Here is an approximation of a bit of script dialogue:
Mom says "Bobby is so angry with me."
Mom's Friend replies. "Sure. Weren't you furious when you found out your parents had feet of clay?"
The editor reads that exchange pensively and pokes those lines with her pen. "What's that mean?" she asks. I reply, "Well you know. Feet of clay. When a kid finds out his parents aren't perfect. He idolized them as a kid and now he realizes his perfect Mom isn't so perfect after all."
"But I don't get the Feet of Clay thing. Clay? What's that about, anyway?"
"Well, it's a pretty common expression. In common usage, that is. I don't know how else to explain it. It's in the Bible. Ecclesiastes, I think. It's about Nebucchanezzer. And Shakespeare, of course." I sense I have provided too much information.
Editor, still pensive. "Hmmm. Must be a generational thing." She's forty, for God sake.
Writer. "I thought pretty much everyone knew it."
Editor. "Well, I never heard of it, and I'm not exactly dumb."
Well, maybe not exactly, but pretty damn close. And she's wearing a religous medal to boot.
"Just say it. He was disappointed in his Mother. Done. Here's another one. Beatific smile. What does that mean?"
"I guess literally capable of being beatified. That doesn't help. Saintly? "
"Go with Sweet."
Previous editor: "You have a gift of not only finding the right word but the only word. That's why people will want your script."
Friday, August 17, 2012
Monday, August 13, 2012
Spoiler Alert
If you have not already heard, Sweet Beth ( also called That's What Friends Are For, depending on my mood)was not picked up by The Tisch Group for Meryl Streep, so I will not be the hit of the month come next July. One who knows told me that my script was a lot funnier than the Meryl Streep comedy presently in the theaters, and I choose to believe that. But Beth is still with us and will be revisiting the Women in Film who liked it last fall, so we'll see.
When my husband called today (he's out of town, visiting his mother) to say he saw the news about the screenplay on Facebook, I have to admit I was sort of taken aback. People read that? Social media has never been my forte, to say the least. I guess I neglected to tell him, so many other things happened that day. This is not nearly as bad as the incident a couple of years ago when my son's dog died. (This will not be a recurring theme in this blog. ) Anyway, he was not living at home and I hadn't yet told him, so he learned it from Facebook. Very bad mothering.
The little multicolored wheel keeps spinning around on my screen and the computer is sending me terse messages (This probably will be a recurring theme. Computers do not like me.) So, soon, back to my perilous year as a screenwriter. It may not be destined for the screen right now, but that doesn't mean there isn't more to tell.
When my husband called today (he's out of town, visiting his mother) to say he saw the news about the screenplay on Facebook, I have to admit I was sort of taken aback. People read that? Social media has never been my forte, to say the least. I guess I neglected to tell him, so many other things happened that day. This is not nearly as bad as the incident a couple of years ago when my son's dog died. (This will not be a recurring theme in this blog. ) Anyway, he was not living at home and I hadn't yet told him, so he learned it from Facebook. Very bad mothering.
The little multicolored wheel keeps spinning around on my screen and the computer is sending me terse messages (This probably will be a recurring theme. Computers do not like me.) So, soon, back to my perilous year as a screenwriter. It may not be destined for the screen right now, but that doesn't mean there isn't more to tell.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
but I digress.....
I haven't blogged in a while, and I know that is bad form. I try to always "write funny." Life is tough enough - I like to laugh when I write, and I hope you like to laugh when you read. Sometimes, though, the laughs just aren't there, so I'll just tell you and move on.
For the last eight or nine years, as long as as I have been writing on a daily basis, I have had two faithful office dogs who wedged their furry bodies into my tiny office and stayed with me through every word. They were old dogs, grumpy old men, best friends united against the puppies, and recently health problems and age took an inevitable toll on their combined thirty-some years.
As they declined, my daughter cooked them special food and carried them to the backyard so they could peek from beneath the magnolias once again. Carrying was no small feat, since they were each fifty pounds, more or less. She took them on their beloved car trips to the drive-through for chicken nuggets, and, toward the end, slept on the floor of the den with them in case of a crisis in the night.
They departed within a few weeks of one another, and this office is mighty lonely. Our youthful black Lab girl has taken up office duty and is asleep at my feet right now. They were dear friends, full of quirks and behaviors, some charming, some not so much. But it all added up to two lives well-lived, lots of love given and received, and who among us can hope for more than that.
For the last eight or nine years, as long as as I have been writing on a daily basis, I have had two faithful office dogs who wedged their furry bodies into my tiny office and stayed with me through every word. They were old dogs, grumpy old men, best friends united against the puppies, and recently health problems and age took an inevitable toll on their combined thirty-some years.
