From Motivation To Obsession

I’m on the back half of the second act on my comedy and I’m picking up speed (or at least time spent ) on the script. I take it with me on my lunch hour. I think about it in the shower. My wife thinks I live in front of the computer.

So, I’m on a roll but I’m thinking, “Yeah, my protag has some motivation. He’s gotten a whiff of the ten million dollars and wants to save the town. And he’s been insulted by the bad guy. And he’s trying to woo the pretty girl and all that other stuff. And, and, and.

But he’s not obsessed with it. It’s not eating at his soul. He really needs to get to that *This Time It’s Personal* stage”.

Standard operating procedure, put your protag in a bad spot, then make it worse. So I’m thinking what’s about the worst thing that I can do to him (and it still has to be funny)?

Pissing on an electric fence. That should get his attention. And being tricked into it by the baddie, that’s even better. Now he’s not just motivated, he’s obsessed with revenge.

But how do I get him to piss on an electric fence?

Realistically?

I hate those movies that have a good scene but in the back of my mind I’m thinking “He’d never let himself be put into this position in the first place”. The scene works but you have to have a reason FOR the scene. That’s the tricky part.

So, I’m kicking around ideas all day, all night and nothing really works. But about three this morning, when I have to make that trip to the bathroom, it hits me. Perfect. All the pieces come together. My protag will WANT to piss on this fence (not realizing, of course, that it’s electrified). But instead of being satisfied about finally coming up with the idea, I lay awake for the next couple of hours working out all of the details in my head.

And now I’m struggling to stay awake at the day job.

So my question is this. Is my protagonist obsessed or am I?

The perfect place to rewrite

I’ve recently been traveling on business. Not showbiz I’m sorry to say, just business. But isn’t air travel just the best place to rewrite?

Talk about the putting your butt in the chair and your attention on the project at hand. In the air you can’t do your laundry. Or pay those bills. Or go outside to see if it’s going to rain. Or any number of other excuses that we all use to get out of rewriting that script.

And just in case we forget, the airline has provided a handy seat belt that’s supposed to be buckled at all times. Who knows, we might be tempted to get up and stuff a sock in the mouth of the that snoring guy two seats over or bounce pretzels* off the kid behind us that’s kicking the seat. Good thing we’ve got the seat belt to remind us to stay seated.

But seriously, plug in the earbuds and away we go. No distractions, no commitments, just rewrite the damn thing.

Now, I’m a big fan of the PRINT IT OUT school of thought. Nothing wrong with doing a rewrite in the computer. But I think you need both. You’ll see some problems in the computer but others won’t rear their ugly heads until you apply expensive ink** onto dead trees. Just a different way of looking at it.

Back when I did a lot of photography, there was a little trick I learned. The composition of photo was often done in the darkroom and that would make or break a good photo. The trick was to turn the photo upside down when you thought that you had finally perfected it. If it didn’t look balanced*** upside down, no matter how good it looked right side up, it wasn’t right. Same thing with scripts. They need to look good however you look at them.

Anyway, not to belabor a point. As much as I hate flying, I can always get some high quality rewriting done on a plane.

* I don’t want to endanger anyone but I really miss having peanuts on the plane.

** In my next life I’m going to piss printer ink and become an instant millionaire.

*** Don’t confuse balance with symmetry (courtesy Even Cowgirls Get The Blues).

Waiting

Actor, writer, musician, whatever. Aren't 99.9% of us waiting for our real life to begin?

Painted Lines

They’re just painted lines people.

Today’s rant will be about that dead zone that’s created when DOT paints a bunch of lines in the street to get an extra left turn lane.

The resulting traffic free zone is a handy and cheap solution to help vehicles move along smoothly. But the lines are NOT an inviolate, 3 dimensional structure.

Yesterday I saw a woman sit through an entire light because she wouldn’t venture into the yellow striped zone to get into the left turn lane. Not a big deal but today I saw a giant SUV nearly take out a bicyclist in order to stay in a very narrow lane. The driver almost killed the guy. All she had to do was stick the left side of her car into the FORBIDDEN PAINTED TRAFFIC ISLAND OF DEATH and the problem could have been averted.

Idjits.

Field Research

Sure, imagination is a great thing. But it’s no substitute real experience.

Last weekend I was working on my comedy script. I have a scene where a couple of baddies exchange the stolen MacGuffin. Then things are supposed to go bad.

In the outlining stages, I figured that a truck stop would be a colorful, busy location for this to take place. So, I wrote out my scene but it just didn’t have any spark. It accomplished the basic actions required but felt sterile, and unauthentic. Unsatisfying and not very funny.

It wasn’t exactly writer’s block. It was just that I didn’t know much about my subject. So I hop in the car and run up to the nearest truck stop. Quite the experience. This location isn’t sterile. In fact it’s just oozing with character.

I wandered all over the place checking out weird (not to truckers, just to me) stuff, rebel flags, CB radios (Who knew anyone still sold those?) 37 types of beef jerky and rental showers.

Rental Showers!

What if one of the baddies shows up early and the other one is taking a shower? Now the deal goes down with one guy holding a towel around his waist. That’s comedy gold. And when they chase each other around the parking lot and through the truck wash, well that’s got lots of potential.

I never would have thought of rental showers.

Sometimes you have to just go out and experience stuff. Get your imagination kick started then let it take it from there.