Day 65: more formatting lessons learned and another milestone

Posted by: the screenwriting mofo on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

It’s true. I’ve been neglecting my little tripe of a screenplay, or shall I call it my blockbuster in the making? Anyways, it’s been sitting, not getting touched, kind of like the neglected MILF next door or those leftovers in the back of the fridge that have created their own ecosystem. But not to worry, I’m back on it. The script, not the MILF next door. I’m only into older women if they look like Laura Elena Harring.

I gots a bet to win already, geesh!

So, I’m reading Writing Movies: The Practical Guide to Creating Stellar Screenplays from the Gotham Writers’ Workshop and got to the part today on parentheticals in dialogue. If you remember I wrote about parentheticals about a month ago when I discovered that I was writing them in my dialogue wrong. The book I was reading at the time said I should write them like this:

JULIE
You still smoke?
(off Ben’s odd look)

Cigarette burn on your finger.

When I told team talent I got a scoff and an “I don’t think that’s right.”

Who knew that team talent was up on their shit? According to Writing Movies: The Practical Guide to Creating Stellar Screenplays you’re supposed to do parentheticals like this:

JULIE
You still smoke?
(off Ben’s odd look)
Cigarette burn on your finger.

D’oh. That might decrease the ole page count a tad.

What’s that you say? You want to know what page I’m on?

I’m at the half-way point! 57 pages!

Remember, I’m aiming for 114 pages. Of course, as time wears on I might decrease that a bit. Am I not the laziest bastard you know, or what? I actually do have an excuse. And it’s a good one. It’s not even really an excuse since it’s the truth and excuses tend to be fabrications, much like the teachings Scientology. By the way, I decided yesterday that Scientology is really just a front for gay hollywood, more like a match-making service. Oh, you’re a fag actor? Well, we’ve got this B-list dyke actress that needs a beard and you two would look like the all-American couple! (I’m talking to you John Travolta and Kelly Preston.) But only the peeps in Hollywood know this. I think maybe these sneaky Scientologists set up offices around the country and reel in schmucks that will pay for their pseudo-shit levels of enlightenment. Then they take that money and pay off the press not to run photos of peeps like John Travolta kissing men on his plane. I’m also fairly certain that Ann Coulter is a robot, but that’s another story. Back to what I was really doing instead of focusing on beating team talent.

Well, in staying true to my allegiance with team tripe, I’ve been writing other forms of tripe for mon-ay. I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but then I sign into my PayPal account and see $127 and the shame just evaporates. Hey, if someone is gonna get paid for tripe it might as well be me.

But then I got to thinking, why am I delaying the satisfaction of the look on team talent’s little pouty face when I emerge victorious?

Excuse me while I go look for my can of whoop ass…

Topics: Lazy bastards guide, Screenwriting resources

 

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