Thursday, December 11, 2008

Drafting day 15. Page 55.

Day 61 since starting this project. Page 55.

Days outlining:15
Days drafting:15
Total days writing: 30
Days not writing: 31

Almost five pages today. Yeah, I know it looks like the maths doesn't add up... but I was rewriting. New chase scene. It's all looking a lot better. Still pretty ropey of course, first draft ropiness, but it's lost that feeling of wrongness that it had before.

I think I will now have too much chase, but that's okay. I'll leave it to the second draft to sort that out.

I had sworn never to go back to rewrite again while doing a draft, but I only went back five pages or so and I think that's okay.

5 comments:

Sanjay Patel said...

Congrats on progressing through your draft. I seem to be stuck on my draft as it is short but like you said your chase may be too long but you'll leave the second draft to sort it out, maybe I shall do the same by just writing more and not try to feel the first draft have to be the picture of perfection.

the daily screenwriter said...

Thanks. Looking for perfection's a killer. But it's one thing to tell yourself that, another thing to accept it... I'm doing quite well on the acceptance stakes right now, if I do say so myself!

Helen Rickerby said...

Five pages though! That's pretty good!

blofeld said...

Well it looks like i am about to start on unfamiliar ground here. I am getting started on the second draft. And i tell you its a scary prospect. I have received comments on the first draft from five other people and spent some time thinking over what they said. From that i have developed a list of "things i need to think about".

The first daunting thing i faced was a personal integrity thing. It would be too easy to just cut a few things and shuffle a few things and call it a new draft. And as tempting as that was (and vastly less work), i knew it was a bad bad thing.

However as i think on the comments made i have noticed that some of the comments are either opportunities missed in the first draft or improvements to be made on the things already in the script. The interesting thing i have realized is that by taking advantage of the opportunities i have missed, i can actually the fix things that need improving. The two are linked.

Its a kind of kismet that baffles and pleases me. Its still a hell of a lot of work, but its like the script itself is encouraging me to make it better.

freaky eh!

the daily screenwriter said...

Sounds good blofeld - ah, the magic of the second draft... you might want to check out the link below, link to youtube video of various British TV writers talking about writing - they talk about the hell of the first draft (and how much more fun subsequent drafts are) - Paul Abbott (State of Play) says he wishes elves would write the first draft for him... don't we all!

http://robinkellyuk.blogspot.com/2008/12/charlie-brookers-screenwipe-writers.html