Cathedrals

Our work as screenwriters is precarious. After the initial surge and our screenplay is close to what we know works, or think we know works, we might start to shift scenes, sometimes reversing the order, sometimes even deleting them entirely, and as we might add or let go characters. We need strong bones and strong nerves, so we don’t fall apart, as we take a risk or follow a hunch. A screenplay is an amorphous creature up to that one day, when you decide, “Ok this is it. My screenplay tells the story I want to tell, in the way I want to tell it.”

A mind clearing swim or a walk in the park or a drunken night with friends. You feel good. Anticipatory… but good.

And then starts another journey. We wait to hear from the producer/actor/director/agent or whoever we’ve sent the script to, ‘for their consideration.’

After we are lucky enough to get a positive response we need to take a deep breath, because, there will undoubtedly be rewrites, we may have to rearrange or replace certain parts of the script. So with an easy grip on the flow we originally created, we will be able to keep our boat afloat and sailing smoothly.

I find it helps to think of our work in physical terms. Lets’ think of a cathedral. Each character is a column, each scene is an arch. Your characters are the weight bearing columns, they carry the story. Are they strong enough? Is someone hiding behind one of them? Your scenes are the arches, do they flow? Does each one have a beginning middle and end? Do they circulate your story from one character - column - to the other and to another and back again and so on. Do the scenes undulate, rising and falling like waves? Consider the windows and aisles as the plot with the nuances that breathe life, light, color and space, into your story. You are building a cathedral. Yes, and YOU are the architect.

In this period of rewrites you have to be sure of why you chose to write a character in a certain way, or a scene in a certain way, or the progression in a certain order. If not, you can lose grip of your sails and the winds and tides brought by the the arrival of your collaborators, the other talents involved in the project, could blow you every which way, until your screenplay is unrecognizable to you.

Architect or magician, you are the primary one, the originator!

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