Dispatch from The Quest: Rob Pilkington
Last week as we did here on GITS, the Quest writers focused on the fifth week of Prep. Today’s dispatch: Rob goes with construction as a metaphor for prep-writing:
Two weeks ago, we questers took up our comically oversized mallets and each drove into the ground the three plot points that would hoist up our mighty, yet-to-exist screenplays. Since then, those plot points must have gotten busy because how we each have ten of them. Ten! One more and I’ll have to take off one of these diving flippers to keep count. It’s very exciting.
I’ve just recently moved, so I’ve become a big fan seeing things come together. It feels good to pick out a piece of furniture… but when emptying the box makes your living room like a Home Depot vomited in it — that feels way less good. Just as it’s exciting to decide on a screenplay idea… and then daunting to realize what a complex endeavor it will actually be to execute it well. It’s like, seriously: this is about giant praying mantises eating people… why are there fourteen different kinds of screws!?
“Who dares provide a lacking number of nails for my RIKTIG ÖGLA!”
And I’m not the most patient person in the world, either. I’ve made mistakes. After building a bureau recently, I inserted a newly constructed drawer… and it instantly locked shut. Forever. I can never open that drawer now. And the story of me taking the whole damn thing apart just to fix that drawer is a page-one rewrite that just not willing to commit to. I can, however, live with being the proud owner of one decorative (albeit, inconspicuous) drawer.
With my writing however, I try to be a little more discerning. Last thing I want to do write myself into a corner and curse the heavens for not insisting I take a better look at those proverbial directions with all the umlats on them. Nailing down these ten plot points feels like the right way forward — that we’re really buttressing solid, viable stories (Note to self: work “buttress” more into everyday conversation).
“Buttress, goddammit! Buttress with everything you got!”
So watching things come together for our stories — and spending the the time to make they come together the right way — is exciting. It’s easy to get itchy and want to make a bee-line for pages, but it only behooves the writer to know what screws, bolts, and weird squiggly coil things he or she has available. Soon, we’ll be going mano y mano with the Great White Page and with only an Allen wrench our own wits at our disposal.
Take the time. Do the homework. Make sure every drawer will work.
Rob is not alone!
Charles Bennett: “The construction [of the script] is the most important goddamned thing.”
William Goldman: “Screenplays are structure.”
That said, whereas most may equate structure to plot, the Questers have learned that structure is Plotline and Themeline, the combination of the physical journey in the External World and the psychological journey in the Internal World.
Tomorrow: Another Dispatch from The Quest.
About Rob: Boston writer headed for LA. Lover of Kubrick, Nolan, McDonagh, and the Coens. Okay, good talk. Back to writing. Twitter: @HeroesAreBoring. Note: Rob has officially relocated to LA.