Writing Teenage Bodyguard - A Screenplay

The Writing Process - About Third Drafts - Part 10

I'm not into the third draft as of this writing, but let's review.

The first draft was the draft to produce a full screenplay, beginning to end. I had a treatment and a lot of research behind it. That made it go quickly. The second draft was to correct obvious errors in the first draft, add and change elements from when I was writing the first draft. Now on the third draft I'm concerned with the obvious issues, continuity, consistency, logic issues, massaging the text.

I stopped after the second and third drafts to give my mind a chance to relax, rest and gestate, to churn over what I had done and where I was going. 

Now I have to start again at the beginning and read it through. But first, I have to make a list of all the characters and deal with that madness. I have to make sure there aren't any unnecessary characters and names are consistent throughout; to be sure that "John" in one section is "John" in another. I have to think now about the names, Can I use this or that name? If not I have to deal with it, make changes and be sure it's consistent throughout. 

Because this is a true crime story I have a mx of things to deal with. As it says in the SUPER: in the opening, the names have been changed to blah blah blah....But not the names in public record for those who have gone to prison.

So that's my process. Someone else may say how I do all this up to this point is madness. Or genius. Or just how you do it. If you find or have a better way, excellent. But considering how my own mind works this is how I do it. And I can do it rather quickly. 

Finishing this, having a screenplay I can send off, isn't so hard (it is), but the next step of refining and polishing and adding meaning beyond meaning, compressing and enhancing, that's what really can take time. I will probably send it before it is polished which can take some time and I'm up against a time element. Films have been made on screenplays written in less time than I will take. But they certainly haven't been made from screenplays that took far, far longer. 

I now also have to pay attention to elements of specificity and generality. I cannot indicate (unless it is necessary) that a certain song HAS to be used, or a certain car, or gun. I am constrained somewhat by this being a true story. Which is nice, but limiting and it can raise the cost of the production being produced and shot. 

 Last night I pushed myself to page 22 of now 86. I'm shooting for 90. But I'd be good with 86. 

I have found some interesting things from all this. I've filled in some gaps in my mental history. I'm updating the Facebook page for this project. I'm liking the new name, "Slipping the Enterprise". But the Facebook page is the same URL for Teenage Bodyguard.

I received a reply from the producer today to my email telling him about my progress and the Facebook page and suggesting Quentin Tarantino might be apprised of this story. He seems to be a busy guy but said he wished me luck in these projects. 

Well, we're all on our own on this kind of thing aren't we? Turn in an awesome product and you can still get turned down, or turn in a bad one and they may love it… and make it. You certainly never know, but you can eliminate all the obstacles you can discover so that at least if it fails (this time, with these guys) it's not your fault. Or at least you can tell yourself that.

Just remember it may be a great project but if you’re not as a writer or individual, you may still blow it.

Basically at this point I’m really concerned with consistency in all its forms. After this draft I will look over the dialog better. Try to craft it so that it is more filmic in nature. Compressed, dense, interesting, holding more meaning that it is now.

Which is what I’m doing now really, I can’t, not, do it. But it’s not my primary focus. Other things are for this pass through.

Overall I think it’s going well. My editor read my treatment and the first draft and was surprised how fast I did it, and how much it kept to the treatment but yet evolved beyond it. Same with the second draft in how much it evolved between drafts one and two and I think she will find the same thing between drafts two and three.

From three to four however I don’t see that there may be that much difference, more in quality than quantity of changes. We will see.

What I would like now is more accurate information. I need, basically, a private detective and I have one in Tacoma. Just no money. I’d like some more info, family tree, locate people I used to know to ask them questions, answers to things I can’t find now.

Like the police report I requested and got a reply on. There is no police report. On a murder.

Yes it was long ago in 1974 but no police report on a murder? Seems odd.

But then the Sheriff and prosecuting attorney were in on things with the Carbones. Was this buried? I already know it was signed off as a homicide by an unknown party but was told by someone working there at the time who saw it happen that it was a planned murder by the Carbones. That’s why she was so scared and trying to get out of town.

It’s an interesting tale that just gets more interesting as time and the project goes on….

Update: At lunch today (Wednesday January 21, 2015 noon PSDT) I was thinking of an issue. I couldn't figure out how to explain someone's job in a scene. There was just no reasonable and fitting way to bring it up and he was never seen again.

Then I in the next scene I was dealing with two guys talking about it and it hit me to have them talk about it and it fit perfectly. It as well solved two other problems, all at the same time. So, I updated the dialog, added two action blubs and done!

So I wouldn’t forget the issue I had put a badge on the guy’s chest in the first scene, indicating what his job was. Those people did wear badges with their name or job on them so it fit somewhat, just not after work very well.  It was possible in reality, he may have gone somewhere with that badge still on, maybe he had a reason, forgot it, was concerned more with being where he was later (at 2AM?) or maybe he was just a weird dude.

It kept sticking out on every read until finally without really thinking that much about it, it just came to me. Partially because I made it a sore thumb and kept hitting on it and partially because finally the answer just came to me, maybe my mind had enough time to work it out in the background.

My mind does that a lot and I let it. I frequently take an important problem and try not to think about it, because my mind won’t let it go and eventually it comes up with the answer without “thinking” about it.  If I try to spend the time to consciously think about it, I seem to just jam up the process and come up with a not as good resolution much of the time.

I used to write stories and people would say things like that's amazing you wrote this and that into the story and I'd say, I didn't write that in, you’re just reading that into it, or it just ended up in there. Until someone told me once that I had indeed put it there. I wasn't thinking of it consciously, but I had indeed written it into the story. Or it wouldn’t be there. Certainly not consistently.

After a while of realizing that happened consistently, I finally came to accept that it was just part of my process. Another friend put is as, “Hey, you're a writer, that's what writers do, they don't consciously plan everything.” Some things are just about being a writer or how good one is at it, or how well adapted you are to that chosen path.

Whatever it is, it doesn't mean that I can't help it along. After all, we need all the help we can get.

UPDATE: I've tried all week to get back to writing, and had things to do yesterday, no writing, things to do today and stress from work and home, not writing and tomorrow I have to leave, no writing. So Saturday 1/24/2015 is the next time I can get back to writing. Disappointing delay but perhaps I can finish the fourth draft this weekend. Maybe one more draft after that or the fourth, and I can send it off and then do another draft and take more time. 

You might argue to wait, to hold off sending it in but I think it's at a stage good enough to sever its purpose and then I can continue to make it better. It's a judgment call. But I like to be progressive whenever I can and keep up the tempo. Seems to have worked well for me to date.