Writing Teenage Bodyguard - A Screenplay

The Writing Process - About Reading and Writing - Part 13

Reading books on writing what you're writing about at the time are important. Especially if you're starting out. Reading, is important, it sparks the imagination and so, your writings. That is another topic entrirely and I don't want to get into that here. This, is why....

Last night, I stopped watching tv, stopped playing a game on my kindle at 9:30PM and went to bed to read Jen Grisanti's book Story Line, about story and writing. She's on my Facebook list of acquaintances and we’ve posted messages back and forth before much as I have with people like with (shout out time!) the funny Jen Kirkman (who used to be on the Chelsea Lately Show) and hyper productive Courney Zito Forige (of Hollywood Girl fame), but not like Alan Gandy or Cal Miller or others who are actually friends I’ve met.

I found out about Jen Grisanti’s book from her post a while back on Facebook and she’s worth reading if you want to write or do film. I bought it a while back and got mostly through it and then distracted so I’m trying to finish it.

I've been trying to start reading in bed before sleep and had the book next to my bed for a week now. No screens of any kind for two hours before bed they are saying now as it messes you up for sleep.

Jen’s book:

http://www.amazon.com/Story-Line-Finding-Gold-Your-ebook/dp/B00546T7BI/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422451961&sr=1-4&keywords=+Jen+Grisanti

So I read a couple of pages near the end where I left off (this is how it goes reading Jen’s book when you are writing by the way) and I suddenly had to stop, get out of bed and go to the screenplay in Final Draft on my laptop in the living room and add one single line at the end of my end narration.

It pulled it everything together.

She had been talking in the book about investing your readers in your character and how you do that? I started thinking about it. Were my viewers going to be invested in my character (me, in the screenplay)?

I think by time my story actually begins in the screenplay, you're invested in my character. After the initial murder, after the opening frame which is ten years after the actual story. But what about Sara, the woman I’m protecting?

Should I have her seek a friend after the murder, before the party and the opening frame start? I decided no last night, it was good as it. But I needed a last line in my narration at the end of the screenplay to really pull the film all together and wrap it up with a nice bow. So I added a line.

This morning I emailed my editor who just read this third draft yesterday and told her and gave her the line. Then I looked it over and changed it in the email to her and updated the screenplay. Then I updated it again, backing up to the previous line, and altered a single word. One word that changes everything in a way and makes the entire story even more bittersweet.

Thanks, Jen!