Editing the novel "The Life Interstellar"
The last human child on a water mining outpost is raised by a spider and uncovers the colony's dark secret. We took a look at the first few chapters of Life Interstellar a few nights ago and discussed some of the benefits and drawbacks of writing in a sci-fi world. Here's some of the stuff we learned: When generating mystery and plot hooks, still make what transpires in the scene extremely clear. Show me who's doing what and what it looks like. Only generate mystery around
Editing "I Shall be Released" and "42 Days"
In a late night editing session, we took a look at a script from one of our awesome Twitch contributors, Gregory Mandarano (@majinbuu1831). His script is a biopic of the well known musician, Levon Helm. After that, we read over the first page of "42 Days." Here were our screenplay takeaways: Stating your theme in the story, and having it come authentically from a character gives your story weight and your character a MORAL flaw or goal. Lots of flashbacks early in the story
Editing the Laser Sloth
In our edit, we read over one of our twitch follower's awesome children's screenplays and comment on how to make an animal sidekick story work. What we learned: The animal has to relate to the hero's need: Whatever kind of animal you choose (sloth / 3 legged puppy) you must ensure it can directly speak to the hero's moral need -- how is he interacting with the world WRONG? Get to the danger (stakes): First drafts sometimes take a while to ramp up, but hurry through that expos
Amateur Offering Scriptshadow Review
Read over a few screenplays from the amateur offerings this week and voted on Eternal Lies. Here are a few things we learned: Ensure your hero doesn't just have an external flaw (struggles reading, etc.) look to find a moral flaw for the hero -- how is the way he's living hurting others? Beware lots of characters early on, without conflict to drive the story forward Use a scene agitator (two people talking while people are fighting behind them) OR character quirks (someone is
