horror horrors

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zahra

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Hi. New to this site, which I joined cos I like the sense of pulling together, help, straight-talking etc.

I'm a fledgling - had an agent, had some nice meetings with production companies who read my work, now a producer is reading a short of mine, on recommendation from an extremely successful TV writer I met recently.

Question: I started writing a horror about a guy who is haunted (literally) by several different tragedies, all of differing characteristics, which add up to show him something and lead to the denouement. But I think that the tale feels disjointed and episodic, because the things he encounters are so individual. I'm having the haunting-events happen over a series of days. Any ideas? I really like my central idea, and so do the trusted few I've told it to, so I don't want to change the idea of different tragedies. Should I send the 40 or so pages I've done to a SD, and see what s/he says?

I am between London and the US for the next couple of days and won't be braodbanded up for a little while, but please send replies and I'll catch them within a week. Much appreciated!
 
What does SD mean?

I wouldn't send 'just 40 pgs' to anyone. I'd wait until I finished the script, then revised it, revise some more, *then* send it out.

If this producer is interested and serious, he'll understand and respect that it's a work in progress - and wait for you to finish.

EJ
 
zahra said:
Hi. New to this site, which I joined cos I like the sense of pulling together, help, straight-talking etc.

I'm a fledgling - had an agent, had some nice meetings with production companies who read my work, now a producer is reading a short of mine, on recommendation from an extremely successful TV writer I met recently.

Question: I started writing a horror about a guy who is haunted (literally) by several different tragedies, all of differing characteristics, which add up to show him something and lead to the denouement. But I think that the tale feels disjointed and episodic, because the things he encounters are so individual. I'm having the haunting-events happen over a series of days. Any ideas? I really like my central idea, and so do the trusted few I've told it to, so I don't want to change the idea of different tragedies. Should I send the 40 or so pages I've done to a SD, and see what s/he says?

I am between London and the US for the next couple of days and won't be braodbanded up for a little while, but please send replies and I'll catch them within a week. Much appreciated!
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I'll get back to you as soon as I find out what "Denouement" means.

Briefly, from what you said, your problem is transitions between scenes?

There are no easy ways to do it, but I'd avoid the temptation to use "Cool" match cuts.

That aside, in general terms, if the story's spine is solid and narrow, scenes should have a logical flow to them. At a certain point, things should start to connect I would think.
 
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brianluce said:
I'll get back to as soon as I find out what "Denouement" means.
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Ouch! And at the same time, you go on to write an incorrect sentence. You should know that you can't correct someone AND typo in the sentence: it makes you look like an idiot.

To the poster: How are you a fledgling yet with agent? Fledglings aren't born with agents.
 
Kholi said:
Ouch! And at the same time, you go on to write an incorrect sentence. You should know that you can't correct someone AND typo in the sentence: it makes you look like an idiot.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah? Since when did tyop become a verb?
 
It sounds like you need to finish your draft and start looking at it as a whole first. You've written 40 pages, but out of how many?

For me, and maybe this is just me, I can't really look at my story as a "whole" until I've written a complete first draft. Then I can hold it in my hands, put it away for a bit and come back and look at it as a whole and as a series of pieces. What I do is a scene-by-scene analysis as I read through the whole script, putting together the essence of each scene. Then I compare each scene to the previous and following scenes and see how they all fit together.

I don't think you can really start finding out how to make your story flow when you haven't put enough together to step back and see the whole thing. Hell, I don't consider any of my scripts "good" until I've reached the 3rd or 4th rewrite. That's when it really starts to take shape.
 
Tell me about it. My best feature just finished its 9th rewrite a couple of months ago with a total rewrite of the ending, I've written 8 other features and they're all between 1st and 2nd and are generally pretty terrible :)
 
Kholi said:
Ouch! And at the same time, you go on to write an incorrect sentence. You should know that you can't correct someone AND typo in the sentence: it makes you look like an idiot.

To the poster: How are you a fledgling yet with agent? Fledglings aren't born with agents.
Click to expand...

Hello, I'm back. To be fair, I don't think the poster you're admonishing was correcting me, as 'denoument' is spelled correctly - anyway, to answer your qu., I managed to get an agent with the first script I wrote, but after getting me one job (didn't involved production, but was a paid writers' scheme), he retired, and his replacement kept me on for about 4 months, praised my latest effort lavishly and then dumped me. I've not had anything produced, and being agent-less ever since, feel fledgling.

Thanks for everybody's advice.
 
mrWr0ng said:
It sounds like you need to finish your draft and start looking at it as a whole first. You've written 40 pages, but out of how many?

For me, and maybe this is just me, I can't really look at my story as a "whole" until I've written a complete first draft. Then I can hold it in my hands, put it away for a bit and come back and look at it as a whole and as a series of pieces. What I do is a scene-by-scene analysis as I read through the whole script, putting together the essence of each scene. Then I compare each scene to the previous and following scenes and see how they all fit together.

I don't think you can really start finding out how to make your story flow when you haven't put enough together to step back and see the whole thing. Hell, I don't consider any of my scripts "good" until I've reached the 3rd or 4th rewrite. That's when it really starts to take shape.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this advice. Actually, I found I'd written 61 pages and am reckoning it will run to 100ish. Yeah, finishing it first is probably a good idea; it just means ignoring the wormy feeling inside when you suspect you are writing a load of pants, and pushing on to get the whole.
 
brianluce said:
I'll get back to you as soon as I find out what "Denouement" means.

Briefly, from what you said, your problem is transitions between scenes?

There are no easy ways to do it, but I'd avoid the temptation to use "Cool" match cuts.

That aside, in general terms, if the story's spine is solid and narrow, scenes should have a logical flow to them. At a certain point, things should start to connect I would think.
Click to expand...

You've identified the prob exactly in your last paragraph. Because the incidents I've used have only two things in common - they are pretty nasty and they actually happened - they don't seem - to me - to have that 'logical flow', but I think the major reason is I don't reveal the fact that they are true-life events soon enough, to make that connection between them. Will finish the bastard thing with this in mind for the first re-write. Thanks x 1000,000, Brian.

Zahra

PS Cool match cuts? Yikes at the very thought, thank you very much.
 
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