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As I was coming up with a bunch of characters for the new story idea I had, I needed to know how they fit with each other and with the story. I felt the cast I was developing was good, but didn’t know how they would all fit, or if I had too many of them to fit it what was meant to be a roughly 90 page screenplay.

Luckily, I stumbled across a perfect tool for this dilemma.

While I was watching YouTube, a video from the channel Film Courage caught my attention with a title that boldly stated if you can’t answer these questions, you don’t have a story. Naturally intrigued, I clicked on the video, and was introduced to the 6 Essential Questions.

These were a writing tool to apply to each of the characters, focusing on the main ones, but could also be used for the most minor who barely make an appearance. If a writer knew the answer to these questions, they would be able to work out everything that happened in their story, and why.

These 6 Essential Questions were:

1. Who is the character?
2. What do they want?
3. Why can’t they get it?
4. What do they try to achieve their goals?
5. Why doesn’t that work?
6. How does it end?

In order to answer these questions, the writer would have to have a quick bio of a character, the motivation that drives them in the first act, the actions they take in the second, and a general roadmap for the third that worked towards a conclusion. The more characters this was done for, the more the writer could piece together not only the direction the story would take, but its ultimate destination.

This technique for outlining was remarkable, and I set to work to see how many characters I could answer these questions for.

I enjoyed the rest of my time in Honolulu, and spent the rest of 2023 preparing for and enjoying the holidays. There wasn’t any active focus on my writing…

…but ideas were bubbling under the surface that whole time.

While I was in Honolulu, I had come up with the three principle characters for the story, as well as an antagonist that at first would appear to be the primary villain but would be revealed to be the secondary threat, the true threat lurking in the tall grass the whole time. Once I finally got going with the outlining, I started coming up with all sorts of characters who would have key roles to play in the story.

I had ideas for rogues and villains, and how they were connected within the story. I had ideas for objectively good and moral characters, who weren’t necessarily the protagonists. And I had a whole array of my favorite types to write, the morally gray — those who are neither good nor evil, but will do either if it aligns with their goals and needs.

I also started coming up with hierarchies for these characters I was developing. I’d have characters who were driving the action from scene to scene. These were the base, superficial layer of characters. A layer below them were a series of characters who were either subordinates, or served to bring out an aspect of one of the base layer characters. And I also had a layer above the base level of characters, characters that the base layer were either working for, or at the very least needed something from, and so were forced into the actions they would take in the story.

Essentially, I had a layer of bosses, middle management, and subordinates, although their roles and relationships in the story might not have been so clearly defined or official.

It was great. The more I was outlining, the more ideas I was having. But I realized that if I didn’t started focusing, if I didn’t organize all these ideas, it would create problems for me down the line when I started to write the story. I needed to make sure that this wasn’t getting so massive that I couldn’t capture everything that was necessary within an approximately 90 page screenplay.

I was going to have to hone things down to the bare essentials, and then work on expanding and adding details to the script from there. I was going to have to focus on what made these characters essential to the story, what made them fit into the narrative.

And I had found the perfect tool to do so, which I’ll get into…next time.

Now that the Honolulu Marathon was behind me, I could focus on writing again.

Could.

I was still in Hawaii for another three days. With the marathon behind me, I had scheduled some time to recover from the race, and enjoy the gorgeous state. It was such a tropical atmosphere that I was able to wear shorts and T-Shirt comfortably in December. I couldn’t just squander this beautiful weather.

Hawaii being situated between the United States, Asia and Australia, I got to enjoy a variety of delicious food. Honolulu also had a couple of local breweries on the main street my hotel was on. I got to kayak in the Pacific, nearly losing my wallet because the compartment to keep your personal belongings in the kayak wasn’t closed or secure, something they only told me AFTER I returned my rental. I was out and about and on my feet a ton in the wake of my first marathon.

There was some jotting down of notes for the story idea that had started to fester in my brain. I figured once I returned home, with the cold weather keeping me cooped up indoors, I’d be able to focus on fleshing out the idea then.

Except…it was the holiday season, and there was still so much I needed to get done.

I had bought a couple of Christmas gifts while I was in Hawaii, but still felt I had the bulk of my shopping left to do. And I host my extended family for Christmas Eve, and even though I had started preparing and freezing some of the dishes before leaving on my Hawaii excursion, there was still so much left to do on my to do list.

When I returned to work, there was also catching up with everything that had happened in the week and a half I took off. But in addition to the vacation I’d just taken, I was also taking one in between the holidays, so I was not only catching up, I was also planning ahead, and that entailed taking my laptop home with me and logging on in the off hours to make sure my team had what they needed to do their job. After Christmas passed and I was on vacation, that’s when I could really start to focus on crafting this story.

