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Original poster

Got a novel/play/screenplay in your head? Get it on paper! Here is the page count thread for hopeful and actual writers.

407 replies

wilbur · 21/01/2008 10:20

Are you a writer in need of some motivation? Post here each day or whenever you can with your page count. Or post your hopes for how many pages you want to write each day and then come back and see if you managed them. Even if they are rubbish, at least you will have them down on paper and can make them brilliant at a later date.

I will start. I am hoping to write a second full-length screenplay before August 2008. I have two days a week where I have time to write my own stuff and I am aiming to do 5 pages on each of those days.

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Toots · 04/02/2008 13:25

I think it's very grounding to know a bit about your characters before you start. I've got a character and I knew her mum had died when she was little. Later on I realised that it served me and was entirely logical, if she made the people around her very reliant on her due to the fear of abandonment this early loss had created in her.

I knew someone who could tell you their characters favourite colours/bands and what they'd got in their O'levels and that struck me as fairly useless.

Basically my feeling is you've got to pin them down with broad strokes to make sure they'll do what THEY want to do rather than what you're bidding them do for convenience.

I culled a character's partner the other day. Too many people to worry about as it was.

Am horribly tired today so have not well utilised the mountains of time I've had.

Original poster
wilbur · 04/02/2008 13:37

I like that, toots - what THEY want to do rather than what you are bidding them do. Something it's easy to lose sight of, I think, esp when you are tying up loose ends.

Funnily enough, I have just mentally reprieved a character from death, partly because as I was thinking out the rest of the story, it was more interesting for him NOT to die, and partly because I have a funny funeral story that fits better with another character. So I killed her instead. I am playing God .

However, I am not adding to my page count, so I am allowed a cup of tea and 20 mins more Mumsnet and then I must work.

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ruty · 04/02/2008 14:12

that's why it is so hard to write a synopsis before writing script/novel. The characters evolve when you start writing.

hunkermunker · 04/02/2008 14:20

I am reading How To Write A Blockbuster by Helen Corner and Lee Weatherly.

It is heartening that a lot of the things they say to do, I've already done - in particular the plot structure.

I need to do a bit more on characterisation and ensuring that I'm not just shoving random characters into the story for the hell of it. I get a bit carried away.

LOL at MI's characters dying off - that's one way of doing it - very neat!

Toots · 04/02/2008 14:42

Killing characters for the sake comedy? I approve of that totally.

I say page count schmage count, Wilbur. You were planning.

ElfOnTheTopShelf · 04/02/2008 20:57

I haven't ever killed off characters, but I do have one male character who has a girlfriend who died, I think it gives him a great sensitivity.

I write characters that in most cases makes me think "God, I wish I knew somebody like that" (as I have no mates !)

I think I keep my characters limited, in one I am writing now, I have six characters and that is is really, except for whose in films you'd not show in the credits as they're just extras, like the waitress or something!

Frizbe · 04/02/2008 21:13

I try to have an outline for my main characters, but find you always get to know them more, the more you write

ElfOnTheTopShelf · 04/02/2008 21:15

Oooh, I have killed off a main characters entire family - no written their deaths, but the prologue is her in the lawyers office aged seven whilst they decide on legal guardianship

Original poster
wilbur · 05/02/2008 10:42

That's very interesting, thank you. I think that's probably my instinct, write the broad outline of a character, their motivation (urgh, hate that word, but it fits) and attitude and then go from there. I'd be interested to hear what marslady's creative writing tutors advise re character development.

Elf - I think many people write characters they would want in their life. I remember reading an interview with Amy Heckerling who wrote Look Who's Talking and she said she was writing when she was a lonely single mother and her fantasy was to have John Travolta dance around her kitchen table with her, so she wrote that. Having said that, one of the criticisms of my first screenplay was that the hero was "too perfect" because I'd just written my fantasy man, who was somewhat two dimensional...

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bubblesbabe · 05/02/2008 10:50

Am a chapter into my first children's book - aiming at the 7-11 girl's market as I have found it imporrible to find books t keep her going. Have always wanted to write and so decided that now was the time. a chapter in and I am finding it wants to take up all my time but unfortunately have to go to work as well!
Glad I found this thread - it might keep me motivated during the dark spells!

ruty · 05/02/2008 15:01

Elf can you CAT me if you still want me to read? Not offended at all if you want to try UD first.

bubblerock · 05/02/2008 21:39

Is THIS of any interest to any of you with screenplays?

vonsudenfed · 05/02/2008 21:55

Can i join? I am in the throes of my second novel, have a very rough draft but needs at least two rewrites before I send it out to anyone. And this will take forever at current rate of progress...

vonsudenfed · 06/02/2008 13:23

the first one, incidentally, lives in the desk drawer. Lest you thought I'd got it published or something.

motherinferior · 06/02/2008 20:52

I have decided to bin one dead character in favour of Unspeakable Act Of Betrayal Towards Another Dying Character.

It's like a plague ward, my opus, innit.

Original poster
wilbur · 07/02/2008 12:22

Shall I come round and paint a red cross on the lid of your laptop, MI?

That's a really interesting like, bubblerock (welcome btw) thank you. I'm not sure I'm ready for something like that yet, but one day... Certainly, at the moment, the idea of pitching, actually speaking to someone in real life, about my work makes me need to breathe into a paper bag, but I know that if I want to have a career, I'm going to have to get over that.

