Category: in-depth 2022

In-depth post six

First off, I’ve made a fairly major change to my project. Until about early April I was working on my previous script and I was struggling greatly, It felt uninspired and my outline had fairly large gaps. I didn’t really have an idea for the ending. My major issue of the last few months has been writers block, and I believe this came from writing a script that I wasn’t necessarily enjoying/ a script I hadn’t fully flushed out the idea for. It is still a script I want to finish someday, but at the moment, I don’t really have an idea for character arcs or an ending, essentially, it’s not the right script to present as an example of my skills.

I’ve always found that we find inspiration in absolutely the strangest places. Since march, I’ve been contemplating writing a different script to present for in-depth, but I was very nervous to essentially bail on my last script idea. I’d been playing around with a basic genre outline and some characters, I wanted to write a “classroom drama” and explore the intricacies and simplicities of high school, but I wasn’t sure what the plot could be. In early April we had a “hold and secure” drill and inspiration completely struck, what provides great space for comedy and character growth then a crisis? That’s when I came up with the idea for secure my new script. I’ve made unbelievable progress on it, I’m already on my second draft and I feel like I could present it as it is (although I will continue to work on it). I actually haven’t had any major obstacles with this new script, it’s been a breeze to write and script writings gone from being something frustrating that I was avoiding to something I find myself doing in every spare moment, I’ve found it amazing what finding new inspiration can do. As well I’ve found that “secure” is a better representation of my new skills then my last script as it’s given me opportunities to use writing technique.

The basic plot of “secure” is that a class of English students have their first day back from summer turned completely upside down when the school is thrown into emergency lockdown protocol. But it’s so much more then just what you see on the surface, the characters are scared for themselves and their loved ones, creating tension and in-fighting between this newly bonded group of borderline outcasts. While it is extremely tense and even frightening at times, it does have more light hearted moments of comradery and comedy.

Evidence of progress (character traits for “secure” characters)

Michal, the main character, the calm one

Age: 16

Birthday: September 17th

Pronouns: he/him

Likes:

green

Science

pasta

Dislikes:

Tacos

Yellow

Cloudy days

Pullover sweaters

 

Lydia, main character, the smart one

Birthday: December 9^th

Age: 16

Pronouns: she/they

Likes:

Cats

Coffee/tea

Action movies

Strawberries

Books/reading

Dislikes:

Heat

Wasps

Comic books

 

nick, side character “the worry-er, the one who gets things done”

Age: 17

Birthday: august  29^th

Pronouns: he/him

Likes:

Robotics

Marine biology

All animals, especially amphibians

pizza

Dislikes:

Small spaces

Being still for too long

Coffee

 

Carlos, side character “ the class clown”

Age: 17

Birthday: march 2^nd

Pronouns: he/him

Likes:

Orange

Oceans/lakes

Christmas (will start putting up decorations in October)

Dislikes:

Pears

Math

spring

 

may “the voice of reason”

Age: 17

Birthday: april  26^th

Pronouns: she/her

Likes:

Reading

Skirts

Soccer

purple

dogs

Dislikes:

Pie

Reptiles

Writing

 

The antagonist

The antagonist isn’t so much a specific character as it is a situation, the characters have been put in a lockdown, this is what is causing danger and tension.

 

Plan to present my learning

I plan to do a script reading of part of the opening scene on stage in front of the audience. Several of my classmates have agreed to help me with my script reading as I think it will be easier for the audience to see my dialogue writing skills if each character is being embodied by an actual person. I think that a script reading will demonstrate my script writing abilities the best because it is easiest to judge how good dialogue (especially comedic lines) are when there read out loud. Also, during the script reading I will be reading the stage directions out loud as well. I think this format fully showcases my ability to write a script and the writing skills I have learned.

 

Progress report

In the past few weeks I have been able to work more on my script and the development of characters. I’ve come up with ideas for the next few scenes and am starting to fall into a new rhythm using this new style of writing. Luckily, I am starting to work with a new script in my drama class that is a similar style to the script I am trying to write, so I have been able to look to that script (she kills monsters, written by qui nguyen) for pointers on formatting and dialogue patterns.