Except when Christmas had come and gone, there was only one week left in the year. And I’m really anal retentive, and didn’t want to end the year with a new project that wasn’t anywhere close to being finished if the alternative was to just wait a week. I was going to be (back) on vacation after all.

I convinced myself there was no point to rush into working on a new story until New Years. 2023 had been a big year. Dig Down had placed as a finalist in multiple contests, I’d had not one, but two script consultations for it. I’d attended my first film festival, and ended up going to multiple ones. And I’d recovered completely from my knee issues with Lyme to run a marathon. As I’m looking back on it while I right this, this was all something to be proud of. It makes me feel less guilty about the break I gave myself until the start of the next year.

And when January rolled around, I didn’t come up with any more excuses to keep from writing.

So, how’d I do in my first ever marathon?

Well…I finished. And given the history that my knee had gone to coming into the year, that was an accomplishment in and of itself.

I finished with a time of 5 hours, 43 minutes and 44 seconds. When I had registered for the marathon six months earlier, I had given myself an expected pace of 6 hours. So technically, I had bested my own initial expectations for the run.

But the positives end about there.

I had set such a low goal for my pace because to that point, 3.5 miles was the longest distance I had run, not just that year, but for the last 6 years. I didn’t know how my knee would hold up through such a long distance, and I wanted to give myself a lot of leeway in case I injured something and had to walk a large portion, maybe over half of the race.

But as I went through the 2 months of conditioning my body to run multiple times a week, and after the four months of training, I felt that a more appropriate pace would’ve been between 4 and 4.5 hours. My longest run in training was twenty miles, and I did that in 3 hours and twenty minutes. A marathon is 6.2 miles longer than that, but even accounting for going for a slower pace for this last stretch, I felt I could reasonably have a chance of finishing in under four and a half hours.

Hell, I even felt there was a possibility (I know now having run 2 marathons what a slim chance this actually is) I could actually get a sub four hour pace, with adrenaline giving me a much needed pick me up (I’m seriously laughing at myself as I’m writing this).

From this standpoint, I missed the mark.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t from the limited sleep. I also don’t think it was from standing around for over a half hour just waiting for the race to start and actually being able to cross the starting line.

Somewhere around the 10 or 11 mile mark, my calf started to cramp up. I still ran on it for awhile, forcing myself to make it to at least the half marathon mark before I gave myself a break and tried to walk off the stabbing pain I was feeling in the back of my leg. I gave myself until the 14 mile mark before I started running again, but within a mile and a half I was back to walking.

I couldn’t understand what was going on. The course had some more inclines and declines that I had practiced on, but I was still miles before I had reached the maximum distance I’d ever run in one go. I didn’t get why I was hitting a wall, and why my calf was the body part feeling it. In all my training, I don’t think I’d had an issue with it once.

It wasn’t until after the race was over, when I looked at the readout from my watch that I figured out why my performance wasn’t anywhere close to my training. As I said, the race started at 5 in the morning. I didn’t cross the starting line until much closer to 5:30. Then sun didn’t rise until 7. But even running about 90 minutes in darkness, according to my watch, the average humidity for the entirety of the race was 75%.

These conditions were just nothing close to what I’d been training in, especially for the later weeks, when my longest runs were scheduled. It was unfortunate, but there wasn’t anything I could’ve done to acclimate myself to this prior to the race. For this run, I was just going to have to be content that I was a marathon finisher.

And that I was able to enjoy beautiful Hawaii weather in December.

Which I did.

But it also left me with a lingering desire to prove a could do better.

It was a little after 2 in the morning, and I was on one of the bus shuttling runners to the start of the race. The night before had been rough, because I had no idea how much sleep I had gotten, only knowing it hadn’t been much, but at least the morning was going smoothly. I knew I was going to arrive at the start of the race with plenty of time before the race started.

One potential setback off the board.

I was actually on a trolley, the air was cool, but not cold, and I think it may have helped me out in waking up a bit. We got dropped off a little ways from the start of the race around 2:30.

Great…so now just need to kill time until the race gets going….

…at 5.

Sitting around until the start wasn’t so bad at first. I got to settle in, and although it wasn’t sleep, my body at least got to rest up a little more as a sat around. After 4, I started to get into my routine of stretching and warming up for the race, and all that time allowed me to double this routine to really feel nice and loose, which was ideal as I would be running over 6 miles more than I ever had before.

