So I was editing my screenplay yesterday and...
I just had to say that, isn't it something we all want to say? And doesn't it sound just horribly pretentious? Everybody wants to write a screenplay, right?
Well no, not me. It is not something I have ever wanted to do. I love to watch movies. But I do not have a visual imagination, I think in words.
I am in fact writing a screenplay against my own better judgment. I have been attending writing courses, and the third in the set happens to be a screenwriting course. When I told my classmates that I would NOT be joining them because the thought of trying to write a screenplay terrifies the tokoloshes out of me, they ambushed me with PEER PRESSURE and so I signed up. Who would have thought I could experience peer pressure from a group of people mostly older than my parents?
I thought it would be good for me to put myself completely out of my comfort zone and try something very difficult and challenging and scary. The only problem is, well, it's scary.
I have come up with an idea for my screenplay. Apparently Alien was pitched as "Jaws in space." I am pitching mine as "the curious incident of the dog in the night time in a Pietermartizburg township, with a little sprinkling of Forrest Gump."
I have never been to a Pietermartizburg township. I have only been to Pietermaritzburg twice, both times to some boring museums. But this matters not right? I just have to convince my English classmates that my characters are realistic, not an actual person from a Pietermaritzburg township. I mean let's be realistic, this thing is never going to see the light of day. Gosh, what if one of my classmates has been to a Pietermaritzburg township?
I am struggling to come up with ideas for conflict. Apparently the main character must have lots of it. All I have come up with so far are the usual AIDS, poverty, school bullies, space aliens from outer space that take him into outer space in their spaceship from outer space, and dead parents. I need something new and... sparky.
I need help. Can anyone come up with some better ideas for conflict? Preferably not involving any more aliens (from outer space), zombies, vampires or daemons. Space monkeys I may be able to stretch to. Space seamonkeys, now there is a fine idea.
