MORE Writing Progress!!!

If this degenerates into a journal of my writing, I know this will become the most boring web log ever!

BUT I'M JUST SO EXCITED!!!

I finished Step 6 -- listed below -- tonight and am gearing up for Step 7!!!

7. Genre-proof Your Structure

This is probably a silly way to phrase it, in that you're not trying to protect your structure from your genre, but ensure that you're being faithgul to your genre.

If you're writing for horror, you've got to make sure you structure in enough scares to make your story an actualy horror story! So next I'm going to break down my storyline (structurally) in terms of the scares.

Now, if this were Comedy I would want the audience laughing once or every minutes or two, with big laughs at least every 10 minutes and HUGE laugh sequences every half hour -- the exception being the first and last 5 pages, which should probably have much more comedy to, respectively, set the tone and end on a high note.

In Horror, however, every 10 pages is good, with BIG scares every half-hour.

That's in screenplay terms.

What I'm actually up to is an audio miniseries in 6 half-hour episodes. So I figure if I get between 2 and 4 good scares in -- with (un)healthy dollups of creepy -- I'm in good shape.

Why that much?

Because every episode should feel like it's own reason for listening. Every episode should stand alone as a listening experience. And what I'm selling is scares.

Now, 2-4 might be a bit ambitious. I may be letting my First-Timer Insecurity make me over zealous. I'll feel it out as it goes. But it's a decent starting point, even though trying that hard might interfere with the actual storytelling. But like I said, I'll feel it out.

I just don't want to fall into the trap of so many Horror writers I've read and seen: I don't write a Horror story that isn't actually scary!

BUT TONIGHT...!!! I hadn't worked out the events of the last 2 episodes (the last half-hour, or Act III, in screenplay terms), but I figured they'd work themselves out if I stayed true to my theme... AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED!!!

I have the slightest twinge of temptation to start writing the script pages going off the work I've already done! But personal experience and extensive study has taught me that I can't give in, because if I do I'll have shallow, uninspired pages that seem to be stretching out little material, rather than feeling packed with storytelling richness.

I have one layer of what should be a multilayered work.

So tomorrow I'll begin mapping out my scares -- not cramming them in where they don't belong but, as I've done with the thematic structuring, looking at what I've got and simply enhancing what is there -- when that's done, I'll figure out what Step 8 should be.

THIS SO SO EXCITING!!! I may actually have a long-form piece of fiction that I'm truly, deeply proud of for the first time ever!!!

P.S. Scrubs rules!!!

P.P.S. If Traci (My Super Hot Best Friend Whom I Will Never See Naked) happens to be reading this, HI, TRACI!!!