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Practice What You Preach
As usual, I am reduced to awe in the face of JK Amalou's considerable wisdom screenwriting-wise. Though I spend most of my time reading others' work and commenting on it, it would appear I have fallen into exactly the same traps everyone else does with my supernatural/religious horror Divine Rites, proving yet again one cannot be objective about one's own work.
As regular readers of this blog know, JK spends a lot of his time reading my work and counselling me not to jump out of a window. Perhaps it amuses him that a very short English girl with an attitude problem can tie herself up in knots in such a regular fashion? Perhaps I am an in-depth character study on human nature? Or maybe it's just his job as a script mentor and consultant? Nah - first or second, for definite.
Divine Rites has now overtaken Wish as my most hated spec. Teetering on the brink of a sixth draft after no less than three - yes, three! - page 1 rewrites, I'm beginning to feel like, well, this (except I'm not a bloke, thank you). However, in the tradition of great superheroes like Superman or Batfink, JK has come to my rescue. Again.
JK has started to offer in-depth development notes and I was his guinea pig and first client. His notes were helpful and offered clear, simple solutions to some major problems I was having. As Divine Rites is a very Catholic story of redemption, I was worried previous readers had not "got" the variety of symbolism on offer within the narrative. I was on the verge of chucking the whole project in until he came back with this very simple, but effective argument:
So, (people have said) the Casino was not an obvious Purgatory. What does it matter? People in the "know" will get it. People NOT in the know will certainly get more than an inkling that the “casino” is a place where you end up when: a) you’re screwed beyond belief (the lost souls imagery is aplenty throughout the script) and/or b) it is “payback” time. Writers worry too much about “symbolism” in their script... What really matters is the characters and the story. A perfect example of this is Billy Wilder’s ACE IN THE HOLE (aka BIG PARADE). There’s a scene where Kirk Douglas’ crooked journalist is on the phone inside a store. Outside, the store owner – a real looker of a lady – watches him through the window. She then turns away, smiles and bites into an apple. Anybody with a Christian education will understand the imagery/symbolism here (yup, the Eve thingie...) Others who are completely ignorant of Adam and Eve and the original sin will totally understand that she’s set on seducing the Kirk Douglas character. The “biting of the apple” is a nice touch. So what does it matter whether one “gets” the symbolism?
Suddenly my script does not feel as if it's the biggest load of trash in the universe. Amazing! Of course characters and story matter most - I know this. I also know, as an ex-media and film studies student that various symbols mean different things to different people according to personality, culture, religion, country... I've even written about this on this very blog!! Yet that's the thing when you're a writer - you judge yourself by far harsher standards than you'd judge someone else.
JK went through my screenplay, page by page, pulling out a variety of things, from format to character, that needed work. He even identified my overuse of parentheticals. Now I've always hated parentheticals, they told us not to use them at Bournemouth, but I'm ashamed to say I actually bowed to peer pressure on this issue! Several producers I did promo work for demanded them and I let myself believe I must be the one in the wrong...Easily done when one works from home. Well, the cat's hardly going to know the correct usage, is she? She's clever, but her intellect largely extends to the stalking and disembowelling of mice and other small creatures.
Equally, though I pride myself on "practising what I preach" with scene directionand "snappy prose" (using the present simple tense, naturally), JK even found this:
Michelle starts to unhook... Flabby prose. Your characters should never “start to”, “begin to”, “seem to”... So it should be “Michelle unhooks”. Direct, and clean.
Flabby prose in my screenplay... I feel so UNCLEAN. Argh.
Sometimes you need that "second opinion" and that "objective eye" more than you'd think... I could have read Divine Rites cover to cover for forty days and forty nights and still wrapped myself up in things that didn't matter (symbolism) whilst not fixing the things that did (flabby prose, bad parentheticals, etc).
So Cheers JK... if I wasn't already hitched and you weren't old enough to be my dad, I'd marry you : P !
PS. Goes without saying, anyone out in cyberland interested in JK's notes, email or IM me and I'll get you in touch.
bang2write at 16:12:00 o'clock BST Blog about this entry |
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JK sounds like the GOD of all scriptwriting gurus. Does he have an email address?
With Reference to your GOOD NEWS blog, check out my latest
www.thescriptwriter.co.uk/blog.htm
07/04/06 17:21
I have read your blog entry! I have never heard of a production company offering notes AND the idea they WON'T own your work, that's amazing! Free feedback/development...That's my fave price. Pretty cool birthday present indeed. Nice one!