THE STORY SO FAR: PART 224

TWO WEEKS IN

I have now been in my new home for two weeks and I’m settling in surprisingly well. I don’t have everything organized quite the way I want it, but at least I now know what I want to do, and what I’m likely to need.

Next action will be to tackle a screenplay that needs revising and shortening. Here my first move will be to break the thing down into scenes and summarize each one. The classic way of doing this is on index cards, but I have no problem in cutting and pasting in Word so that is what I will use initially. Later on, for the writing itself, I’ll use FINAL DRAFT which is pretty much the industry standard. That said, there other screenwriting programs or one can use SCRIVENER which has a screenwriting mode.

SCRIVENER comes highly recommended and costs only $40, and is on my list to try out – but I hate parting from tools I know well, much as a soldier prefers a familiar  weapon.

I have seen editors, red pencil in hand, whip through manuscripts at a rate of knots – pouncing on each suspect word, phrase and sentence with sadistic intensity (all editors have a sadistic side). Personally, I tend to work in a series of iterations and my first read-through is more to answer the fundamental question: Does it work? I’ll then go though the screenplay as many times as is necessary, marking it up as I go.

I’m quite excited about getting to work on this project. Moving has been all very well, but I feel the urge to get back to work. Also, I’d like to pay my dues. It was thanks to a movie connection that led to finding my present location.