I was still working through the early stages of act two of my new script when things started to really grow concerning. The start of the act was already eleven of my handwritten pages, and while this is nowhere close to an actual page of a script, it set up the another pressure cooker situation for Barclay. This should have been great for the script, but was problematic for me.
To explain this, I need to give some context.
Barclay had been in one pressure cooker after another, going back to the end of Act One. Things had gone awry for him in a situation where he needed to leave as soon as possible, while also not being able to before he got money.
When this went awry, he was faced with another pressure cooker, having to escape. The script had established that there were many threats and obstacles he would have to face if he failed. The end of act one turned into a series of escapes that were a way to showcase Barclay’s creativity.
I felt this sequence came out well to end the act, and then act two, as I described in the previous post, was Barclay having a conversation with another character, a deputy sheriff, where every sentence would feel like it was laced with a trap, and the tension would come from what the deputy already knew or didn’t know. I felt it was another really good scene, and also gave the story some much needed variety. It wasn’t just the main character getting into one shootout after another, which can get stale if that’s all that’s going on. This scene was laced with a different kind of tension, but also allowed action to build up to another shootout instead of just jumping into one.
This is why I now felt I had a problem with the screenplay. The scene I’d just written between Barclay and the deputy ended with other characters in town finding out about why Barclay was on the run and starting to pursue him. This meant I was now writing another sequence in which Barclay would have to make several escapes.
So while I hadn’t written one shootout after another, I’d just substituted the shootout for narrow escapes. This got me reflecting on and looking through the outline I had for what remained of the screenplay, which still had the majority of two acts to go, and noted that there was still going to be two other instances in which Barclay was going to have to escape from people chasing him, and the only variance was that it was different people after him.
Seeing this brought my writing to a grinding stop. I now couldn’t shake away the bad thoughts.
This screenplay had problems.
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