OU Writing Contest: Right and Wrong Screenplay First Place!

In April, Dr Kyle Edwards, director of the Cinema Studies program at Oakland University announced the 2010-2011 Writing Competition. The contest was divided into two categories, screenplays and essays. I entered the screenplay I wrote in my Screenwriting class during the Winter I had just finished.

Although I had moments of self-doubt, I had a feeling from the moment I submitted it that I’d win.

I just found out that’s exactly what happened: I won first place in the screenplay side of things! Interestingly enough, a friend of mine won second place in the essay portion! God I love writing!

Busy Day

I’m taking a quick break to point out exactly how busy I am with writing today.
First and foremost, I’m closing in on completing the class length version of the ancient story I mentioned in a previous post. I got to touch on all the original plot points I wanted though I’ve now taken it in a new direction. Considering there’s a 10 page limit for class, I’m somewhat satisfied but I’m looking forward to letting the story run wild in the “for sale” version.
When I’m done with that, I’m going to be rewriting a script I offered to Oakland University’s Filmmakers’ Guild last semester. It turns out they’re interested in producing the short… While I’m not likely to be paid, I’ll be more than happy to put it on my resume! It’s possible that it could even lead to me needing to join the Writers’ Guild of America, which in turn would validate my career plans!
And finally, I just took a few minutes to write up a quick log line and synopsis to try to attract a collaborator for another script idea floating in my head. Sorry, you don’t get to hear about this one because I hope to pitch it someday.

Back from the Dead

About 17 years ago, I began work on a time travel story that I thought had a unique spin. As I worked on it over a period of weeks, I kept running into problems that I couldn’t resolve at the time; the biggest of which was the point of view. Although I could have written the story any way I wanted, at the time I wanted to try something completely new to me: first person perspective and, more importantly, present tense.

The advantage of this perspective is that you almost literally get inside the primary character’s head; you get to know her thoughts, perceptions, and even her mental state by just reading the words that compose her train of thought. It’s not necessary to explicitly state “she felt trapped” or “fear gripped her heart” because the words she uses to describe the situation automatically convey emotional and mental states. Eventually I grew to love first person perspective, though I tended to opt for past tense after working on this particular story.

Sadly, at the time, I was unable to resolve my present tense issues with the story and was unable to make any significant progress on it as a result. Instead of discarding it, like I did with some of my other failed stories, I put it aside and vowed to come back to it some day.

About ten years ago, during a long bout of writer’s block, I decided to try to rewrite the story from scratch in an effort to reinvigorate myself and to work out some new ideas I had for the story. Unfortunately, I made the same mistake I had in the earlier attempt, and again chose to do first person present tense. I’m not saying that this perspective is bad, or that it never works, I’m just saying that it didn’t work for me for this story; after fleshing out some of my ideas in the rewrite, I again stopped work on the story. This time, I really didn’t make as much progress as I had in the very first attempt; I only managed to write two pages instead of the four that I had managed years earlier. Needless to say, this did not help my writer’s block.

More years passed. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m currently enrolled at Oakland University in the Cinema Studies program in an attempt to transform myself into a screenwriter. This semester, I’m finally taking a screenwriting course and, to brush up my story writing skills, I’m also taking a fiction writing class. The inspiration for my now self-published short “Right and Wrong” came as a result of some film noir I’ve watched this semester as well as the need to write a 50+ page screenplay for my class: I wrote the short story to flesh out the ideas I had for my screenplay, though the two have diverged substantially due to length requirements. If “Right and Wrong” the screenplay is ever produced as a film, it’ll be interesting to see how the public reacts to the fact that there’s a short story version as well… Will they see the screenplay as being based on the short story or will they assume that I merely summarized the script in the short story? Will there be a novelization of the movie, and if so, how confused will people be when they come across the short? Interesting questions…! But, I digress…

I have a new short story assignment for the fiction class, and though I had some interesting ideas, none of them seemed fit for the story I wanted to share with my class. I don’t mean to make this sound like I’m bragging, but my classmates have been really impressed with my work this semester, and they have some pretty high expectations of me. As a result, I have higher expectations, and higher minimum standards for what I intend to present them with. Despite my desire to explore the stories that I came up with, I was disappointed in the quality of the work I was churning out. With time I could correct the stories, and get them where I want them to be, but the class will end before I can really spend the time  on them that they deserve.

On a whim, I thought of rewriting something I had worked on in the past, and the first item that appeared in the list was my old time travel story. Having the files for both prior attempts, I decided immediately that this was the one. I printed both, and got my mind cranking on them as I drove to class yesterday, and when I got the opportunity to enter the classroom long before the start of class, I immediately went to work writing. Again I chose first person perspective; there were just too many visuals and thoughts that needed to be expressed by the main character that I wanted and needed keep to use a different point of view. But this time, I shifted to past tense, and in the space of just a few minutes I had already exceeded the two pages that I wrote in the last attempt at this story. I still have a lot of work to do on it, but this time, this story is back from the dead for good. I will finish the class version of this story, limiting myself to the upper limit of 10 pages, but I will also fully explore where this story goes this time, be it 15 pages or 1,000. This is turning out to be a story that I would have loved to read had it been written by someone else, so perhaps one day I’ll be sharing it with you!

Short Story: “Right and Wrong” Now Available!

I mentioned a short story a few weeks ago that I wrote for my fiction workshop based on a script I’m writing for my screenwriting class. Well, as of now, the story “Right and Wrong” is available for the Barnes & Noble Nook and  Amazon’s Kindle and their apps on various platforms. Although I’ve little control over the actual price, I’ve set the list price at the low, low price of $1, so go, get it, and enjoy!