I have been doing more research into writers block and how to overcome obstacles when writing, I have found great articles from other writers about how they work with writers block, so far, some tips I’ve found that are helpful to me are:

• whenever you finish a scene, make sure that you write a few lines of the next scene. This way you’ll hopefully be thinking about what to put in the next scene more and will hopefully be more eager to go back and finish the next scene.
• Write in a different font then you usually do, this can help give you new perspective
• Whenever you run into an issue, read back through the last few sentences, often any plot issues only started a few sentences prior.

I have been fortunate to not run into many new frustrations, other then my mentor will be quite busy for the next few weeks, so it might be difficult to schedule our next meeting. Other then this issue, I haven’t come across many new obstacles which is giving me more time to work on old obstacles such as writers block and grammar.

 

Evidence:

Scene three

(back in lians dorm room. They’re sitting awkwardly in a circle. No one is talking) 

 

Lian: so… 

Ryan: I don’t like this. I want nothing to do with it, this feels more sketchy then an actual pyramid scheme 

Atheyllia: autumn. Explain her plan 

Autumn (pacing nervously): I don’t know all of it, I mean. Your not going to like it  

Ryan: are you involved in criminal activities? 

Autumn: not yet… technically 

Athyllia: Jesus Christ autumn! 

Autumn: hey! I haven’t done anything wrong 

Lian: (quietly) lets hear her out. 

Ryan: what is wrong with you two today! 

Autumn: we don’t have a heck of a lot of options right now Ryan 

Ryan: what does that mean 

Autumn: with one heist, we could have the unheard-of gift of financial stability straight out of collage 

Athyllia: I’m listening 

Lian: wait. What do you mean, heist? 

Autumn: oh, yeah. Surprise everybody, that’s the plan 

Ryan: that is a terrible plan!! 

Autumn: well, I wasn’t the one who came up with it! 

Ryan: no, but you’re complicit! 

Autumn: yeah, that’s true. 

Lian: autumn, when did you find out that she’s planning a heist 

autumn: yesterday, she called me after we left 

Ryan: and you never thought to tell us! 

Autumn: no! Because I knew you’d react like this! 

Ryan: you still should have told us! 

Lian: I’m going to be honest with y’all. I’m kind of down to do a heist 

Ryan: your crazy 

Autumn: she’s done this before. 

Ryan: still 

Autumn: we won’t get caught 

Ryan: you’re not just crazy. Your bad people 

Lian: Ryan, c’mon, one bad thing, then, you could afford the PHD you’ve always wanted. Maybe even an apartment. 

Ryan and athyllia, in unison: (ryan) no way! (athyllia, quietly) I’m in, lets do this  

Ryan: what! 

Athyllia: are we robbing a big brand store with a rich CEO? 

Autumn: he’s a billionaire 

Athyllie: so… we’re like robin hoods, stealing from the rich? 

Autumn: if that’s what you need to tell yourself 

Ryan: but robin hood gave to the poor! 

Lian: we’re poor 

Ryan: ok… you’ve got a point  

Autumn: so you’ll hear her out 

Ryna: ok! Ok. Fine. You wore me down. I’ll hear her out 

Autumn: wooo!! We’re gonna be rich! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. What kinds of learning opportunities does the mentor provide to expose you to new learning?

My mentor offers me many resources from her university level script writing classes. Especially text book chapters from this course, this exposes me to new learning and new ways of practicing and expressing my learning. She also uses her own knowledge to offer up exercises that can strengthen my writing abilities.

2. What kinds of learning opportunities exist to reinforce new learning?

I think that writing shorter one scene scripts could help me to use all of my new skills quickly, and it could help me be able to see the flow of a beginning, middle, climax and ending.

3. What kinds of opportunities exist that might accelerate learning?

I think that asking people to act out scenes of my play could help me to accelerate my learning by helping me study the natural flow of dialogue, and then use this in my writing.

4. When you get together what do you talk about?

We typically talk about new skills that I can learn, what my script is about and we often talk about films/shows/plays that use the skills I’m learning so that I can learn more about how my new skills are applied.

5. What is going particularly well in your mentoring relationship right now?

I think we understand each other fairly well and have an effective mentor mentee relationship that allows us to get a lot of work done per meeting.

6. What are you learning about one another?

We knew each other last year, both through in-depth and through our drama class, so I already knew a bit about her, but I think that I’m learning a lot more about the vast extent of her skills in this field. I think she is learning more about my interests and eventual life goals in a writing field.

Progress report.

