A.R. Van Halleorg

Okay, so we have a full month (the month of April) to write a 100-page script for Script Frenzy. It’s the sister competition to NaNoWriMo and sadly, I think I’m going to fail this one almost as badly as I failed NaNoWriMo. I made the fatal error of introducing a character that I felt would make the entirety of the story much better and far more interesting, but it wasn’t feasible in the timeframe allotted to the competition.

Now though, I’m specifically sitting down a week ahead of time to try to work out the plot and really see if there’s any chance that another character might try to get its own cameo. Yes, we’re allowed to do that with this one. I specifically remember getting an e-mail about it from the NaNoWriMo newsletter that we should go ahead and start planning things out. So I am.

Now I run into a whole new problem! I have too many different ways the entire thing could end. Do I kill someone? Do I have someone sacrifice themselves? Do I let them all live happily ever after? Do I let the bad guy win? Hmm…the potential. It all sounds potentially intriguing and I’m looking forward to starting Script Frenzy, but it’s driving me nuts already!

I’m trying to keep a few short things in mind while I work on this one though:

1- Don’t introduce anyone or anything new that wasn’t in the original plot.
2- Avoid the temptation to aim for perfection on the first draft.
3- If it sounds stupid, write it anyways, I can make it sound better later.
4- Have fun.

And that’s about it. Anyways, I’ll update this one in a week and see where I get at.

Enjoy your day and to those participating in Script Frenzy, try to keep the insanity for April 1st.

Where’s an Epic Fail badge when you need it? No really, I failed at NaNoWriMo this year. It was my first year trying and I’m used to writing in my own timelines. I generally tend to veer off course and end up somewhere in the middle of a quiet field standing on the edge of a desert wondering how I got this far off track.

I made a fatal error approximately halfway through the month of November when I introduced a character that managed to write her way into my story. I know the logical advice would have been to just not write her in, but any writer knows that you don’t get to decide who is in your story. Characters will always find their way in, situations will arise that you hadn’t initially thought would happen. Your story outline for the most part is just a guideline. I tried my best to stick to that guideline, however, this character was so important to the story that I had to go back to the beginning to introduce her and explain why she was important to begin with. However it destroyed the entire 6,000 words I’d written for the beginning and made them entirely moot. I found myself facing 3,000 words instead of the 12,000-13,000 that I had hoped to be at by the end of that day.

Normally I would agree that I should have pressed on, but I’d lost the entire story I had and nothing I could have done could have salvaged it for this year. I didn’t want to end up with a pitiful excuse of a book. It’s nice to say that NaNoWriMo has no rules; just that you have to write until you hit 50,000 words, but I have my standards and I didn’t want to reach the end with a bunch of gibberish. So sadly this story is being redefined and I’ll start over from the beginning in next year’s competition.

On the plus side, there’s another competition this year and it’s called Script Frenzy. Script is actually my preferred way of writing. It requires a lack of description and thrives mainly on the dialogue with bits of description in between. After all, you’re only giving lines to the actors and giving an idea to the director, not telling him/her how to do their job. It’s up to them to make it look great; they just need a good basis.

Anyways! So here’s the challenge.

During the month of April!

100 pages of original scripted material in 30 days.

You may write the following types of scripts:

-       Screenplays

-       Stage plays

-       TV shows

-       Short films

-       Graphic novels

Find out more about Script Frenzy?

Register for Script Frenzy