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As I mentioned in my last post, as I was writing the first draft of my new Western screenplay, I was starting to get concerned about the length of some of the sequences. After the second script consultation I’d had for my screenplay of Dig Down, I’d come away with the advice to target about 90 pages. As a page of script roughly equated to one minute of screen time, I was essentially targeting about a 90 minute movie.

Although I had written several screenplays at this point, none of them had been optioned, so I would still be considered a first time screenwriter. That being the case, it made sense to keep the script to about this length, as anyone looking to option the script to turn it into a movie would be taking a chance on me, so reducing that risk as much as possible by keeping the story – and by extension how much would need to be filmed – within normal limits would make it easier for them to take that chance on me.

The opening sequence felt an appropriate length and pace, mixing in some hints about characters, building up tension and then an explosive opening. The first two sequences of act one introduced new characters and having them already working toward their own goals, so that these scenes didn’t just feel like exposition dumps for the audience.

But…

I still hadn’t even gotten to the inciting incident that the main character would be forced to react to for the rest of the story. And there were still some other villains, including the main antagonist, that needed to be introduced.

So while I felt these scenes were going well, I also felt I was at risk of lagging behind the pace already. 90 pages wasn’t a hard cap. I felt if I went over it by a few pages, potential buyers of the script wouldn’t toss the screenplay into the discard pile because they reached ninety pages and saw there were still two to five pages left to read. But if I was going to exceed 90 pages, I felt it could only reasonably exceed it by those two to five pages, and that every page it went over that was running the risk of not being considered at all.

The pages were also a little difficult to judge because as I had stated in an earlier post, as I was putting together this first draft, I wasn’t writing it in screenplay format, I was writing actions and dialogue on one half of the page, and notes on the importance – or at the very least why these were included – in the screenplay. The notebook I was handwriting these in had fewer lines than would be on the page of a screenplay, and I was always skipping a line before writing the next action or dialogue. Even with that being the case though, these sequences were averaging over 10 pages, with the sequences in Act One averaging over 15.

I needed to start trimming these down where I could.

Although I was delaying the introduction of my main antagonist, there was still plenty going on to move the script forward. As I mentioned in my last post, there were two secondary characters that I was introducing instead, as well as a new important setting, which was vital to the main conflict.

As I was establishing the characters and location, this was where I felt the outlining I had done using the 6 essential questions was really paying off. Because I not only thoroughly knew their backstories and the motivations that had resulted from their situations in life, I could shape the actions in the character’s introductions so that in their scenes they were always working toward their own personal goal.

For instance, one of the new characters I was establishing in this new setting was a woman working in a brothel. Mapping out her backstory with the six essential questions, I knew how she had arrived there – when she was younger, she and her lover at the time had ventured out West for rich prospects, but had run out of money before they reached the coast. Stranded, they tried to earn enough to make their final destination, but her lover had died. In her financial situation, she desperately took the job at the brothel, and has been stuck there ever since.

With this backstory in mind, her motivation was to get out of this life. In the scenes at the new location, a hotel/casino/brothel, her interactions with others all have one central goal in mind, to find among the many people passing through on their way out West someone rich enough to get her out of this line of work. In the scenes, she’s borderline dismissing some potential clients because they’re hard up for cash, while focusing her attention and charm on a character that exudes wealth.

This added a layer to the scenes as this was just what her character was working toward, all while the other new character and the main character were also working through their own storylines. I felt this was giving a lot of variety to the different subplots that were going on at the same time, and would make the audience feel that it was more than just a movie they were watching, that these characters would feel alive and that the audience was watching a slice of their lives play out.

My only concern was how long this was playing out. I was attempting to fit in a lot with what was going on with these characters, but I also found toward the end of this sequence I was trying to shorten it to just making my point about what was happening so that I could get to the next story beat. It was fun writing these characters and plotting out the scene, but it was the first I was starting to get concerned about the pacing of the story.

There were still some characters that needed an introduction, the most important being the main antagonist of the story. But the way I plotted the screenplay, there would be another change in location that introduced two of the remaining characters first.

I did this for a couple of reasons. One of the characters was only going to be in the story for a few scenes, and were vital to the inciting incident that the main character, Barclay, was going to have looming over him for the rest of the script, so it was important that I establish them and their importance to the plot.

The second character was a minion of the main antagonist. The outlaw in the opening sequence was also a minion, but different in that they were a brute, using force to accomplish things. This second minion was a polar opposite, but both would be working for the main antagonist. Their introduction would showcase that the main villain, who hadn’t been introduced yet, held sway over not just multiple characters, but multiple characters who had nothing in common with one another.

I would also use this purposeful delay to build up this main antagonist even more before he finally made an appearance. Characters would establish that he’s currently out of town, but still caution, even threaten one another, with what the repercussions would be once he returned and found out what was done in his absence. To them, it wouldn’t be a question of if he found out about things, maybe not even when. He would just know.

This delayed introduction would set the table for the type of adversary they were. They didn’t have to be present to be a threat. That they weren’t there didn’t matter if the people that worked for him were, because they would be driven by the hell they would have to pay if they didn’t come through for him.

