Advice for Writing Problems?

Hi, all. Currently, I'm writing about a 30-page script that I'm hoping to finish in a couple of weeks so I can shoot it for a class project. So far, I've written about 4.5 pages sticking to my step outline like glue. Although, I feel like I'm sticking so much that it's not flowing. I'll have a step that'll say, "Dorm life--Charlie questions his manhood, personality, the way he conducts himself, his maturity." That's a note I leave myself saying that I want to construct a scene of typical dorm life for the character, but it brings out those questions from Charlie naturally.

What I'm hoping to hear from you guys is how to write that. The easiest thing would be to just remember when the same thing's happened to me and appropriate it for the story I'm writing. Unfortunately, I can't remember any of those things.

I had an idea for how to write the scene, but it seemed too blatant. I was just going to have Charlie and his two friends, who are playing chess, discuss something one of the friends thought of in class. Charlie will OPENLY question all the qualities I've mentioned, and it will be part of the discussion. I know the audience won't have an outline to follow like me, but I just feel like I'm slapping a lot of steps together without smoothing it over really well in the transitions.

Hopefully some of you can relate. I've got a distant cousin of writer's block, but they're still related and there's still some resemblence.

i think one of the best times i had in college was when me and two friends got very, very stoned and talked about why we missed saturday morning cartoons.

now, if you took the heart of the anecdote and related it to your characters that could be a very good jumping off point.

one of my friends loved gazoo, the green guy on the flintstones. he said he applauded the boldness of a cartoon to combine all three elements of our exisence:

prehistoric animals, actual people, and martians that spoke in a accent that combined a pompous english, french combination and dry wit of a salty texan.

16 years later i still think of that night.

somehow bewitched got in their too

vig

I know the audience won't have an outline to follow like me, but I just feel like I'm slapping a lot of steps together without smoothing it over really well in the transitions.

There's only one way to find out and that's to write the scene. If it works, you'll know. If it doesn't, delete it and think of something else.

I was just going to have Charlie and his two friends, who are playing chess, discuss something one of the friends thought of in class. Charlie will OPENLY question all the qualities I've mentioned, and it will be part of the discussion.

Thinking back to when I was in school, there was only one main subject, from which all other subjects grew and were related to. That subject had long legs, big breasts and an impossibly shapely butt. Chess games would last about 2 minutes, then thankfully someone would bring out a porn video that had been played so often all you could see were vague shadows moving behind a curtain of snow -- or a crumpled magazine their shady cousin had somehow smuggled back from a foreign trip, filled with inconceivable things and text that had to be laboriously translated by some geek who took German class and had to be coerced into assisting ("All right, you can read it once everyone's finished with it!"). I'm just saying. But seriously, you want people to watch a chess game while listening to a discussion about something someone thought of in class? You sure must hate your audience! Me, I'd be praying for death if I had to sit through this for 30 minutes.

-Derek
My Web Page - naked women, bestial sex, and whopping big lies.

The chess game is just one scene. It's like Charlie stops in his friends' room, they're playing chess, they talk about everything that needs to bug Charlie (though they're not trying to), and it's over.

The story's about a Christian college student who struggles with accepting the calling he's received, but his parents violently disagree and alienate themselves from him, since they're extreme fundamentalists. They kick him out of the house (which is pretty bad, since he still lives at home when he's not living at school, which is only 30 minutes away). Plus his parents turn his church against him--the same church that MAJORLY supported him going to this particular college, since he thought he'd be going there to go into the ministry.

Not sure many of you guys could relate, though. I'm not sure how many Christians could relate. I'm telling the story of my life and I'm not really just another face in the crowd, once you get to know me. It's like there's normal and I'm anything but that. I'm either too "out there" or too down to earth. I'll go out of my way to be nice to people and other times, I'll just be weird, leaving a path of awkward silences in my wake after I say things. What a paralyzing handicap. So yeah...thanks for the advice you guys gave! (Getting stoned doesn't sound like a bad idea...)

Your idea has been done before.

The movie is called saved.

Re: Your idea has been done before.

Even though I was looking for help, I bet you feel proud of yourself for that.

Reply

FB2 drop the idea because it's been done before. That is good advise.

Number one think about what implications your movie will have on Christians who are already very unpopular in todays society.

I wanted you to think about the movie Save. Was it a financial success? Did it get rave reviews? No and No!

Do you even know enough about the Christian world to portray it accurately? Are all fundies bad to their kids?

The movie Save was a complete misrepresentation of the Christian world. Yes some Christians are dictatorial about their religion but that doesn't mean all are.

You said it yourself people may not relate to your movie. If that's how you truly feel than that tells me this movie should not be made.

Re: Reply

30 pages is a lot for a school production. i'll bet you can make it better by cutting out 15 pages of crap.

rewrite on!

Advice

FB2,

I haven't seen Saved, so I'm not sure how similar your idea is, but if this is for a school project and not for submission to Hollywood, then that doesn't really matter. Unless you're completely ripping off the idea, your project will be graded on its structure and execution and not its originality.
As for the chess scene, I have strong advice that I think can help: having people talk about the themes/conflict of your story is the weakest way to present those ideas on film. It should be your last resort. You probably have heard of "show don't tell." It's the rule in film for a reason. People like to figure out what's going on when they're watching a movie, it makes them feel involved. If you wanted to show that your character wished he had big muscles, it's better to just have a scene with no dialogue where he is standing in the mirror with no shirt on flexing and then grabbing at his puny muscles, instead of saying to his friend, "Man, I wish I was buff." Stupid example, I know, but I hope it gets my point across.
So, what I'm suggesting is not easy. Try to find a way to show your audience what your protagonist is dealing with. If you want to show him dealing with his manhood/maturity/personality, then maybe you want someone to argue with him over something and the way he reacts (does he reason with the person? does he yell? does he throw a punch? does he insult the other person?) will show you and us all we need to know about what's going on inside him.
In every scene you write, you should be thinking of how you can show what you're trying to get across. A good idea is to imagine you're witing a silent film, and see how you could express the idea without words at all. Then you start writing and add in only as much dialogue as you need.

I hope that helps. Good luck.