the proverbial towel

hubbabubbs · Mar 30, 2006

Anyone else have this problem where you have rewritten a script so many times that you can't read through the script without being distracted? Yet scenes which you have recently added, still excite you? Is this normal, a consequence of having practically memorized every comma? Or is it a hint that the material is BORING, that it is time to throw in the towel on this particular work. maybe to revisit at a later date, if only to laugh mirthlessly at this foolish endeavor. Any similar experiences and maybe methods of beating the funk? In other news, the plants aren't talking anymore.

triceretops · Mar 30, 2006

I'm totally weary over my SF book Word Wars. I went over it about six times eight months ago. My agent just asked to seet it, and I picked it up again to do one more pass. What a wreck! I can't believe I even wrote this damn thing. Now here I am, not polishing, but doing major structural work, and I'm really tired of this hunk. So in answer to your question, yeppers, it's normal to get bogged down or try and find some other distraction--anything to avoid making another pass over a work that you know so well.

Tri

hubbabubbs · Mar 31, 2006

Record yourself reading it, and listen carefully to how you sound, where your interest perks up and where it goes flat.

Really good idea, just hope it doesn't cumulate in my laptop sharing the fate of my answering machine. For a laugh I sometimes turn on Final Draft's voices, doesn't really help, but it makes me laugh. I normally bind it to a .pdf and read it there (works better for my brain for some reason). It's kinda hard to explain. Normally when I read it I see it play before my eyes, but lately its been just words on paper. It doesn't come alive anymore. OK, before anyone gets all Freud on me, this has nothing to do with relationships or my mother. (just thought I would clear that up.)

Thanks for the ideas though. I read Syd Field prior to writing this, and I am not going to contest that those movies work (The Punisher follows it like a blueprint), but this is more of an ensemble piece and doesn't conform quite the same, though I did keep the basic principle in mind when drafting the script.

Another trick I play on myself is to find an appropriate track for the scene and it gets me in the mood. However, I think I've wised up to my tricks. :rant:

icerose · Mar 31, 2006

I don't know what you are talking about, every word I write is perfect and I have never gone through head banging want to tear my hair out rewrites and after the nine or tenth one want to just send it off and forget it and wish it was perfect.

How I wish it were true.

I HATE editing, rewriting, and polishing, how I wish I could just write and someone else handle the rest. - My Utopia -

madmaxmedia · Mar 31, 2006

Does your core story still work for you? Does the protag and other characters still excite you in any way?

I think that's important to keep in mind. Otherwise you just read these disembodied scenes- yeah I changed that, tweaked this, etc. But you have to see the forest as well as the trees.

If most of your changes have been tweaking scenes, improving dialogue, etc. (which is absolutely fine if that's what it needs), then you are probably only seeing the trees, which is why you are no longer excited. So take a step back, think about your protag and his quest in the story, his challenges and growth, his heroic moments, etc. How about just your core concept and/or logline? Do you think those still work? If all of these things fail to excite you, then maybe there is a problem with your script, I don't know.

If absolutely nothing about your script excites you anymore, then it may be that what you once thought was a good execution of your original concept is no longer so. If that's the case, you have to decide whether to do a major rewrite, or call it finished, or continue to tweak it, etc.

the proverbial towel

hubbabubbs

triceretops

hubbabubbs

icerose

Lost in School Work

madmaxmedia