What will they think? Pushing Your Writing off the Cliff of Judgement!

“Jumping off a Cliff and Shouting Wheeee!”

When I was in my 20s, I had an incredible experience while I was working and living in Spain. I drove out to the lakes in mountains of southern Spain and leapt from a high cliff into the clear blue waters 20 feet below.

Now you are probably thinking, so what? But for me, a confirmed acrophobic, who likes her feet planted firmly on the ground at all times, it took a couple of glasses of wine and a lot of coaxing from my dare-devil friends on that trip.

I still remember as I stepped out into absolutely nothingness, the sheer fear that raced through my entire body, only to be followed by acute feeling of exhilaration and the need to scream “wheeeee” about halfway down.

Being a writer can sometimes feel a bit like that.  I think one of a writer’s greatest thrills is to have the work read aloud to them, and one of a writer’s greatest fears is to have their work read aloud to them.

I have had exactly that very experience in a darkened black box theatre on a Sunday afternoon in December in North Hollywood.

It had been just about a month before when I had received the exciting news, that my current script “Illusion” had not only placed in the top three in comedy category, but it had been judged by Scott Rosenfelt (producer, “Home Alone”) as the best overall script of the competition.

To say I was ecstatic is an understatement, there was dancing and hooting and hollering as I read the email titled “congratulations.” It outlined in great detail the girth of exciting prizes that I would now be receiving including my main prize, a staged reading of my script by professional actors in a theatre in LA.  My husband was practically packing before I finished reading out the sentence to him.

As the weekend of the reading approached, all I could think about was a nice sunny weekend break in California in December with my family and my writing partner who was joining me for moral support.

And to be honest I didn’t give the actual read through an awful lot of thought, until the morning of the event.

It was about the time I was staring down out my California breakfast that I realized a group of strangers were about to read my script, out loud, to people.  What if it wasn’t funny? Or the story was flat, or it didn’t make any sense!

It didn’t seem to occur to me during this inner dialogue that if the producer of “Home Alone,’ one of the most successful Christmas movies of all time, liked it, and then maybe it wasn’t so bad. This thought didn’t occur to me because the dreaded writer’s curse of self-doubt had leapt up at me from my scrambled eggs like Jaws and wasn’t about to let me go.

So there we were an hour later, in this lovely black box called “The Rose Theatre” in Burbank.  We walked inside, and as we did I overheard the actors talking to each other about their characters, my characters, discussing them at great length as if they were real. And it was right then I had that leap in my consciousness.

I had created something that was about to become real; brought to life by these actors, and the rush was intoxicating.

So, I just couldn’t help myself as we settled into to the darkened theater and the stage manager read the words, “fade in…” and started the first line of my script; my 5-year-old self couldn’t help but gather herself for a story. So what if it was mine, this experience was exciting.

I did the expected “writer” thing as they read for 90 minutes. I took notes and outlined text that didn’t work in my copy of the script, but honestly all I could think the whole time was about the amazing journey I was on with a group of people who seemed to actually like the story, they laughed, they cried, and at the end they clapped and then I cried.

Yes, it was intimidating, and yes it was incredible, but more than anything it was real, and it was my work and now as the actors claimed their characters it was their’s too.

And as I watched the audience react and enjoy it, I found myself thinking there is nothing more exhilarating then leaping off a cliff with absolute fear and half way down finding yourself needing to shout wheee!!!!

Shakespeare Sayings We Use Today.

In celebration of Shakespeares 450th birthday this week. Here are sayings we use today :-)

Writing Partners - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Writing with a writing partner can be great. Rosie Woods is my partner on some of my scripts and, on the whole, I love it and totally recommend it.

But also be aware that in some ways a writing partnership can feel a bit like a marriage. There’s the good the bad and the ugly!

The good is when a story is flowing and you are both finishing each other’s thoughts and sentences. The bad is when you have a critical story problem, which you are both trying desperately to solve, and the ugly is when two passionate storytellers think the story should go in a completely different direction.

So, what happens when you find yourself knee-deep in the “ugly”?

Rosie and I found ourselves in that position, while writing one of our screenplay, “Violet Skye.”

Our main character, “Violet,” seemed to have a mind of her own and we had been working our way through several structural issues that this character and her wayward traits had created for us. In trying to solve one of those problems, Rosie thought it might be a good idea to kill off one of her potential love interests, a direction I didn’t agree with. I found myself pleading for his life like a mother at a son’s stay of execution.

It’s not that killing him off was a bad choice, ’cuz we had this other Colin Firth-type character waiting in the wings. But it would have made it a different story. So, on that day, our writing session went something like this:

Rosie:  I think we should kill off David?

Sue:  What?  No way! He’s the blonde, cute one.

Rosie:  Well, Violet will never get to be with Marcus if we don’t.

Sue:  Did I mention he’s the blonde, cute one?

Rose:  But Marcus is Colin Firth in our heads, he is a better choice for Violet.

Sue:  Every interesting man is Colin Firth in my head, but I still think we should keep the blonde, cute one. It’s a better resolution for the audience.

Rosie:  I don’t think so. Marcus is a much more interesting choice.

Sue:  But David is sexy, passionate and blonde!  He’s the one who stimulates her. You know I’m right.

At this point, Rosie squints and tries to figure out her next move. She reaches for one of the cute little “wristies” she’s wearing and throws it at me. Then, I make another smart-assed comment (on purpose) and she responds by taking off the other one and throwing that one at me, too.

I proceed to put on her wristies like I’ve just won a prize. (I love her personal style. Let’s see if she ever gets those back.)  Another 30 minutes of throwing clothing, pacing and pleading our cases ensues. In the end and in this particular instance, David lives, but only by the skin of his teeth. It could have gone either way.

What I love about the ugly (the debate) is that we both have the same goal. Our choices are not dictated by ego, but rather by a passionate desire to tell the best version of our story.

The good news about the ugly is that it always makes our story stronger. Whether a character lives or dies in one of our scripts is not incidental to a story. Each character has a place, a reason and a purpose for being there and after 30 minutes of the ugly, we know exactly what that is.

I encourage you, potential screenwriters, to try writing with a partner. It can be really fun, but be aware that you may not always agree on what direction the story should go. However, don’t be afraid to challenge your writing partner about the story or to challenge your characters. If they are meant to be there, it will be obvious, no matter how many articles of clothing you and your partner throw at each other to get there.

Suzanne Kelman is a multi-award winning screenwriter. Two of her screenplays have been optioned and are in development, while another is in pre-production and due to begin filming in Europe in 2013.  Kelman recently won “Best Overall” for her script “Illusion” in the 2012 Script-a-Thon contest.