Vonsudenfed - what kind of novels are you writing?

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Toots · 07/02/2008 14:21

Wilbur, I often feel just like that. For me - not you - me (!) it's a sign that I don't really (like really, really) know what the piece is about. I know what I think it's about, or what I want it to be about. But when it's really about what I want it to be about, then I'm happy, happy to talk about it. It's abit like talking about someone else's work, a finished thing, know wot I meen? With the thing that I'm doing now, however, there is added mild cringe that it's kind of domestic. Women's lives (from a fresh persective with heart and peopled by three dimensional characters with flaws and blindspots notwithstanding).

If I'd known how much it would take me to get it to where it is now (hours, tears, wakefulness, printer cartridges) I'm not sure I'd have undertaken it. But then I am someone to whom TV and its ability to make laugh, cry and shock is of supreme importance. So I'm incredibly glad I did because it has taught me such valuable lessons. Chief of which is that for screenwriting, the kind I'm interested in anyway, the main character(s) have to want something (a concrete thing - job, keys to a locked door, man, woman, dog) and have a journey in which they may or may not get it but they do change on the way and gain something they were missing (non-concrete: the feeling that they're worth loving, the loss of some kind of fear, responsibility). Yes, it's a formula, and I tried five times to write this hour long comedy drama without troubling overmuch to apply these rules. And guess what, when I read those drafts now, I don't really care about my characters, I don't really care about what's happening to them and I don't feel any sense that they are growing (or shrinking) or changing in any way. No human interest, just a few people with differing world views w**king on in a vaguely amusing way.

Wilbur - sorry, this isn't all aimed at you. Just trying to save the time of anyone who doesn't think a carefully crafted story with internal/external obstacles and turning points that are action based, is an essential part of writing for TV or film.

I'm feeling rather passionate and like I've cracked it. And this is having chiefly worked with three sheets of A4 for the best part of two months nailing my main protagonists story. It has been hard because I'm mad keen on writing dialogue but dialogue and funny bits of business are just the icing on the cake.

Original poster
wilbur · 07/02/2008 16:34

Toots - that is so, so true. I have read an awful lot of spec scripts in the past (used to work for production companies and also as a freelance reader) and so often a script can be very funny, or very moving even, in its dialogue, maybe even with some cracking scenes in there, but it's flabby and uninspiring as a whole. And that is all down to characters and "what happens next?" appeal, or lack of it. It's a such a shame, but it's understandable that people are eager to get it out there once they've reached THE END, and they don't take time to go back and really see if the script is worth reading yet. I definitely agree that it's easier to talk about your work when it's progressing along a line you are sure of, and when you can describe it clearly and succinctly.

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vonsudenfed · 07/02/2008 19:41

Evening all. I have been grinding away at revision this morning, which is considerably less fun than writing, and much harder. Dammit.

And what is it? Heaven only knows. A poncey novel that no one else will want to read, I suspect. Little romance, too much place and oddities such as nuns. And morris dancing, which probably renders it unsaleable I suspect. Only one death though, so can't compete with MI.

You may already know this, but have you screenwriters come across this book which I was recommended for story structure, even for novels. And it's not that long, or indeed that taxing to read. And it's pretty much what Toots was describing, only with handy easy-to-follow bullet points too...

vonsudenfed · 07/02/2008 19:42

Revision is of course designed to iron out all of those irritating repetitions. Like 'I suspect'.

wednesdayadamsxx · 07/02/2008 19:50

Hi Wilbur can I join too?

I am currently writing my autobiography which I know sounds wanky but after 4 people in one month said I should I thought I'd give it a whirl. I am at the beginning of chapter 10, planning 12 chapters and a short epilogue.

I have found writing this completely exhausting, emotionally. I have had contact with an agent who is very interested but I am keen to write anonymously. Infact, keen is not the word, it's essential that its anonymous or I just won't publish. I won't even tell the agent my name, I've got to start as I mean to go on. Anyone got any advice about publishing in this manner?

TREBUCHET · 07/02/2008 20:33

Hi can I join in too? I think I am fairly crap but I thought its better to write something down rather than have it just buzzing round my head.

Sooooo

I am writing a very cheerful book to cheer myself up and have given myself the deadline of end of March to finish. Have put my ds into nursery for 2 afternoons a week. After march I can't afford it anymore so have to finish by then. I am about 80k words in and reckon I'l be done in about 20k time. I usually manage 1k a session and get in 3-4 sessions a week, but because I feel I am on the home straight I am flagging a bit. Skiving from myself!!!

ElfOnTheTopShelf · 07/02/2008 21:36

Ruty did you get my CAT?

ruty · 08/02/2008 08:24

yes sorry Elf haven't been in much will reply today

Original poster
wilbur · 08/02/2008 11:40

vonsudenfed - I used to have a copy of that book (it was lost somewhere in my wanderings over the last 15 years) - it's very good for film structure and can be applied to all sorts of genres. I imagine it would give a good general structure for a novel too. I liked it because it wasn't too inflexible - some screenwriting books say things like "on page 11 you should have a crisis for your main character"... which is really not helpful at all.

Hello wednesdayadams and trebuchet . Wednesday, I don't really know about how you publish anonymously, but I would have thought a decent agent would simply sort out a pseudonym for you. Although, being anonymous might probably be a bit of headache for a publisher as you would not be able to promote the book. I guess they use PR people in those cases.

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