For some reason, I feel as though I've gotten through the hard part, the two-a-days before the real season begins. Is this common? As a writer, this would have been the moment of glory, the point at which I would sit and bask in my (now not-so-uncommon) accomplishment. But for this project, I feel like it's just the first hurdle. I'm glad to be past it, but I've still got 12 zillion more to hop over. Is this how Christopher Nolan feels?
At any rate, it occurs to me that perhaps I can add a tidbit to the body of screenplay-writing knowledge. It's this: Drop the 3-act structure for a 4-act structure.
I've written enough feature-length scripts (13?) to recognize a pattern: Start off gangbusters, then somewhere between pages 28 and 40, BANG. You hit the wall. Maybe this has happened to you before. My hypothesis is that for you 3-act folks, that huge honking Act 2 is too big of an elephant to eat in one sitting. You're looking at all those pages left to write, and there's no milestones between pages 22 and 72.
Furthermore, you may be tempted to think that nothing really needs to change much in your story for those 50+ pages. Apart from the rising tension, that is. So, force that change by splitting that sucker in two. Or rather, force your mind to recognize that something significant needs to happen somewhere around there.
Imagine now you're writing 4 acts. You get to page 32 and, instead of picturing the next milestone 40 pages away, you can look up and see the thing leering down at you, a mere 18 pages away.
No guarantees here. Just sayin'. It works for me, consistently. Might work for you.
Up next: Some tidbits from the script. Don't want to give too much away. Not yet.
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