I got stuck in my fantasy screenplay writing at the end of last week. What I had was much shorter then what I thought it would be. It looked a lot longer in my outline. I wasn’t sure if I should put my effort into expanding what I had and then going with the ending I had or saying ‘that’s the first act’ and having all hell break loose.

So I find myself without a computer. I had all my files backed up, but I was in a low level panic all weekend that something would happen to them, especially my screenplay. I decided to print out a hard copy. It was only twenty-three pages, but it was very satisfying to hold in my hands. I put those pages at the bottom of a stack of stuff next to my bed.

Then comes Monday. My computer has gone to Florida, and I’m sitting in bed suffering from withdraw.
“All right,” I say. “Lets figure this thing out.” I pick up the pages and go through them writing notes in blue pencil.

It was good to go through it as a whole and look at the big picture in a way I don’t when I’m typing. I didn’t need any major changes. The notes were for small things—move this around, break this up into two parts. Most the notes are a simple ‘more’—have these people talk a little longer. Show some more of their character.

Then I spent some time trying to figure what happens at the end. I have the sad final scene and I know a couple things that happen along the way but my outline was very vague. I made some decisions. It’s still not all there but it’s another step along the way.

Anyway, what I wanted to say was that it’s so much easier to write that ‘more’ in the margins then to actually go in and write the ‘more’ of the screenplay. Why did it take me 300 words to say that?