First Draft

I finished a first draft last week. It’s what I call a working first draft – a partially muscled skeleton of a script that I don’t show anyone for fear of their never reading my scripts again. I think one of William Goldman‘s Screentrade Adventures – or was it Stephen King‘s On Writing? – had a name for it. Can’t find the reference. Anyway:

I have completed a draft;
it has a beginning, middle and end;
and I’m still excited by the idea behind it.

While I was typing out the epilogue, I found I had a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye – touching reminders of why I’m so attached to the story. It was great. If When I have that effect on the reader a few drafts from now, I’ll be pretty effin’ stoked.

The current draft is a pretty measly 85 pages long. The story’s a 120 page kind of script. The missing pages are currently in the form of, at best –

INT. HERO’S PARENTS’ HOUSE – EVENING

Our HERO has dinner with his MOTHER and FATHER.

HERO

– SAYS SOMETHING TO REINFORCE HIS ALREADY-ESTABLISHED RELUCTANCE WITH WHICH HE DINES WITH HIS PARENTS –

FATHER

– SAYS SOMETHING TO REINFORCE HIS PREVIOUSLY HINTED AT DISAPPOINTMENT WITH HERO –

MOTHER puts her cutlery down.

MOTHER

Stop it – just stop it!

HERO and FATHER look at her.

– or, at worst –

INT. HEROINE’S OFFICE – EVENING

PLACEHOLDER – until I decide how to establish our HEROINE as ‘a woman not to mess with’ without making her come across as having regular testosterone injections.

This week is time-out from the script. I’ve got my work cut out for me.

And I can’t wait.

(Big-ass fedora-tips to Mr August and Nima Yousefi for making the above scrippets available.)

INT. STUDY – NOW

YOU pull a FILE from your FILING CABINET and open it on your DESK.

ANGLE ON a BOUND SCREENPLAY with the words “First Draft” underneath your name.

You pick it up and feel its weight, a smile playing on your lips.

CUT TO:

FLASHBACK – INT. STUDY – A FORTNIGHT AGO

You type “FADE OUT” on the POWERBOOK SCREEN and lean back in your CHAIR. You press a couple of keys and the PRINTER whines to life.

TIMECUT as you savour each page as it comes out of the printer.

TIMECUT as you THREE-HOLE-PUNCH all the pages, smiling as you re-read the scenes that wrote themselves.

TIMECUT as you bind the pages with 3/4-INCH BRADS, feeling elated and all-round chuffed that this first draft will require only the most minor tweaks on its way to Oscar platinum.

CUT BACK TO:

INT. STUDY – NOW

You shuffle your buttocks to get comfortable in your chair. You turn to the first page.

The little smile you’re wearing falters, then flips itself over. The favourite scenes that wrote themselves a fortnight ago are now cliches riddled with logic errors. The remembered elation and all-round chuffedness is replaced by the realisation that set-ups and/or pay-offs you meant to include are tragically missing.

You look up, blinking rapidly. You can do this. You turn another page.

INT. STUDY – ONE HOUR LATER

You slump in your chair, the ninety pages in your hands heavy with disappointment and promise. You take a breath. And slowly release it.

Yes, that was dreadful. But you can see the idea driving it all. And despite the typos and cliches and holes and leaps, you recognise the enthusiasm that produced it. You sort of like it – the execution sucks in places – but you still like it.

You get out a PENCIL. And you get back to work.

Tag: First Draft

The Working First Draft

After the First Draft