I think I'm home free.

I haven't had too much time to develop the plot, but I think that's actually helped me to write faster. I'm still not sure how it will end, but the story is finding itself as it goes. At this point, it has a mind of it's own. Novelists talk about letting the characters write their own story and I'm closer to understanding that than ever before. There's a mystery to it for sure. I'm not even sure exactly what the title means, but I think I will discover it's meaning in the third act.

Turns out, it's a comedy. I wasn't planning on that. It's going to need plenty of doctoring, but it could be something. Right now, I just want to be able to say on May 1 that I wrote a 100-page screenplay in 30 days. Better get back to writing...

2 comments:

ylmurph said...

I see Clyde resrrecting his life through an epiphany.
"I'd never known about this thing you call the Roomba, I have a new lease on life now! Yesterday I was dead, but today I am alive!"

maybe throw in a car chase and some eye candy...

Helen Ann said...

Characters do indeed come up with their own life story...Once when I was stuck at a certain point I decided to have my character interviewed by a journalist. It is one of the best pieces of writing I have done but I don't feel like I wrote it! I feel like I simply transcribed it. I got a deeper understanding of the character and the journalist became a part of the screenplay itself!