Dispatch From The Quest: Miranda Sajdak

Over the course of the 24 weeks I am working with the writers in The Quest, each will write a weekly dispatch to share with the GITS community. There are several reasons for doing this, the main one educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding of the craft from the experiences of the Questers. I should also add they are a great group of people, so I expect you will enjoy getting to know them.

Today: Miranda reflects on where he is as he heads into his first draft:

Wow, outlines. So, this week was serious outline week. And, boy, did it prove how helpful the last few months have been in narrowing down our full story. When we sat down to do our outline, the biggest element of fear was subplots. We felt we had the overall skeleton there, but subplots were the hardest part — and we’re still not entirely sure we have them fully locked down.

Once again, our trusty Questers were exceptionally helpful in pointing out areas that needed to be fleshed out, places where we might need some set-up to assist in our ultimate pay-off, and other arenas that might be useful to our final story. All in all, we feel pretty good about getting down to pages — but, of course, there are always those last-minute doubts before the words actually begin (ok, to be honest, there are doubts even AFTER the words are on the page).

Fortunately, the outline should be helpful in guiding us on our journey, and I’m actually feeling more prepared than I anticipated, and, finally, ready for FADE IN.

Thanks, Miranda, for your Dispatches!

Tomorrow: Another Dispatch From The Quest.

About Miranda: New Englander turned Angeleno by way of New York. Enjoys: high-powered action films, dark dramas, and ’90s legal thrillers. Does not enjoy: the dentist. Mushrooms. @ScriptChix.

Comment Archive