Tuesday 10 May 2011

"Allen Bridge" blog #12...

After yesterday's somewhat stunted session, I resumed today and managed to barge out 11 pages - so the page count now stands at 66.

I finished off the initial version of the conversation between Miller and Harland at The Black House, although I did a few bits of re-drafting here and there before I completed that scene ... and then it was onto a scene at the cafe featuring town teens Mark (Harland's nephew) and Stephanie (whose dark past is going to be explored pretty soon), who get into a bit of a war of words with The Bancrofts - an early retirement couple who are newcomers to the town. Furthermore, Ryman's struggles are beginning to worsen, and Miller is approaching a halting realisation.

Confirmed my thoughts yesterday about dialogue that involved having to impart lots of information (and invented history), compared to character interplay, I think the flow of pages today was down to the latter - a war of words between a handful of characters which came forth with a swift burst that left me racing to keep up. An explosion of crisscrossing dialogue.

Today was the first time that has happened on this particular script, which has been a little bit of a struggle to get down onto the page (in Draft 1.1 form anyway - as I've mentioned previously, Draft 1.2 work proved enjoyable and fruitful on Act I). I think this is down to me having so many ideas, and some characters having such a deep amount of research into their motivations - you know you can't, but you still try to get every idea and nuance onto the page on your very first pass ... but it's an impossible task, and one that you shouldn't allow get you down. As I've said several times before, that first draft - for all writers - is a cruel mistress.

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