Friday, August 13, 2010

Rewriting Yet Again

A couple weeks ago I fianlly got some feedback from a professional screenwriter on "A Happy Reunion" via a phone call. She said some nice things about the script and it's possibilities as a comercially viablity. But there were two things that needed changing. To a degree I agree with her.
1. My voice over narration was good and funny. So much so that she wanted to see it and not hear it. Ok. That is a nice compliment but how to go about doing that? I think I can show the first and last ones with no problem but the one that trips me up is:

LIZA
How was I going to explain this one to my Mother? Elizabeth Crawley Mcgill had never done an impulsive thing in her life. She had only dated my Dad after they had known each other all through high school. They dated for exactly half of college before getting engaged and planning for the perfect wedding a couple months after graduation. Then my brother and I were born exactly eighteen months a part. Optimal spacing for children my Mother always said.

A montage of the past of Beth McGill? Get rid of it entirely? The problem is that this sets up the character of BETH as we meet her in the very next scene. Also it sets up ROB, Liza's dad, when we meet him almost 30 pages later.

2. A Happy Reunion is a rom-com about a couple who go to their 15 year high school reunion in Vegas, get drunk and married. So currently Ihave them waking up the morning after and rationally discussing staying married and they decide that is what they are going to do. While this would be great for real life it doesn't work for a dramatic story. There needs to be more conflict to over come. (The note giver said that right now these characters would make terrific people to be friends with but are boring to watch on screen.) So I'm changing it to they haven't figured out what to do yet at the end of the weekend but Liza is going to talk to an attorney friend and see their options. But this change dominoes through the next 30 pages as right now it is all about them adjusting to their strange bi-city marriage (She's in LA He's in San Fran). Now I have to figure out how to do this we're thinking of spliting up but somehow we won't thing. (Yes, even in the original Liza turns up pregnant and they work things out for the kid.)

Anyway those are the writing thinky thoughts I'm currently pondering.