Dispatch from The Quest: Emma Millions
The Quest participants have been hard at work pounding out a first draft of their original screenplays, but Emma has found the time to compose a dispatch for us.
So, nearly half way through the first draft. Way too long. Missing a subplot or two. Rough and raw. But the main thing is, there are words on pages. Everything you read about writing first drafts, the whole ‘just keep writing’ thing which crops up a lot on Go Into The Story and other invaluable blogs and help sites, is true. Even if it’s just a few words, it’s a few words more than you had before. And even if you know those words are gonna change on your next draft or even when you next read through your script, they are there which is better than them not being there.
During these weeks of pages I have been tired, ill, suffered blinding migraines, had other projects to work on, life things to deal with, money to make, meetings to go to, a broken washing machine which blew my electricity so no internet and a battery rapidly running out on my laptop. But nothing stopped me from writing. Well, not nothing. One thing actually did, for a few days, and that thing was Doubt. Doubt is a bitch. Doubt doesn’t care how good your idea is, or how experienced you are. Doubt doesn’t give one little shit about deadlines. Doubt loves nothing more than to push you into a creative black hole when you’re least expecting it and keep you in there, laughing as it tells you “It rubs the lotion on the skin or else it gets the hose again.”
When you’ve got the ‘Doubt’ it’s invaluable to have other writers who you can turn to, to hunt it down and blow it’s fucking brains out, which is no more than it deserves. Doubt crept up on me and slowly permeated every part of my script. It started small — my subplots might not be working, I might need new subplots. And then I was all, my romantic interest is crap, not sympathetic, not believable. And from there I was like, shit, it’s all bollocks. The premise is too complicated. I’m not clever enough to pull this off. Its not funny, and for a comedy, that’s kind of key. Then Doubt, not satisfied by this, had me even questioning my hairstyle which I’m usually pretty confident about. But fortunately before I did anything radical like delete major chunks of my script or have a mid life inappropriate hair dye crisis, us Questers had a little read of each other’s pages and a little chat. OK, so yes, my script has some problems, what first draft doesn’t? But some of it is working. Some of it is even funny. The Questers said it is and I trust their opinions. And now I know it’s OK to keep going until I get a complete first draft. Doubt can get lost. Doubt can go to hell. Doubt can go be a Meryl Streep movie about dodgy priests. At least its good for something.
Two points to this Dispatch, both representing dynamics that are very real to the writing process.
The first thing is what I call Act Two Blues. Anyone can write a first act. Inciting incident, introduce characters, something happens, characters react, then boom! Out of the Old World, into the New World, and off you go in to Act Two.
But for most writers, Act Two is a bear. And oddly enough, it’s where ‘bad things’ can start to bleed over from the story universe into our world, troubles for the Protagonist projected into the life of the writer. Washing machine breaks, blows out the Internet. Precisely the type of thing that occurs when you’re going through Act Two Blues. You can read my own account of this phenomenon — real or imagined — here.
The second thing is doubt. Doubt is, indeed, a bitch. And its subtext is fear. I wrote about that here.
Look, we all know this: Writing is hard. Like Jimmy Breslin said, “Anything that isn’t writing is easy.”
Writing Act Two is hard.
Dealing with doubts is hard.
It’s all just damn hard.
That’s why it’s imperative to go into the story, immerse yourself in it, find a personal connection to the characters and emotions swirling there. If you get caught up in the events of your story universe, that can fuel you through the hard times.
Thanks, Emma, for sharing your tale of perseverance. Remember the golden rule of first drafts: “Just get the damn thing done!”
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.
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