As it got closer to 5, I found the section where people running my pace were supposed to gather. When I’d first registered for this run, the longest distance I’d run to that point was 3.5 miles. I’d run a good pace, but because this race was going to be over 20 miles longer than that, I’d selected a 6 hour pace. My goal was to actually run close to 4 miles, something that seemed doable now that I’d completed the training program for the marathon. I felt breezing past people would be a constant ego boost that would fuel my adrenaline through the race.

My section was toward the back so those that had registered with a faster expected pace would be closer to the starting line. The thing was, even all the way back here, we were still all packed tight. It’s one thing to hear this is the fourth biggest marathon in the country. It’s another to stand in it.

It finally hit 5 am. I was ready to go…

Somebody somewhere far up ahead who I couldn’t see was speaking on a microphone. Okay, sure, someone usually says a few words before the start of these things. Let’s go….

And now they’re playing the National Anthem. Okay, this is a sporting event. Alright, let’s g–

There’s a fireworks show to commence the start of the marathon happening shortly. I mean, they didn’t skimp on the show. Is having all this smoke in the air really good for all these runner? Alright, let’s…

The race started. Allegedly. We’re not moving.

Five minutes have gone by. Still not moving.

Ten minutes have gone by. I’m bouncing on my feet to keep loose.

Fifteen minutes. We’ve been moving up a little. I’m pretty sure that’s the starting line. Why is this taking so long?

Okay seriously. The race officials said everyone needs to have crossed the starting line for their time to count. I’m actually getting nervous.

Twenty minutes. Oh you’ve got to be kidding me. Okay, I see why its taken so long. When people are approaching the starting line, they’re slowing down, even stopping, to get their phones out and take a selfie. I get this is a big challenge, maybe a lot of people’s first marathon–

–but really?! A selfie crossing the starting line? Is this why you entered a marathon? Is this the most important thing you wanted to accomplish? The most important thing you wanted to capture with a selfie, the start of the run?

I’m trying to hit the starting line with some pace and can’t because the people in front of me are taking a picture of the start. I just want to barrel through them. I wanted to start this race ten minutes ago.

As I’m coming up on the start, I sent my workout on my watch. I do a little hop skip as I cross the start.

I’m finally doing this.

I stayed in my hotel room for most of the afternoon and all of the evening before my first ever marathon. It was rough looking out the window, watching the beautiful day pass me by, especially since it was December and it was sunny and in the 70s.

But my goal was to relax and get well rested. Anything I did to pass the time needed to avoid being strenuous. For most of the afternoon, I ended up outlining a story idea that just infested my thoughts. Then, in the late afternoon and for the rest of the evening – which for me was 8pm – I relaxed watching television, which ended up being a marathon of old South Park episodes.

The race was set to start at 5 the next morning, and I needed to be there by 4 to check in. There were buses leaving just a few blocks from my hotel, and scoping out the nearest location was one of the only reasons I left my room that day.

In order to feel well rested, I had a goal of trying to start falling asleep around 8. I knew this might be a struggle, which was why I was shooting for such an early time. I wanted to be up at 2 so I could be out the door and catch one of the buses shuttling people to the start of the race during the 2 hours they were running. If I didn’t fall asleep right at 8, which I wasn’t expecting, I still felt it was likely to get as much of the 6 hours of sleep that was possible.

Amazingly, I did start to feel drowsy heading into 8, and I felt it didn’t really take me that long to drift off to sleep.

The only problem was I didn’t stay asleep.

I woke up in the middle of the night. I don’t know what time exactly because I never look at the time when its still dark out. I feel like when people do, they tend to get anxious that they haven’t or aren’t getting enough sleep, and that only keeps them awake. My approach is to just shut my eyes and hope for the best. Sometimes it works, sometimes I toss and turn for awhile. I think this could’ve been one of those nights it worked, but…

Even though I was 8 to 10 floors up, people were having the time of their lives outside, to the point where I could hear them crystal clear through my hotel windows. It was a Saturday night, I get it, I just don’t get how I could hear them. My guess is I woke up sometime before midnight.

At one point, I heard somebody (possibly another marathon runner) yell at them to go to sleep. That just got the lively crowd to shout back. I’m guessing at this point it was around midnight.

The rest of the night I spent in darkness trying to fall back asleep. I think I might’ve for a bit, its tough to tell when its completely dark, nothing’s going on in the room, and the group partying eventually did call it.

All I knew was that I was awake when my alarm at 2 went off.

So not the ideal night of rest going into my first marathon. But either way, I had come here for a purpose. I got my running gear on quickly, did at least four or five checks to make sure I had everything, and headed out to the buses that were idling waiting for runners to fill them up.

Here we go.