Skip to main content

An Economical Literature

I've been working towards a Masters in Screenwriting for a little over a year and one of the hardest tasks I've found is how to be as economical as possible with each word, sentence, title, log line, synopsis etc

We started with 1 line log lines.  Then a 1 page synopsis which led to a 6 page synopsis.  On Monday's session someone whispered the torture of a 25 word synopsis.

That's half the size of the text above this new line.  Yikes.

With the exception of one play, everything I've written has been short.  Short stories, flash fiction, short plays.  But now that I actually have to make something short I'm struggling.  I sit staring out of the window desperately trying to condense 110 minutes of action into 25 words of complete and profound meaning.

I'm about 15 words off right now and beating myself up over every single key stroke.



 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Moving Goalposts

Some days you can feel as though you're on top of everything and it all makes completes sense.  The goalposts to a job being completed are clearly signposted and you can tick them off as you progress. Other days you can feel as though you're sinking and no matter how many goals you tick off a few more appear on the horizon and nobody warned you they'd be there. I set myself goals and these are added to what everyone else has decided I need to do.  So they multiply and the list gets longer and falls off one page onto two and suddenly you're staring at a tunnel of objectives and no light to shine on them for clarity. It's deeply frustrating and I'm the sort of person who needs set targets to reach.  If you change the targets it's like you've personally attacked me and ruined my day for fun.  I know that's not what actually happens but it definitely feels personal sometimes. I have 2 new pieces of work to hand in on Monday that weren't menti...
Post a Comment
Read more

Promises

I have a week off work and in that time I will try my hardest to do the following things: Write at least 10 pages every day of The Film Write a blog every day Write my 750 words every day They're listed in order of importance and it's quite typical that in order to write anything worthwhile and that I'll be vaguely satisfied with I have to complete them in the opposite order: Write my 750 words every day Write a blog every day Write at least 10 pages every day of The Film The first warms me up, the second makes me feel like I've done something tangible and the last will help me creep closer to completing the longest piece of work I've ever done.  At the moment The Film feels mammoth, epic and slightly impossible.   But 10 pages a day is fine.  Or it will be once I drag myself off the sofa where the sun has trapped me nicely.  Thought for the day; why is it always a glorious sunny day when you have work to do alone at a keyboard in a quiet roo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chipping away

This week I've been concentrating on a TV pilot I've written as part of my Masters.  I had a tutorial on Tuesday where I walked aways with 2 pages of scribbled notes and a head full of ideas. I normally leave those meetings in a state of panic, never sure where to start or how to take an axe to a draft of work that has taken me weeks but now needs refinement.  I let the panic rage for 2 days but as always it's started to settle and today I'm looking at my pen pot of red biros and highlighters and wondering if I should just start tackling the great reshape.  The structure is almost there but the characters need condensing.  I need to cull at least 3 peripheral voices and make the survivors more distinct.  I need to cut my slug lines down from poetic theatrical essays to 2 lines of action.  I need a tagline (I should've had this before I started writing) and a definite genre - not the 3 that I'm interchanging at will....
Post a Comment
Read more