Done! Or am I...?

Well, I am officially done with school. All my grades are in and I am done a term early. For my screenplay however this is not the end. I got the 3rd draft in and have let it sit for a while as I work on other projects, and have started re-visiting it again. The ending is not quite where I want it to be yet, but overall I love how the script came out. I am going to be doing a 4th and possibly 5th draft to see how it can come together and then try marketing it a bit. it's a long shot that it will ever be picked up but there's still a chance, and I would love to see this movie come to life.

Overboard with the rules of magic

So there have been several people who have reviewed my script and they pointed out some things that need to get changed. One of the things that everyone points out that needs to get fixed is in regards to the rules of magic. I had written in at one point that the elven and fairy races cannot channel the natural energies like humans can. I came up with this after reading the stipulation in a series of fantasy books called The Dancing Gods series. It was a nice little rule that played in with Areil's mixed heritage, and also creates a reason for why there are so few mages left, because most of the magical beings would have some kind of fairy blood in them. However overall it just doesn't seem to work and needs to get nixed. That has been the sentiment of several of my reviewers and I agree.

3rd draft changes

So going over my second draft and there are some things I need to address. One of the biggest issues is that After Braden first comes to the circus, Victor allows him to return to Jerome. It's what needs to happen plotwise but it just doesnt feel right how I currently have it happen. This is basically what triggers the transition into act 2, when Braden comes home after school and discovers it in ruins. The other plot mechanic/logic problem I am having is that once Victor attacks and drives out Jerome, he currently doesn't leave anyone behind to collect Braden. I need to write in someone being there and maybe scaring Braden off accidentally. The other points in my script that I think need to be stronger are the relationships between the characters. It is now written in that Victor was one of Jerome's former students, but the is currently no connection for why Braden is being raised by his grandfather or what happened to Braden's Parents. When I wrote the first draft I had it that Braden and Jerome were not related and that Jerome had seized Braden as a child and killed his parents. But as the script evolved it has turned into that Jerome IS Braden's actual grandfather, just not through Merlin's line so he cannot use the Key himself. I am plotting out how to write into possibly Braden's parents and Victor both being Jerome's students, and when learning of his true intent rebelled. Braden's Parents are killed in the fight, but Victor survives, and Jerome also gets Braden. I am not sure how I will present this information. I am toying around with ideas such as flashbacks and the like, but nothing has really stuck out as a good way to interject this information into the story.

Better late than never

Finished with my new draft of my screenwriting workshop script at last. It's taken a lot of late nights and an obnoxiously large investment in coffee, but the new draft is complete. It was delayed a lot by my senior thesis film shoot and the various crises that were involved with that, so I did not meet the deadline unfortunately. For this new draft I tried to incorporate a lot of the suggestions Prof. Bronte gave to me, which ended up in a lot of re-arranging and re-imagining of the first and second acts. In the first draft I had a huge problem in my second act where the main Character loses a lot of momentum in the search for his grandfather as he gets involved in the circus, and I needed to help him keep that search alive. To solve that I wrote in how in the first act, when he discovers his grandfather is missing, he take several of his grandfather's spellbooks with him, which he then studies on his own. In these books he discovers notes his grandfather wrote about the remenants of Magic in NYC. These lead him to Lady Agatha, a fortune teller (what is a magic movie without a fortune teller :) ), who attempts to kill him when she does a reading on Braden and discovers he is going to unleash merlin's shade. It's a fun scene and really helps keep up Braden's motivations for his search for his grandfather. Other suggestions I incorporated were taking out Braden's parents. I still have the succubis and incubus as part of the script, but they are now in the form of a pair of mangy cats that Jerome keeps. Also Victor, the head of the circus, was actually Jerome's former student. I still feel I need to place more emphasis on this relationship in the next draft. I also need to place more emphasis on Braden's physical development when he is with the circus and free of the influence of the succubus and incubus (for example there is no scene where he clearly no longer needs his inhaler).

For this draft, and the next draft, I have had to adjust my writing process and get more people involved. I was finding myself facing a lot of blocks where I knew i had to change a scene, but couldn't figure out what else to write that would be better than what was already on the page. That or I had trouble thinking of alternate scenarios to show what a scene of exposition got a across. I have basically started to show my script to more people and get feedback. When I am actually writing it I am now often over at friend's houses more than coffee shops, just hanging out in case I get to part I am having trouble with and can just call them over for a quick brainstorm. I have several screenwriting friends/friends who love fantasy who I will be showing this current draft to in order to get their opinions and suggestions. It has taken a long time, but the script has come a long way from the first draft and is starting to turn into something that can one day possibly be a real movie.

playing catchup

Unfortunately I did the one thing in this class I promised myself I would not do, miss a deadline. With the madness that was senior project, for the last several weeks I have been working many long days (average 3-4 hours of sleep a night) getting everything ready for the shoot and let my other classwork fall behind, and am now playing catch-up. It was not the smartest thing to do, but overall it was most important for me to have a senior project and be able to graduate on time (i am graduating this term). I want to finish this script though and make it as good as it can be. I love the characters and the world that has been created for them and want to continue exploring it, so it's now off to the coffee shop for a writing and coffee binge to get back on track.

making progress

so for the past week I have been going over my script and editing, and also met with Stacy Bronte and got some excellent suggestions from here. The characters of the parents are being nixed, and I am cutting a number of scenes. The difficult part will be thinking of way to motivate the search for Jerome and events that can occur in relation to that. I also need to make sure i get the importance of the key across soon. Stacy made the great suggestion of Victor being a former student of Jerome, which I am defintitely am going to write in. I was trying to think of some way for them to have a prior relationship but couldn't think of the right one. So, now it's time to keep writing, because there is a lot of stuff that needs to be fixed

I can't believe I wrote that...

So the time has finally come for me to break out the script again and read it over and start the new draft. This is the first time I've read it through from beginning to end, and it was painful. There is a lot of corny dialogue, errors, and also several big contradictions i wrote into the stories that I have to figure out. So the editing process is going to be long and arduous, but it needs to get done. Thanks to a lower class load this term I now have a couple free days per week with chunks of time devoted to screenwriting.