I have started work on the actual play, which is very exciting! Over the past few weeks I’ve had a chance to start creating an outline for the play as well as getting a start on the first few scenes first draft. I’ve been doing lots of research about the differences between writing for theatre (what I’m doing for my in-depth) and writing for film, through this research I have also learned about proper dialogue formatting conventions and what details you need to have in a theatre script. My meeting with my mentor have gone quite well, so far we have discussed the differences between film and theatre, how to write an opening scene and use an opening scene as an effective tool to set the story, how to properly format a script/ what percentage of the script should be dedicated to the opening, rising action, and conclusion.

I have become slightly frustrated by a bit of writers block, getting a new project started is always difficult, especially considering how different this style of script is from what i would usually write. I’ve found that getting over the obstacle of the first scene has been the most difficult, now that I’ve gotten passed that writing the outline has gotten easier.

 

Evidence of progress

 

Scene one act one  

Lian, Ryan and athellyia sit together in a sparsely decorated dorm room, lian is sitting on the floor, the other two are on chairs. 

Lian 

Well, that’s it, I drained my bank account today, spent my last dollar on ramen of all things  

 

Ryan 

You get paid Friday, you’ve already paid your rent, if you need help buying food you can just pay us back later, your being overly dramatic 

Aethylla 

 

Ryan’s right lian, you’ll be fine, you’ve got us! 

 

Lian 

And I’m grateful of course, but I’m sick of living paycheck to paycheck, there has to be a better way, right? 

 

Ryan 

I think that’s just how collage works? If there was a way to cheat the system someone would have figured it out ages ago 

(autumn enters, holding a pizza box) 

 

Autumn 

Sorry. Traffic was a nightmare, but I brought pizza 

 

Ryan 

We all live on campus autumn 

 

Autumn 

Right. Damn, I forgot I can’t use that excuse anymore. But I still brought pizza 

 

  Aethylla 

I- 

 

Autumn 

I know, I know, your not a pizza person, I picked you up wings 

(she throws a takeout pox to Aethylla) 

 

Autumn (continued) 

Now what were you guys talking about before I got here, you looked really intense 

 

Lian 

I’m broke, like, zero dollar net worth 

 

Ryan 

So is every other collage student, you point was…? 

 

Autumn 

Not every collage student is completely broke  

 

Ryan 

Sure, some people have rich parents, but most of us are poor, you know, I think the government keeps collage students under funded so that later in life they can force us into the capitalist machine that we call- 

 

Autumn 

Some girl in my geology lecture had a Prada bag 

 

Lian  

Damn, I wish my parents were rich  

 

Aethylla  

(quietly) I’m sick of carrying a shopping bag to all my labs  

 

Autumn 

No, that’s my point, her parents are poor too, actually, her dad is dead and her mom is out of the picture, she’s basically self made, she said she’d tell me how to do it  

 

  Ryan 

That’s an MLM 

 

Autumn 

I don’t think it is  

 

  Ryan 

What’s your evidence? 

 

Autumn  

 

She’s not some forty year old trying to sell me lip gloss 

 

Lian 

At this point I say we hear her out, I need the money  

 

Ryan 

Don’t you dare join a pyramid scheme  

 

Lian 

Hey, I’m not saying we join a pyramid scheme, I’m just saying we hear autumn’s friend out  

 

Aethylla  

I’m with Ryan, what if you guys get involved with something illegal  

 

 Lian 

One could day that the prices of education that’s required to survive in modern society is illegal 

 

Ryan 

They have a point, I mean, just hearing this person out couldn’t hurt, right? But if I get pyramid scheme vibes, we leave 

 

Autumn 

I can live with that. She said I could come by her dorm room if I wanted, lets go. 

(lian, Ryan and autumn get up and exit stage. Leaving Aethylla sitting on a chair in the middle of the stage ) 

Aethylla  

Come on guys? Really?! Ughhhh. 

(she runs off after them) 

 

 

Questions about mentor

What went particularly well during your mentoring sessions?

My mentor is extremely talented and knowledgeable in this area, her ability to explain these concepts to me has been extremely helpful and I feel like I am grasping the concepts quite well

 

 

What learning challenges emerged?

I found it difficult to balance time for script writing and research with my other school work and hobbies.

What did you do to hold yourself accountable for the learning?

