Debbie is possibly the best teacher I've ever had. Certainly she's on a very short list with Gordon and Fritz. I should figure out what all three have in common since that might help me be a better teacher myself.
It's not just that she makes me feel like I can accomplish anything, which she does. It's more that she makes sure that I'm pointed in the right direction before giving me that nudge. She's very good at asking the right questions. We were meeting about Enid's Wall. In a week I have to turn in a revised treatment and 15 pages. We workshopped it the week of Thanksgiving so I have a lot of feedback and questions to ask myself in order to move forward. Specifically:
- What kind of story is it? Supernatural mystery? Psychological drama? A bit of each? Because it can be both, but that has to be a choice, not an accident.
- What is at stake for Enid?
- Who is the antagonist?
- What's Enid's deal? Who is she really?
I went into the meeting thinking if I can at least figure out the first 3 then the last might just reveal itself while I'm writing. I never said that, or even hinted it I think, but boy Debbie nipped that thought in the bud. But she didn't just say "Figure out Enid. How can you know what's at stake for her if you don't know who she is?" Which would have been a valid thing to say. Instead she said, think of a character you like and describe them to me. Now, I hate questions like that because I'm not good at rattling off my favorite film or director or character. But she just got me talking about a film I've seen recently that I liked and she got me to be really enthusiastic about this character and why I liked her (Beatrix Potter from the film Miss Potter). She cut me off mid-gush - ok, she's smart, she's talented, she's determined. So now, what are Enid's three things? And she's right. At the moment Enid really only has 1 thing: she's overly enthusiastic.
She also warned me about getting too caught up in the details at the moment. I've got a lot of scenes in my head; things I can picture absolutely. Right now that's a distraction. I need to figure out the bones of the story before I can know where (or if) these pieces fit. It's just that the pieces are fun and the skeleton is hard.
---
Ooh, ooh ooh. How about this: Her first marriage was to a man, but that was a bit of a train wreck. Her second was to a woman, but living in Northern Virginia and working in the DC schools she couldn't ever talk about it. She never felt like she fit in. Now the love of her life has died and she's desperately lonely, but at least alone maybe she has a chance to fit in somewhere.
---
Ooh, ooh ooh. How about this: Her first marriage was to a man, but that was a bit of a train wreck. Her second was to a woman, but living in Northern Virginia and working in the DC schools she couldn't ever talk about it. She never felt like she fit in. Now the love of her life has died and she's desperately lonely, but at least alone maybe she has a chance to fit in somewhere.
My first thought about ooh, ooh, was why does one marriage have to be to a man and the other a woman? Because my first was a train wreck and my third is the love of my life. And then I thought of Liz....her first was a man, and the next was a woman....and then she died before she had enough time with the love of her life. Oh boy, here comes the mini-meltdown....sorry if this got depressing...
ReplyDeleteYou know you need to be able to figure out your characters so you can direct your actors into who they are. There is a thought, maybe you should talk to one of your favorite actresses to see how they define/refine their character.
A more fundamental question would be why does she need to have two marriages at all? I'm taking that from the source material. In the original story she was married and divorced twice and had both her honeymoons here, first in Hyannis and second in Truro. So I started out just keeping that. But then Debbie was pushing me on figuring out Enid's character. In the first draft of the treatment she's a great character of a daffy old lady, but if she's going to be the protagonist and carry the film then she needs to have more depth than that. So what is it about her character that drives her to do certain things or react in certain ways? I may not end up ever referencing the first husband, but I think for the moment I'm going to keep him in my back pocket just in case.
DeleteDebbie was poking me with questions like: Why does she have the deep need to belong? So much so that she tries too hard? Did she not belong in the past? Did her not belonging cause her some difficulty? And then why does she become so enamored with the ghost stories? Could it be that the second husband wasn't divorced but died? And died recently enough that the idea of ghosts is comforting because then maybe he's a ghost too?
All those questions were stewing in my head as I was having lunch and listening to Great Big Sea on my iPhone when it occurred to me that I could conflate those two problems.
I'm a bit too used to writing shorts where it needs to be a one trick pony. Get in, make your point, and get out. If you're going to sustain an audience's attention over a feature length then you have to dole out information a little at a time in a pattern of rising action or tension. Which is why she needed more depth and of the sort of stuff that people can find out a little more about her and a little more and every new piece of information has greater impact on what's happening in the story.