This does have a silver lining though, because it means I have something to write about in this post! 

The problem I had was with the final episode.  Obviously I had a certain idea about how it was meant to turn out.  I had several scenes that needed to be in there, and overall, I had worked out a fairly clever way to tie it right back to the start of the series.  So what went wrong? 

It just.  Didn’t.  Work. 

I’m sure we’ve all reached that point where we’ve been writing something, and it just.  Doesn’t.  Work. 

How do you deal with it?  Well, the first step obviously is to try and rework it.  Do another edit, another draft, move things about, flip something on its head, that sort of thing.  Sometimes though, it cant be salvaged. 

Leave it Alone

Best course of action in these circumstances is to leave it alone for a while.  Let it rest, and ruminate on it.  You may find some inspiration somewhere down the line.  Or it might simply be a case of building up the courage to erase it and start from scratch.  Of course, all of this is moot if, like me, you have deadlines to work to.  How do you go through this process of leaving it alone when you only have hours, or perhaps a few days, in which to do so, instead of weeks?  Well obviously, you have to think on your feet. 

However, I haven’t been doing very well at that this week either.  For so long I’ve had this idea about how this final episode should end, and I finally get here and I find out it just.  Doesn’t.  Work. 

Changing the Ending

So this is what I have to do.  Change the ending.  But somehow change it and still incorporate the aforementioned scenes.  And tie it all together.  And make sure it’s still satisfying.  So not only do I have time constraints, I also have story constraints.  Under these circumstances, the only advice I could think of was to cut away everything that wasn’t essential.  This was a little painful, since I had done many redrafts of this.  Reworked it many times.  To cut it all away and be left with only a few chunks of writerly flesh… 

How to build these into a fully fleshed out episode though?  Well, the main issue I had was that the initial idea didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense in context.  This can happen sometimes.  When you plan too much, in the actual writing, the plan can change, and when you end up where you want to be, it turns out it isn’t where you ended up. If you see what I mean.

A New Direction

So I made the bold move of shaking it all up.  Hell, even introduced a few new characters, and changed the entire storyline.  The main problem I had was that there wasn’t any threat, no drama.  No point now for the characters to do what they were doing  (OK, there was, but it was way too weak).  So I needed a new threat, a more direct one.  Put one of the characters in danger.  Flip something on its head.  And in that simple thought, inspiration hit.  What I had originally planned was to have the heroes catch one of the bad guys, but now I’ve turned it around, and I have the drama of the episode. 

So it doesn’t actually take that much.  Only a complete reversal of direction.  It can be a handy tool.  Even if it doesn’t come to fruition, it can lead you back out of the cul-de-sac of it just.  Doesn’t.  Work.  Back into the inspiration pool. 

Or something.

Or can I?

There is a certain respect in which a writing project is never truly finished.  Barring getting published, which is a definite end, though part of me suspects that even if that were the case with me, I’d still do another redraft.  Because there is always room for improvement, isn’t there?  I’m not quite at that stage yet, where I can let a project go and see how it functions in the world, but I can feel myself getting close. 

It may be a little pre-emptive, but I thought I’d explore it in this entry. 

Finishing the Marathon

Aside from being a relief, it’s also a little exciting.  Knowing that a project is going to be finished, and that it’s going to be in the public domain, and the sense of achievement that comes along with that -  It’s a thrill!  It is however, just the first marathon of many.  Anyone who is serious about getting published needs to have an ongoing plan.  To thrash the writing/exercise metaphor again, you’ve completed your first marathon, but there are still so many to get through.  You can’t completely stop working out in between.

You still need more ideas, other stories to build, blank slates to fill.  Most probably, you may have to develop more ideas with the characters you’ve created, write a follow up book or series. After all, if your readers are familiar with the characters you’ve already created, they wont need to invest as much effort getting to know a huge new bunch of characters.  This works both ways, too.  If you, as a writer, have invested so much time in creating these characters and the world they live in, then you may feel reluctant to abandon them to it after just one project. 

Just Plain Lazy?

When I first started writing seriously, I was opposed to the idea of writing sequels for the sake of it.  I’ll be honest, I was naïve enough to think that it was lazy.  An easy get out.  This was of course before I pumped so much of my time, effort and energy into writing a full novel.  Once I’d written it, and done endless redrafts, my thinking was radically altered.  I kind of understood that it wasn’t laziness at all.  When you create a group of characters, and see how well they work, then you come to understand that they have far more potential than one book or series or whatever can give them. 

I know this isn’t always the case.  Some characters work really well for just one book, and that’s fine, but sometimes they can surprise you, and give you a lot more longevity.  This is what I discovered from the book I wrote.  The characters had other stories to tell.  It’s also the case of this series that I’ve written.  While it has at times been trying, and the thought of writing a second series fills me with a cold dread, there is a longer story here.  I know (roughly) how it ends, and depending on how well I can generate further ideas, there is a second, possibly even a third series in it.  But how do you prepare yourself for this?  Personally, I’m going to take a break.  Not from writing altogether, just from this project.  It’s been tough, because it’s kinda heavy, complex, and has a lot of science behind it.  My next project is going to be light, easy going, not as rigid and serious. 

