1. Singles- the earliest of my writing stages happens out of the blue when a specific character, image, or quote starts bouncing around in my head and won't go away. There's no plot here, necessarily, just this single--whateveritis. Yes, I just made up a new word. My latest work "Taking the Wrap" was inspired by the faces of both Leo Gorcey and Gabriel Dell going around and around in my head(for more deets check this out). Then I heard their voices and then, while I was watching one of their movies, the following quote stayed inside my head wouldn't budge:
"I'm afraid the gangster days are coming back. But this time they're younger, smarter, tougher."
-Charles R. Marion Angels in Disguise
2. Characters talk- and talk and talk and talk. Not necessarily about anything that has to do with the current piece I'm writing, or their life story, really. Just about--stuff. And they don't talk to me. They talk to each other and let me eavesdrop. For days. By the time they finally get around to talking to me, I have eavesdropped enough to know just about everything I need to about them. My characters Nick and Johnny, for example, had "guys nights" in my head with Ash and Dutch. Creepy, but true.
3. Scenes- now this part doesn't really come in order. I don't really plan much in the beginning of writing a piece because I feel like it's not my story anyway. It's a story that someone-albeit a character that came out of my head--wants to tell me, and is asking me to write down. And, quite frankly, this is like one of those interviews of celebrities you see on TV sometimes, where you want to know specific things, but the answer they give to the question is not exactly what you were going for so you have to ask again? Yeah. It's like that. I knew about one of my characters dying at the end of a particular script long before I even wrote the first scene. And then, when it was time to write it, I wrote the end first, because that's what came out of my head first. And some of them I don't even keep in the final draft!
4. Note Cards-The. Bane. Of. My. Existence. I took a script writing class my second semester of college and we were expected to use them. We had to take a stack and write "Page 3, Page 10, Page 20, Page 30, Page 60, Page 75, Page 90, Page 120" One number on each card. Oh. My. GAG!!!! I will say that this is a great method for some people, and the professor using it was great for using it, but the way I write, it does fly. Every time I'd sit down to work with notecards, my brain would start rebelling. My thought process turn to: I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENS ON PAGE 30! AND MY PAGE 75 EVEN HAPPENS ON PAGE 68(caps included)! I can't tell you how much I dislike those 3x5 things. And quite honestly, I ignored this part of the process for the LONGEST time, and then got really confused later on, because I didn't know which direction I was going. With this last one, "Taking the Wrap", which is also posted on this blog, I decided to try note cards. REALLY try them, not just do the textbook thing. I narrowed it down to five events: Beginning, Middle, End, and the two Other Events in between. Then I took my notecards and wrote the event in as much detail as possible. Example: "Beg: Intro to Johnny, Nick, Ash, Dutch, Gyp, Salko, and Mark. Nick threatened by Salko for belting Gyp." See? None of this "Pages" stuff. and you know what? This way, it works! For me, anyway. This is the stage I call my "Rough Draft" stage, because it's messy and awful but has to be done.
5. Writing the Thing-this is the FUN bit. Now that I've been eavesdropping, and scribbling and note card-ing myself half to death, I can actually write. And I do. The whole story, beginning to end. I write because I want to, and I don't listen to what anybody says about my work--not even my inner critics--until I have typed "THE END" on the last page. The only difficulty with this stage, really, is finding time and sticking to it. With "Taking the Wrap" it was easy, because I had a deadline(my brother's birthday), and it was summer(25 hours of work a week leaves a great deal of alone time!). I would settle on my bed, or the couch, or wherever and scribble for a couple of hours. I never get on my laptop until the entire script has been written down on paper first. I do this because if I mess up, all I do is tear the page out and start over. Which usually means that there are times when my 180 page notebook has been reduced to half it's size, but the good news is that once the draft is done(yes, it's a draft. see number 4 above) most of my revisions have been made on paper, and I have the complete story all in one place.
6. First Break- highly recommended. I don't ususally give myself a specific "break time", but what this stage is basically for is an ego boost. I write "THE END" and then take time(couple of days, week or so) to let it sit. That isn't to say I don't read it. I do. A lot. But this type of reading is just for my ego, just to show myself that yes, I can write something like this, and yes, it's good. "Taking the Wrap" is my person record: 116 page script written in 14 days. This includes the early revisions and things.
7. Typing it up- is very much like stage 5. The difference is I'm transferring what I wrote onto a computer(or blog). This is where it gets difficult for a couple of reasons. When you write on paper, the only thing you gotta worry about is the pen running out of ink. So then you go down the street or wherever and buy one, and get back to work. Not so here. You have to worry about your computer working, and not losing your place in the transferring process and planning extra time for writing should the computer blip out and--things like that. I've never been good at transferring anything, so I added another element. This is where the BIG revisions come in. The big scene cuts and dialogue added and cut. This way I can use the "Copy" and "Paste" buttons to my heart's content--and save each draft in a separate doc if I want to.
8. Second Break-same as 6, but this time I email copies to myself and print out one hard copy. Then I sit back a read it to myself again. Multiple times, on the bus, on my phone, in my apartment, on my blog, wherever. I read and enjoy. A lot!
9.Peer Review- sounds like something from grade school, huh? This is the part where I send out a mass email to anybody I think will want to begging them ever so nicely to read it a chop it up to bits. This used to be the longest and worst stage for me because I had to wait for people to get the email, then email me back, then read the script, then email notes back, then re-write again. I used to care so much about all the notes people would give me, but recently I've decided that I really don't care. It helped that I was posting "Taking the Wrap" here on my blog, because I was writing for me. People got opinions. They like, they don't like. They ain't me.(ok, I'm off my soap box now) So instead of the slaughter house, this stage has turned into the "Audience Test". I just want to know if people like it and if there are any glaring problems, I fix em. If they're opinions I let em slide.