There would also be the loosest of references to his backstory. Nothing would ever be explicitly stated, possibly because the characters didn’t know the full details themselves, but it would be just enough to add to the mystique around this character, building him up further until he finally entered into the story.

I had drafted a solid opening sequence to my new Western. In the buildup would be moments that would hint at the dominant traits and motivations of some of the characters, and then there would be a deadly shootout, which would also double with giving insights into how the characters operated.

With that on paper, I moved on to the next stage of the screenplay, Act One. It begins with the characters that had survived the opening sequence entering a frontier town, one that embodied the “good side” of the central conflict going on in the story.

While I was writing the introduction to the town and new characters, I really felt that the 6 essential questions I had posed to each of the characters was really paying off here. Having clearly defined their motivations, I found it easy to envision what each of them were doing entering the scene, which allowed me to jump back and forth between them, with each of them working toward something different while still being related to the story point I needed to get across during this sequence.

It felt like the story was intersecting where they were at in their lives. The main character was collecting a bounty because he wanted to fund his good times instead of settling down to a job. The group he’d been with had been counting on getting a share of the spoils, and were in greater need as their numbers had dwindled during the shootout, and some had gotten injured. The Sheriff had put out the hefty bounty on the outlaw to make the town more appealing to enterprises looking to expand out West.

Their storylines, the alliances they forged as they strove toward common goals, and the conflicts that emerged with others who had different motivations, was feeling so natural. The dialogue felt right, and in the few action lines, I felt I was able to capitalize most of the time to compliment the characters and settings.

The beginning of act one had come together nicely. The next step was to introduce the last of the central characters.

I had mapped out a gripping opening sequence for the new screenplay I wanted to write. Being a Western, it was going to center around a group of men looking to apprehend a notorious outlaw so that they could collect the bounty. Of course it wouldn’t go smoothly, resulting in a shootout.

This sequence worked great. There would be a buildup to the shootout, as the men were preparing and then closing in on the outlaw. While they were doing so, the dialogue was going to give shape to the story, not only for their current objective, but how this was going to fit into the context of the world I’d set up, laying the foundation for the rest of the plot to play out. There would be references to towns and characters that would be introduced later, and hints at what their goals would be.

It would also introduce two of the main characters, as well as a secondary character that would play an important role throughout the story. The two main characters would be the outlaw, and the man who caught him, and the secondary character would prove to be an obstacle to the main character at multiple times in the script.

The shootout would be deadly, which would establish how much of a force the outlaw was. The outcome of the shootout would then also have an impact on character motivations and the actions they’d take as the story played out.

The main character’s introduction would give insight into who they were as a character. The audience would get a sense of them not so much in the actions they took, but how they performed those actions, which I felt was essential in understanding the character.

The secondary character, along with the supporting characters, would be providing the heavy lifting for the world building I mentioned earlier. There would also be hints, in their dialogue, descriptions, even actions, that would establish their current mindset, something that would establish the foundation for all the things they did afterwards.

The scene itself was one of conflict, and would lay the groundwork for future conflicts.

The writing felt good too. Applying the advice I’d gotten from my second script consultation for Dig Down, I made scenes crisp, establishing the point of them and then getting out. In the pages 11 handwritten pages of this first draft, there were 24 scene changes.

And these pages were in a looseleaf notebook, which already were smaller than the page of an actual script. And as I said in my previous post, I wasn’t formatting it like a normal script, as I was only using half the length of the lines so I could write notes in the other half. So, for an opening sequence where I wanted some action, which could afford to last a couple of minutes, and with a page of script equating to about a minute of screen time, I felt the pace had come out well.

Things were feeling good.

I didn’t want to use the Fade In screenwriting app because I didn’t want ‘Demo’ to appear on the top of every page when I printed out, whether on paper or to a pdf. Sensible enough. So what did I use in place of Fade In?

Did I use another screenwriting app? That would also be sensible…but no.

Did I use Word or some other writing program? It would be a hassle trying to constantly set the margins throughout the screenplay to shift between the default and centered based on actions and dialogue, but it could be done.

Also sensible. No.

I started my first draft in a notebook. Pencil and paper.

While this wasn’t the most efficient way to do this, in fact there were several better ways to work on the first draft, it was a viable option. So, then, did I at least lay out the pages like a script, the same way that a screenwriting program would do it naturally? Way before I had ever gotten Fade In, I had drafted a screenplay this way to get a rough approximation of how it would look in an official script.

No.

Instead, I wrote everything on the left side of the page, and in the left margins, would note whether or not this was an action, or whose dialogue it was. And my writing never crossed the center of the page. My reasoning for this was so I could note the importance of what was being said or done in the actual screenplay. This way, I could use actions to hint at an underlying character trait, or have dialogue help give shape to something about the world, whether it was explaining something about a character’s goal or obstacles, or give context to one of the many conflicts.

It was nowhere near the ideal way to draft a script. But it was alright. It was only a first draft.