As they declined, my daughter cooked them special food and carried them to the backyard so they could peek from beneath the magnolias once again. Carrying was no small feat, since they were each fifty pounds, more or less. She took them on their beloved car trips to the drive-through for chicken nuggets, and, toward the end, slept on the floor of the den with them in case of a crisis in the night.
They departed within a few weeks of one another, and this office is mighty lonely. Our youthful black Lab girl has taken up office duty and is asleep at my feet right now. They were dear friends, full of quirks and behaviors, some charming, some not so much. But it all added up to two lives well-lived, lots of love given and received, and who among us can hope for more than that.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Scene Four: Life is Change
Just because someone loves your writing, loves your script and presumably loves you doesn't mean that they don't want to change you. It's like a marriage. You love him for all his fine qualities, and he will be so much better once you touch up those little things about him you can't stand. Like his plot, assuming he's a screenplay. But you can't show signs of wanting to alter him too soon, lest you scare him off.
We writers want to please. We are really desperate to please if the changes will make them love us more. Wear my hair up? Darling, you will never see it hanging down in those awful squiggly curls I thought you adored ever again. Let's see less of my family? Never fear, Sweetheart. I always thought my Mother was pesty, too. And my sister? A complete loser, I agree. Asks too many questions.
And then he up and runs off with the screenplay, er that is, the busty bitch from human resources and neither your Mother or your sister gives a fig. Glad to see him go. And six months later your sister submits a sit-com based on your awful marriage and your fool of a husband, and she she sells it. Life is cruel.
So face it. Whatever you write is almost certain to be changed in what may seem like the most illogical, boneheaded ways by people who do not write as well as you, and you will probably nod lamely and say, I never thought of that, because really, you never did think of turning the heroine's druggie son into a pool boy who is just trying to earn money for film school. Life imitates art, and vice versa.
I will leave you with a story that sounds apocryphal but which the writer swears is true. The studio wanted his screenplay about two middle aged married couples holed up in a New England farm house during an snowstorm, confronting their personal failures and the tatters of their marriages. Very Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?The writer was asked Why middle aged people? Who wants to look at a bunch of saggy people with wrinkles anyway? Let's make them younger. Well, the writer replies, they had to have been married for a while for them to have their thirty year old son commit suicide and the elderly parent have Alzeheimers. OK, younger it is, the studio guy replies. I am thinking stewardesses, here. Marriage was kind of the point of the story, the writer protests. And New England, in the winter for God's sake? What could be more depressing? Let's use Malibu. It's close, cheap to film, everybody loves the beach. The writer: The location is pretty important. You know, as an analogy for the barreness of their lives. The light of awareness in the studio exec goes on. But you know something? You're right. It does need sexual tension. Lesbian stewardesses.
We writers want to please. We are really desperate to please if the changes will make them love us more. Wear my hair up? Darling, you will never see it hanging down in those awful squiggly curls I thought you adored ever again. Let's see less of my family? Never fear, Sweetheart. I always thought my Mother was pesty, too. And my sister? A complete loser, I agree. Asks too many questions.
And then he up and runs off with the screenplay, er that is, the busty bitch from human resources and neither your Mother or your sister gives a fig. Glad to see him go. And six months later your sister submits a sit-com based on your awful marriage and your fool of a husband, and she she sells it. Life is cruel.
So face it. Whatever you write is almost certain to be changed in what may seem like the most illogical, boneheaded ways by people who do not write as well as you, and you will probably nod lamely and say, I never thought of that, because really, you never did think of turning the heroine's druggie son into a pool boy who is just trying to earn money for film school. Life imitates art, and vice versa.
I will leave you with a story that sounds apocryphal but which the writer swears is true. The studio wanted his screenplay about two middle aged married couples holed up in a New England farm house during an snowstorm, confronting their personal failures and the tatters of their marriages. Very Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?The writer was asked Why middle aged people? Who wants to look at a bunch of saggy people with wrinkles anyway? Let's make them younger. Well, the writer replies, they had to have been married for a while for them to have their thirty year old son commit suicide and the elderly parent have Alzeheimers. OK, younger it is, the studio guy replies. I am thinking stewardesses, here. Marriage was kind of the point of the story, the writer protests. And New England, in the winter for God's sake? What could be more depressing? Let's use Malibu. It's close, cheap to film, everybody loves the beach. The writer: The location is pretty important. You know, as an analogy for the barreness of their lives. The light of awareness in the studio exec goes on. But you know something? You're right. It does need sexual tension. Lesbian stewardesses.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Technical Difficulties
After laboring over a post dedicated to rewriting, the computer ate my insights on the differences between re-writing and writing something new, forcing me to write a new Scene Four post. Oh, irony. But not tonight. In the meantime, if you are interested in writing screenplays, get The Screenwriter's Bible. Amazon. Read it at least a couple of times before starting. I am serious. It will save you tons of time in the end.
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