Dispatch from The Quest: Emma Millions

Last week as we did here on GITS, the Quest writers focused on the subject of character. That seemed to have put them in an especially reflective mood as most of them used their journal entries to ponder where they were in the process of learning the craft of screenwriting. We continue this week’s series of dispatches with some reflections from Emma Millions on writing and a key aspect of the process:

Decisions.

So you’ve found the concept. You had a lot of ideas. Lots of half concepts, bits of concepts, some almost whole concepts but kind of a little bit wonky. But you’ve finally found the one. The one you love most. The one you’re going to work on, spend your life with for the foreseeable future, maybe even settle down with for the long haul. That’s good. That’s a start.

But it is just the start. Within that one big idea there are potentially hundreds of other ideas you need to have. Who is your protagonist going to be? There’s a question. A question that could spawn several hundred new ideas of its own. What should they look like? Where do they live? What stuff do they like? What’s their job? What’s their flaw? What answers to this one question are going to make this the best script I can write?

So you play the field a bit with some ideas. And it’s a good time to start thinking outside that damn box everyone’s always going on about. Try some ideas you wouldn’t normally be found dead thinking about. Yes, by all means have those safe, comfortable, typical ‘you’ ideas. They’ve worked for you in the past, they may, indeed, work for you again. But why not open yourself up to some new types of ideas? Crazy, left of field ideas. Out and out mental ideas. Ideas that seem to come from someone else’s brain and not yours. Ideas that scare the living shit out of you. Like dating that guy with the leather driving gloves and drawn on eyebrows who says Patrick Bateman is his literary hero. You never know, they might surprise you. Or you could end up as a body part smoothie. Cos ideas can turn round and bite you in the arse. But the great thing about ideas is, you can delete them. Destroy them. Wipe those evil, wrong footing mothers out of existence and forget they ever walked the Earth. You can’t do that with guys. Unfortunately.

But, to get back to my original theme — decisions. At some point you have to take a chance on an idea. Take it out for a few more dates. Maybe even introduce it to your friends and family. And, if it all seems to be going well, then commit. It is scary. What if it’s the wrong one? This week I took a chance on an idea, actually got all excited about it. I thought it was sexy, funny, charming and the key to my happiness — ie nailing my story problems. I spent 3 days solid with this idea, staring at the screen with an increasingly intense migraine looming, trying to make it fit, forcing it this way and that, looking to see if I could make changes elsewhere in order to make it work. But it was the wrong idea. It had fooled me, lied to me, pretended it was something it wasn’t. Bastard. But actually, by spending all that time with it, I had been forced to look at everything else closely and with new eyes. And it made me realise what was working and what wasn’t. So although this idea ended up breaking my heart, it made me realise what I already had. And it made me stronger when I realised I didn’t need it. Even though I’d made the wrong decision that time, it wasn’t a total waste. Each decision you make gets you closer to the finished script. And at least, with these kinds of decisions, even if you get it wrong you won’t have to deal with your friends taking you out for pity drinks, your mum giving you, ‘I told you so’ eyes or having intimate videos of you going viral.

Emma is so right: A screenplay represents hundreds, if not thousands of decisions. Big and small. Yet another reason to immerse yourself fully into your story because the more aligned you are with your characters and that universe, the more authentic — and easier — those decisions become.

Next week: More dispatches from The Quest.

About Emma: British based writer of ‘the funny’. Lover of cats and bad TV. Often found in pyjamas a bit drunk or a bit hungover. Occasionally does burlesque. Twitter @emmamillions.