STAKES AND STRUCTURE

OK, so I’ve handed in the latest round of changes and Jess phones up. She and Arif have had a long chat and they think we are ignoring the elephant in the room. Basically that the structure in act one is still a bit wobbly and that the stakes are not high enough. We’re fixing all the minor stuff but we don’t seem to be making any headway with that. She has agreed with Arif that we are going to take six weeks out where I can go and try and deal with these issues. She throws out a couple of suggestions just to fire up the gray matter. One of them throws me into a blind panic – she suggests moving the midpoint to the end of the first act. For those who don’t much know, the midpoint in a movie is the point – more often than not literally halfway through the movie. Syd Field summed it up in his book Save The Cat, when he said it was "An important scene in the middle of the script, often a reversal of fortune or revelation that changes the direction of the story." At the moment, ours is occurring on page 48 – halfway through a 95 page movie – it’s the scene where hero makes the decision to allow heroine back into his life. If Jess is suggesting that we move that to page 28, then I have no idea –literally no idea, how to tell that story without changing everything - writing a completely new screenplay to the one we have been working with so far. It’s like Indiana Jones finding the arc of the Covenant on about twenty minutes in – Elliot Ness figuring out how to nail Capone on page 25. She’s saying it’s only a suggestion and making reassuring noises, but I am so full of blind panic all I hear is the voice in my own head going “OhjesusfuckorchristwhatamIgoingotwriteImscrewedomigodomigodomigod”
The next day (after Karen has convinced me to put down the toaster and get out of the bath) I phone Arif and Jess again. We have another longer conversation and I say honestly that I don’t think I can write this. This is as close as I ever come to saying “if you have a relief scribe waiting in the wings, now might be the time to produce him/her”. To me the film splits into two neat halves – hero is getting pushed and then he makes the decision to push back – and by that point (hopefully if we have all done our job well) we the audience are rooting for him to win that we might be willing to forgive him any dodgy moral gray areas that he might find himself in. If we move that decision of his forward, then I not only don’t know how to cram all that pushing into the first twenty minutes, but I also don’t know where the story goes until we get to the start of act 3 on page 70. Jess says to take a step back – forget the moving the midpoint suggestion - and look at act one again – where is the inciting incident – I tell her, and even as the words are coming out of my mouth I know that my inciting incident is a bit bobbins . And where is the act one climax into act 2. I tell her that one – slightly better, but still not quite in the same league as Marion Ravenwoods Nepalese bar burning down. So her suggestion of moving the midpoint was only to try and get the beats to that level. I digest this and sign off to go and have a think. She has insisted that in the six weeks that I have, I don’t go anywhere near a keyboard for at least two, which as it turns out is very good advice. I turn the problem over in my head – what do I want to say. Where am I trying to go? Eventually I come up with an idea and phone up Jess – what happens if we keep the same basic set up but instead this happens. It raises the stakes, it makes hero a bit stronger and it leaves the mid point where it is. Jess and Arif do their huddle and come back to me – yeah, give that a go. I do so. Karen reads it and says she thinks it is the best version yet. I send it to Jess. She knows that I am going on holiday to Greece and says she will not tell me anything about it before I get back. (Jess clearly knows that writers are a needy shower of bastards in constant want of validation)
Back in the day job, I scribble down what are possibly the worst handover notes in the history of the world for Ksenia – basically “stall on everything until I get back” and go to Greece.
Back from Greece and catch up with Jess. We finally have a draft that is ready to go out to cast? To whom I have no idea. At this point I don’t really care. I’m just delighted that it has gone out. Arif also says that Greg Coote has come on board as an executive producer, which is more good news. From a script point of view, the plan is to try and get some talent in place, and get everyone’s input and then try and have another tweak. Arif does not think act one is as funny as it was, which is a valid criticism as I was really focussing on the structure. I can spend the next six weeks trying to come up with yuks and giggles.
So for right now, I have nothing to do but get to work on the next one.

It’s only after I hang up the phone with Arif that a thought occurs to me – there is now a tiny walk on part for a ten year old girl. Maybe I’ll save that conversation for another day.