Racist outbursts are basically not a good career move...

...but it at least gives some clever editors the chance to put together a great lampoon.

SCRIPTIN' FANCY LIKE - PART 2
When last we left off, I had just gotten the ball seriously rolling with "Tonight...". From there to the tenous finish is easily summed up. Whenever I could, I would just sort of will myself to write more. Seriously, that is it - willpower. If I had it in me that day, then I would write...otherewise...

This is by no means what I advise, it's just what happened!

I definitely didn't write it in chronological order and if I had tried to I'd probably still be writing it. I just had to throw down whatever was flowing freely out of me, before I forgot it. Eventually my writing sessions were one part writing to one part joining up the jigsaw pieces. Two parts Hennessey.

The reason I describe the finish as "tenous" is because I feel that I could keep coming back to expand upon and refine that script until kingdom come. I don't claim to be the first to point this out, but I think it is worth saying you can go back to a script almost an infinite amount of times. Eventually you have to say "It's DONE" even if adding an ominous "for now..." at the end of that exclamation. Though I have half an additional scene for "Tonight..." which I sometimes tweak and add to, I feel fine in saying that script is done because:

1. I've done enough proofreads to feel that the spelling, grammar and continuity are tight enough to give the impression that I am a fellow who is capable of being capable.
   
2. The story feels complete and the characters more like people than a collection of cute lines. Though I have an urge to flesh out somebits here and there, I wouldn't say there are any outright gaping holes which would lend a viewer/reader to ask questions such as "But wait? Isn't that dude a secret abortionist? Wouldn't he, of all people, know not to have unprotected sex with that pilot's wife in the apple orchard?" or "Didn't the humans think in the long term about their decision to block out the sun to stop the 100% solar powered robots?".

This being said, I have periodically given it another proofread when posessed of ample spare time (like my recent unemployment in Reading). Just because the car is built and working doesn't mean you never clean it or check for rust!

Being my first attempt at writing a feature-length script, "Tonight..." was a lot of fun and a lot of messy forcing it out onto the page. I paid for this at least twice with continuity problems that cost me a lot of aggro in going back over the script to resolve them. The upside of my full steam ahead approach was that it was easier for me to stay focused on the main idea of the script and so I'm pleased to say that despite featuring a wide variety of conversational topics in the dialogue, the story itself stays on track from beginning to end.

Something else that definitely eased the process for this script was that it was set in "A Metropolitan City" around about "Modern Times". Not to mention that the cast was composed entirely of North Americans in their early to mid-twenties, so I certainly could not be accused of writing what I didn't know. Not that I'm being down on myself, I think it's important to mention these things because I have met so many people who feel too intimidated to start writing. Well let me tell you folk in particular, it's only as terrifying and challenging as you make it. With "Tonight..." I felt that I was up to the task of conveying the themes and ideas I wanted to explore, but not on top of an exotic setting, characters which were outside my realm of personal experience or some ambitious high concept.

I think it is also important to point out that there is no shame in taking the simple approach - particularly in concept. I mean, a lot of classic movies can wind up sounding either daft or boring (or both) when summed up in the original notion. Just becuase hearing your idea in a single sentence doesn't immediately moisten the genitals of every human being within a city block doesn't mean it isn't worth pursuing.

I've also had to devote very little brainpower to coming up with the exactitudes of how the society of "Tonight..." worked or any other abstract systems as one would encounter in, say, a horror story which takes place in a fictional English town and involves a fictional religion. Like, say, the script I am trying to write now - Archbrook. For this I have definitely set the bar higher than what I have tried to write before and so I'm trying to take a more organized, less just do it, just write something so you ain't some chump who says he is a writer but he ain't written nothin' no good approach. We'll get into that next time!