I'm stuck at work -- snowed in. I could spend half an hour digging my car out from under all that white stuff, but instead I'm just spending the night at the office. I'm the only one here, this week, so it's not like I have to worry about offending anyone if my clothes are not fresh. I have access to a kitchenette and there's a 7/11 a couple blocks away...and I have a toothbrush...so why not?
The good thing is, I'm catching up on reading articles about writing that I'd saved. And they're kicking new ideas from the mess in my brain. Like finally seeing what The Alice 65 is really all about. Adam and Casey are trapped by things in their past -- her by Lando's infidelity, him by his father's death -- and how they help each other break free. Nothing overt, but I do want to add a line where Adam says something like, "Funny how you can be trapped by aspects of your past...things over which you have no control." I know exactly where to put it, too.
Of course it means, honing a couple of moments to link them into that...but again, nothing overt. Except...I can be unobtrusive to the point of obscurity, at times. For instance, in Blood Angel, I built Tristan as not only a tortured soul but one who was borderline suicidal. His step-mother, Anne-Marie, and his buddy, Baldo, notice and emphasize how many people he has who love him, but I never actually say that he'd like to die. It's all suggested until the end. And it's amazing how few people caught that. Well...actors tended to, but coverage creeps? Nah. Never.
I will say, the coverage I got on this script when I entered it into Slamdance made me realize just how awful and sloppy it can be. Something that is made very clear in BA is, everyone thinks Tristan's mother died in Katrina. The person doing the coverage referred to her as a suicide and felt that was cliched way to make Tristan sympathetic. There was so much wrongness in that person's comments, I complained about it. Slamdance's response? "But you still got a good grade on it. Almost made the next cut."
Talk about laughable. Nothing's changed, either. Recently I got coverage on a script where the person doing it complained about me putting a period after dashes and trashed my use of flashbacks...this on a script that's won awards. After a while you just have to laugh and realize it's nothing but the luck of the draw.
And I've never had the kind of luck that gets past that.
The good thing is, I'm catching up on reading articles about writing that I'd saved. And they're kicking new ideas from the mess in my brain. Like finally seeing what The Alice 65 is really all about. Adam and Casey are trapped by things in their past -- her by Lando's infidelity, him by his father's death -- and how they help each other break free. Nothing overt, but I do want to add a line where Adam says something like, "Funny how you can be trapped by aspects of your past...things over which you have no control." I know exactly where to put it, too.
Of course it means, honing a couple of moments to link them into that...but again, nothing overt. Except...I can be unobtrusive to the point of obscurity, at times. For instance, in Blood Angel, I built Tristan as not only a tortured soul but one who was borderline suicidal. His step-mother, Anne-Marie, and his buddy, Baldo, notice and emphasize how many people he has who love him, but I never actually say that he'd like to die. It's all suggested until the end. And it's amazing how few people caught that. Well...actors tended to, but coverage creeps? Nah. Never.
I will say, the coverage I got on this script when I entered it into Slamdance made me realize just how awful and sloppy it can be. Something that is made very clear in BA is, everyone thinks Tristan's mother died in Katrina. The person doing the coverage referred to her as a suicide and felt that was cliched way to make Tristan sympathetic. There was so much wrongness in that person's comments, I complained about it. Slamdance's response? "But you still got a good grade on it. Almost made the next cut."
Talk about laughable. Nothing's changed, either. Recently I got coverage on a script where the person doing it complained about me putting a period after dashes and trashed my use of flashbacks...this on a script that's won awards. After a while you just have to laugh and realize it's nothing but the luck of the draw.
And I've never had the kind of luck that gets past that.
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