10. DONE!!!-pretty self explanatory. I print off the final copy and put it away and move on to the next project. Sometimes I'll glance through it, but not often. I've reached a stopping point, so I let it go. Do I send it to contests? Sometimes. And workshops? (once. BAD IDEA. next time, I'll get one that knows what it's doing). That's the next step is getting it out there. But I haven't quite figured that bit out yet.
3. Scenes- now this part doesn't really come in order. I don't really plan much in the beginning of writing a piece because I feel like it's not my story anyway. It's a story that someone-albeit a character that came out of my head--wants to tell me, and is asking me to write down. And, quite frankly, this is like one of those interviews of celebrities you see on TV sometimes, where you want to know specific things, but the answer they give to the question is not exactly what you were going for so you have to ask again? Yeah. It's like that. I knew about one of my characters dying at the end of a particular script long before I even wrote the first scene. And then, when it was time to write it, I wrote the end first, because that's what came out of my head first. And some of them I don't even keep in the final draft!
4. Note Cards-The. Bane. Of. My. Existence. I took a script writing class my second semester of college and we were expected to use them. We had to take a stack and write "Page 3, Page 10, Page 20, Page 30, Page 60, Page 75, Page 90, Page 120" One number on each card. Oh. My. GAG!!!! I will say that this is a great method for some people, and the professor using it was great for using it, but the way I write, it does fly. Every time I'd sit down to work with notecards, my brain would start rebelling. My thought process turn to: I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENS ON PAGE 30! AND MY PAGE 75 EVEN HAPPENS ON PAGE 68(caps included)! I can't tell you how much I dislike those 3x5 things. And quite honestly, I ignored this part of the process for the LONGEST time, and then got really confused later on, because I didn't know which direction I was going. With this last one, "Taking the Wrap", which is also posted on this blog, I decided to try note cards. REALLY try them, not just do the textbook thing. I narrowed it down to five events: Beginning, Middle, End, and the two Other Events in between. Then I took my notecards and wrote the event in as much detail as possible. Example: "Beg: Intro to Johnny, Nick, Ash, Dutch, Gyp, Salko, and Mark. Nick threatened by Salko for belting Gyp." See? None of this "Pages" stuff. and you know what? This way, it works! For me, anyway. This is the stage I call my "Rough Draft" stage, because it's messy and awful but has to be done.
5. Writing the Thing-this is the FUN bit. Now that I've been eavesdropping, and scribbling and note card-ing myself half to death, I can actually write. And I do. The whole story, beginning to end. I write because I want to, and I don't listen to what anybody says about my work--not even my inner critics--until I have typed "THE END" on the last page. The only difficulty with this stage, really, is finding time and sticking to it. With "Taking the Wrap" it was easy, because I had a deadline(my brother's birthday), and it was summer(25 hours of work a week leaves a great deal of alone time!). I would settle on my bed, or the couch, or wherever and scribble for a couple of hours. I never get on my laptop until the entire script has been written down on paper first. I do this because if I mess up, all I do is tear the page out and start over. Which usually means that there are times when my 180 page notebook has been reduced to half it's size, but the good news is that once the draft is done(yes, it's a draft. see number 4 above) most of my revisions have been made on paper, and I have the complete story all in one place.
6. First Break- highly recommended. I don't ususally give myself a specific "break time", but what this stage is basically for is an ego boost. I write "THE END" and then take time(couple of days, week or so) to let it sit. That isn't to say I don't read it. I do. A lot. But this type of reading is just for my ego, just to show myself that yes, I can write something like this, and yes, it's good. "Taking the Wrap" is my person record: 116 page script written in 14 days. This includes the early revisions and things.
7. Typing it up- is very much like stage 5. The difference is I'm transferring what I wrote onto a computer(or blog). This is where it gets difficult for a couple of reasons. When you write on paper, the only thing you gotta worry about is the pen running out of ink. So then you go down the street or wherever and buy one, and get back to work. Not so here. You have to worry about your computer working, and not losing your place in the transferring process and planning extra time for writing should the computer blip out and--things like that. I've never been good at transferring anything, so I added another element. This is where the BIG revisions come in. The big scene cuts and dialogue added and cut. This way I can use the "Copy" and "Paste" buttons to my heart's content--and save each draft in a separate doc if I want to.
8. Second Break-same as 6, but this time I email copies to myself and print out one hard copy. Then I sit back a read it to myself again. Multiple times, on the bus, on my phone, in my apartment, on my blog, wherever. I read and enjoy. A lot!
9.Peer Review- sounds like something from grade school, huh? This is the part where I send out a mass email to anybody I think will want to begging them ever so nicely to read it a chop it up to bits. This used to be the longest and worst stage for me because I had to wait for people to get the email, then email me back, then read the script, then email notes back, then re-write again. I used to care so much about all the notes people would give me, but recently I've decided that I really don't care. It helped that I was posting "Taking the Wrap" here on my blog, because I was writing for me. People got opinions. They like, they don't like. They ain't me.(ok, I'm off my soap box now) So instead of the slaughter house, this stage has turned into the "Audience Test". I just want to know if people like it and if there are any glaring problems, I fix em. If they're opinions I let em slide.
10. DONE!!!-pretty self explanatory. I print off the final copy and put it away and move on to the next project. Sometimes I'll glance through it, but not often. I've reached a stopping point, so I let it go. Do I send it to contests? Sometimes. And workshops? (once. BAD IDEA. next time, I'll get one that knows what it's doing). That's the next step is getting it out there. But I haven't quite figured that bit out yet.
