Saturday, March 21, 2009

Once upon a time...

(Written before my news yesterday)

I went back to study the small print on the Scriptmarket website even more closely, and discovered another discrepancy: the main text says 400 words but the form says 250 words. Sigh. I have asked for clarification. But as I was sitting on the train I thought I'd have another go.

My attempt to get inspiration from what other people had written as a synopsis of Monsters didn't really work either. I couldn't get it short enough - not even down to 400 words, let alone 250.

Something I read ages ago about writing treatments (I completely forget where I read it) suggested that one approach is to imagine you're starting with "Once upon a time" and go from there.

So I wrote "Once upon a time there was a girl called Chloe..." and off I went. And finished 230 words later. The problem is always what to leave out because it's only a full treatment that has everything. I can be vicious with my editing but my training tends to stop me completely removing things, hence the limit on how short I can make the synopsis.

Working from the other end, and using the "Once upon a time..." method, helps focus on the protagonist alone and alone including those things directly relate.

So I'm a slightly happier bunny.



What's on the turntable? Not a thing, the boy is watching Pokemon on the TV

2 comments:

Scaramanga said...

Sounds like a nice little idea that. I may try it when I come to doing the outline.

On a complete tangent I am currently having problems with the speed it takes to write things in general as I can only seem to write all my stories on paper first and then transfer them to the computer.

I find that if I work from the computer I always edit things rather than just letting it come out...ARG.

It is more time consuming.

Charles

Adaddinsane said...

Try doing ScriptFrenzy you don't have time to edit.

But personally I'd just say - do what comes naturally. I tend to edit as well. It just is what it is.