I set aside specific times on a weekly basis where I dedicate my time and energy to learning about script writing, since I have this time scheduled it is easier to track my progress on this project and there for hold myself accountable.

 

 

What three strategies could improve the quality of your mentoring interactions?

Firstly, I think discussing more what we plan to do in the next meeting could help, often I haven’t properly researched the questions I should be asking my mentor before our meeting. Secondly we should definitely work on planning our meeting further in advance, as our last meeting was quite spur of the moment. Third of all I might try to make and then share a more in-depth meeting schedule, so that there is a clear order of what we should be work on.

 

 

In depth second blog post “act one, scene one”

Progress report:

In the last few weeks I’ve completed several tasks, firstly, I met with my mentor for the first time. We discussed the different types of script writing and screen writing vs. Play writing, and decided that for the sake of this project and my goals, I will be focusing more on play writing. We discussed in this meeting the key difference between the two types of script writing and how they apply to my project. As well, in the past few weeks, I have decided on the genre of play I will be writing and the theme. The genre will be a comedy, as they are an area I have an interest in writing in the future, and also I have experience acting in comedic based plays. There plot of my play will be a comedic take on a heist of sorts, this basic plot will definitely require some revisions, but at least I am starting to get some character ides on paper as well as ideas for the climax of acts one and two. Luckily, at this point in my project, I haven’t run into any obstacles, I am having a great time planning out my characters and plots.

Since my first blog post, there has been a relatively large change to my project however. In my initial learning contract, some of my personal criteria had been at least 3-4 main characters and 6+ side characters. After meeting with my mentor and reading through many of the references that she supplied me with, this quantity of characters would be impossible for the length of play I am planning to write. I am making adjustments to my personal criteria, and that is to have 1 main character that the play centers around and 2-4 side characters that will be flushed out. My mentor warned me against more characters as “even if they’re mainly there for comedic purposes, all characters need to be useful to the plot” (my mentor, Michelle). Having more than one, or possibly two main characters would not allow for all of the characters to be useful to the plot, and six side characters would be almost impossible. This is the only major change to my project at this time.

 

Evidence:

I have, of course, had to cut some characters, which is difficult however, after some work I have come to my final list, bellow are the characters and some of their likes and dislikes, their main role in the play, and their archetype.

Lian, the main character “the brains of the operation, the dreamer”

Age: 19

Pronouns: they/them

Likes:

The color blue

Reading

Sweaters

Movies

Bugs

Dislikes:

Disorganization

Spaghetti

Water color painting (accidentally drank water color painting water as a child)

 

 

 

 

 

Kelsey, the antagonist

Age: 22

Pronouns: she/her

Likes:

Sports

Bright pink

Conning people

Cats

 

Dislikes:

Rule followers

Romance

Tea

Strawberry jello

 

 

Ryan, side character “the voice of reason, the cynic”

Age: 17

Pronouns: he/him

Likes:

Robotics

Coffee

Baseball

Math

Marine biology

 

Dislikes:

Stairs

Cheese puffs

People who don’t like green apples

Pineapple on pizza

 

 

Autumn, side character “ the risk taker, the rebel”

Age: 18

Pronouns: she/her

Likes:

Halloween

Dirt bikes

Astronomy

Sunflowers

 

Dislikes:

Pumpkin spice

Pears

Chemical smells e.g. Nail polish

 

 

Aethylla “the one who doesn’t wanna be there, the innocent”

Age: 20

Pronouns: she/they

Likes:

Science

Reading

Skirts

French cuisine

 

Dislikes:

Pizza

Ducks

Flowers (pollen allergies)

 

1. How did your mentor gain their experience/ expertise?

My mentor has gained experience by taking many creative writing and directing classes at Gleneagles, and has taken university courses in creative writing and screen/script writing.

2. What were those experiences like for your mentor?

They really enjoyed their time working as a student director in the drama department, and have learned a lot from they’re time at university.

 

3. What wisdom have you gained from your mentor so far?

I’ve learned a lot about the writing field at large, and how different screen writing and play writing are. I have also learned a lot about character development

4. What have you learned so far, in terms of facilitation strategies, that might contribute to your own development as a mentor?

My mentor often checked throughout our meetings to make sure I was following everything she was saying, she also provided me with many great resources.

 

Resources

The creative writing text book used by UBC class 206 screen writing