Hopefully, my next entry will be the one where I can claim to have finished (aside from the final edit), and I’ll be able to give a better account of how it feels, to me.

‘Shouldn’t you be writing the script instead?’

Fool!

True. But actually this week has been productive because of one thing. I’ve found my voice. Now voice is the most important thing for a writer. Sure you can write the best medical drama ever, but if you know nothing about hospitals (unless you can get one to collaborate with) this will be an ugly mess. Of course as the writer of the original book it was quite easy to tap into the voice, however, the problem was how to present it. Now the problem with the book is that it is mostly a first person narrative. Though there is lots of character interaction, most of this is interrupted by inner thoughts. How do I approach that? Well, I had a number of options.

1. The Voice Over.
2. The Talk to the Camera.
3. Ignore it Altogether.
4. A mixture of 1 and 2.

I tried writing the first chapter (which you can read here… (link) cheap plug) first using Option 3. I tried to break it down into a normal scene. Go from A-B. But it didn’t work. And the reason was that by doing this I lost a lot of the dialogue that could not realistically be spoken, and I also lost a lot of the character. This way would also have a drastic knock-on effect on the rest of the book as it is almost 60-70% inner monologue.

Ok, how about Option 2.) ?

Well, the problem is twofold.

Firstly, the comparison with High Fidelity and others is too great in this mode.
Secondly, as these thoughts happen so frequently the talk to the camera would either have to be restricted and once again lose some of the character or be so frequent as to be distracting.

A mixture of 1 and 2 was a thought, but maybe a little odd to figure out which bits would be which.

Which leaves me with Option 1.

Voice over seems the best route. In fact, it’s perfect as reading the book back, I found an over exaggerated element to the book. Something which would be greatly improved by voice over and also flash cuts (Quick cuts from the real world to the imaginary and back). So that was decided. The voiceover would introduce the scene or ‘day’, comment on the background thoughts of Michael and the rest of the action would just play out around them.

Once you make any decision like this it’s best to stick to it. Sure you can change your mind, but when you’re fifty pages in and you decide it’s not right all you have is fifty pages of wasted time. As soon as I decided on that I had to stick to it. Those fans of Bladerunner, ignore that thought as obviously voice over/non-voice over is possibly the biggest debate that science fiction fans have. But late on Thursday I sat down, 33 Steps at hand and started writing. And then

BAM    BAM    BAM    BAM

Four scenes were done? Four sections of my 33 steps were done! 12% of my film was done!

If I kept that pace up on a weekly basis, I’d be done in nine weeks. It was incredible, as soon as I had found my voice it just flowed from me, sweeping up the book in itself and transferring it.

It should be noted now that the chance of anyone completing a perfect script in less than three months is absurd. So I will assure you blog ten will probably be documenting my failure to keep up this pace or will be:

Rewrite Rewrite Rewrite… actually, it may just be that anyway.

Well, we shall see…

However, looking back on the book and one thing became clear. It did not have to die with this publication and using all the skills I have I could easily create a film from the material. Now you could accuse me of being egotistical for thinking/attempting this… after all if 300 book agents didn’t think the book would be ‘suitable for us’ then how will I convince 300 script agents that it was. Well, in my head… you have to believe in yourself or you may as well give up now… if you say ‘Hey I got a film… if it gets picked up there’s also a book that goes with it. None of the waiting months for the ghostwriter to get it done.’ This also meant that while the film is in production (Yes, you must think big, you must think this far ahead) the book could be shopped around now with the ‘soon to be a major motion film’ tag and we know how much publishers love their film tie-ins.

So…

Step One. The 35 Points.

I mentioned this in one of my comments, but this is essentially you breaking the book/story/idea down into 35 individual plot points of episodes of action. The obvious problem that occurred with my book is because it is a diary-esque book how to look at certain elements. The book also contains Top Tens, Reviews, it was a general mixbag. How much should go and how much should stay? I’m sure this is something that all adaptors come up against? How true do I stay to the original?

Step Two. Doing It

I set out first by breaking down the book and figuring out where the natural pauses came. I wrote each chapter (or Day, as they are in the book) on a piece of paper with a brief line of what happened and then spread this across the floor. By doing this I was able to easily eliminate and splice as many scenes as possible. Once I was down to eighty of the one hundred and sixty four days, I then proceeded to scale them down again to bring me to the magical thirty-five. This included more splicing and cutting of scenes and figures just which scenes progressed the story and which held it up.

Finally, I came to my thirty-five (or thirty-three in this case) scenes which reflected the story, did not lose any of the spirit of the book and gave me a framework in which I could work with.

Step Three…

Now, that’s the easy part over.

Next it’s the hard part… The writing. How will I do?

Well, we shall see…