Freelance Screenwriting

Ok, since I have financial needs that aren’t currently being met and I want and need experience, I’m making myself available as a freelance screenwriter. I’m not limiting myself to any particular genre, topic, or anything else and I’m willing to either do scripts solo or collaborate. If interested, please contact me via my An Evil Genius web site.

Flash Writing Exercise

Tonight’s writing class covered the art of flash writing, the creation of short stories in 250-1000 words. Until I started this class, I’d never heard of it, so I won’t blame you if you haven’t either. Our next assignment is to write a piece of flash fiction, due in two weeks, but tonight we needed to give it a shot in class. To spur things along, the professor passed around three bags with folded pieces of paper in them. We each had to take a piece from each bag (which represented occupation, an object/tool/appliance, and a location respectively) and write a quick story in 10 minutes. The three items I got were “balerina”, “high school yearbook”, and “bar in a corner of London.” For me, this was like shooting fish in a barrel. (Mythbusters not withstanding.)

I want to edit this, to flesh things out a bit better and slightly differently, but here’s what I wrote. I call it the “Ballerina of Her Majesty’s Pub.”

She twirled on her tippy toes, over and over, pirouette after pirouette, dizzying all who watched her in Her Majesty’s Royal Stein on the west end of London. She reminded me of a girl I had known only by a picture in my high school yearbook in years long past: beautiful beyond reality, long blonde hair, and a dazzling smile.

The ballerina spun dangerously to the bar and a couple of patrons that eagerly and lustfully looked on, but she paid them no heed. To her, there was only the dance as if flowed through her graceful motions. Drunk on a pint of Guinness or wine, the only things that mattered to her were the dance and the moment.

Her golden hair drew out behind her spin as a scarf on the wind, and captured the attentions of all in the tavern. There was more than one cry of “Brilliant!” as she leaped and spun, and even a woman or two could be heard commenting that the girl, Sarah, was a “right fine lass.”

Her dance ended in a sudden leap, landing with impossible grace. She threw her hands up, bowed her head, then emptied her stomach on the floor.

Playing the Field…

Currently, I’m enrolled in both a fiction writing workshop and a screenwriting class, and I’m enjoying the hell out of both. For my screenwriting project, I’ve chosen to write a detective story, which is a big departure for me. Normally, I’m very much in to science fiction or fantasy for my stories, not something realistic, and certainly not anything that takes place in the past like this little project.

Well, I liked the idea so much that I ended up writing a short story to flesh out the script for my fiction workshop. This successfully killed two birds with one stone. I get to figure things out, and get a good feel for how long my script is going to be, and I completed a homework assignment in one stroke. Brilliant!

Furthermore, it may also serve another purpose… I’ve been looking over the Barnes and Noble program that lets you sell your own stories in the Nook store, and I think that after I revise the story a bit more, and perhaps add more to it, that I’ll post it for sale. I’m not expecting that it’ll be a runaway best seller or anything, or even to bring me a steady flow of income, but a few extra dollars here and there would be nice.

The Job

Ok, what I’m going to post below is a scene, just a single scene, that I was tasked to write for the Fiction Writing class I’m currently taking. There’s no more to this story than what’s below, but I had a bit of fun writing it, and the people in my workshop group loved it. So, I’m sharing it with the world. The title is simply “The Job.”

Happy Thoughts

Last night I attended the second Filmmaker’s Guild meeting of the semester at Oakland University. At first I was skeptical of attending and even the point of the guild because although I had continued to work on the script I started last month, no one had commented on it, edited it, or anything else but me. So I began to doubt having any association with them while my grades continued to slip.

Well, I can’t say my grades can or will improve overnight or otherwise but I’m feeling good again about the guild. Last night, the guild president, Greg, put me on the spot to explain the script stating he really liked it. So I did briefly, and got a very strong positive response.

I don’t want to use anyone for any reason, especially not an ego boost, but I have to admit it felt good. The problem with being an introvert like myself is that it’s far too easy to doubt yourself, and self-esteem is much more difficult to build up than tear down.

Still, this is a step in the right direction. So today, despite all the work I have to do for school, I feel good.

OU Filmmaker’s Guild & Me

As I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m enrolled at Oakland University in the Cinema Studies program. This past week, I went to this school year’s first meeting of the Filmmaker’s Guild. While I don’t know what the future may hold in any respect, I’m actually very glad I attended the meeting. At the very least, it encouraged me to write some more, which by the way I had already begun to do. But in this case, I started trying to come up with an idea for a script for a short film.

By the time I finished driving home, I had come up with at least a simple idea. I’m not going to go into it here, at least not until I see how things play out with the script & the Guild, but I’ve been enjoying the creation process as much as I have with a lot of my older stories. I feel free and all powerful, even if I don’t think I’m very good with dialog.

But you know what really feels good? Simple: to have others like your work, especially when all you’ve shown them is a quick draft. On Wednesday night, the same night that I attended the meeting, I wrote and emailed the first act of the script to the president of the Guild, and the next day he complimented me on it. The long time, writing as a form of art part of me doesn’t usually care if anyone likes my work, but the rest of me was just plain happy to hear that someone else thought it good too.

At this point, I’m still in the process of hashing out the story, but as of this moment, it’s up in a somewhat secret location for me and other members of the Guild to collaborate on.

Maybe I never stood a chance of breaking into the writing business as an author, but I suspect I stand a pretty good chance as a screenwriter… So far at least. I guess we’ll see how my screenwriting class and writing workshop go next semester.