Okay - For the Record (so my Inner Critic will STFU and let me write in peace)

[capri0mni]

Remember that essay on Screenplay Structure I've referred to here, a couple of times?

Well, he gives a page-by-page layout of what should happen when:

• Page One (minute one) should be Action-packed.


• (most of my page one is filled with a detailed description of a tapestry in a museum, but what takes a page to describe would only take a few seconds to see. Then, it gets right into a montage with a traitor, a witch, several battle scenes, and sweeping vistas. (check)

• The Inciting Incident should take place within the first five pages.


• My Main Character thinks the Inciting Incident happens when we're on Page Fifteen. But the Audience saw what really caused all the trouble, back on Page Four. (check)

• Page Seventeen. Nothing for it, but a full quote: Next time you watch a DVD, pause it 17 minutes into the film. Trust me—any film. What’s happening at that point in the story? Most likely, the essential character conflict has just been laid out. A teenage Indiana Jones runs to his father for help, but is shushed instead. Shaun convinces his girlfriend to trust him in Shaun of the Dead. Captain Renault asks Rick why he came to Casablanca. On page 17, your audience should realize what the film is really about. It’s not about finding the Holy Grail, Indy—it’s about learning to forgive dad!


• Yup. Right in the middle of Page Seventeen, the king tells the princess to marry a stranger because he must be "repaid." (Freaky -- I wasn't even trying to make it fit, when I wrote that scene! and Check)*

• The end of Act One will fall between pages Twenty-Five and Thirty-Five.


• ...And the drawbridge rises, groaning, as Adelaide and her escorts ride off at first light at the very bottom of page Twenty-Five. (Check)

So. I'm now on page thirty-seven (twelve pages into Act Two), and I'm still quite a bit a way from having my little party meet with the gang of thieves. Mostly, everyone's just talking and traveling -- though they're discussing exciting things, and little casual comments are getting people to the brinks of fights. So it's not like my story is suddenly without plot. And things need to be said, and relationships need to be shown in order for what comes next to make any sense at all. But I've been a little panicky all day that my pacing, which has fallen into place like magic up until now, has suddenly gone all pear-shaped.

So I go back to that essay, and according to the author, I have another Eighteen pages or so before people will expect any more digestive waste to hit the ventilation system.

So that's cool, then. I can go ahead and have the rousing sing-song** in the inn without feeling like I'm slowing everything down beyond repair. Take that, you Poopy-Head Inner Critic!

---

*And... there's a mad rush to dvd players, as folks on my flist run to check out Minute Seventeen of whatever movie they've got loaded at the moment.

**Specifically this song: Blow Ye Winds that Arise (Warning: the tune plays automatically). It will be sung as back and forth between the men at the inn and the women, to cheer on Adelaide's upcoming wedding (satirically). And it also will give me the opportunity to: a) Pad my word count with copy-and-paste, and b) Show off my Sidekick's uber-l33t singing skills, so when she defeats the witch a little later, the audience will believe it...

Comments

[brassfire.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

I haven't even started on mine yet. Working too much.

I've always been most partial to the 3-for-3 version of Scarborough Fair that's up on the 'cat, which seems to draw most from that song you linked to.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I didn't want to pick a version that would be too familiar to the audience though -- particularly if it's a song they associate with Simon and Garfunkel in another movie...

One neat thing about writing a pseudo-medieval / Renaissance story is that there are so many songs out there that come from, or sound vaguely like, the period, and if you look around, you can find a song to fit whatever scene or situation you need. ... And you don't need to worry about copyright, either!