All-Weekend Screenwriting Party!

I’ve spent this weekend pounding out a rough draft of Roderick Kills. Like Boy-Morgan, I’m fond of our working title. Doesn’t that sound so much nicer than Untitled Horror Film? It’s apropos (not to give away too many plot secrets, but we do indeed have a character named Roderick and yep, he sure does kill a lot). It’s a complete sentence in two words. It’s catchy. It’ll look good on a poster. We’re not committed to it yet, but we both like it.

I blazed about halfway through the first draft yesterday. If I focus, I should be able to finish today.

Wheeeeeeeeeee!

Boy-Morgan said we’re doing this for fun. He’s right, mostly, though I’d argue there’s nothing fun about writing a first draft. In the history of first drafts, I’m pretty sure no one has ever enjoyed this part of the writing process. We had fun brainstorming, bouncing ideas back and forth through email (in which most of our paragraphs started with, “You know what would be cool?”). I also enjoy rewriting: there’s a bizarre sort of pleasure in rearranging awkward phrases and dialogue into a more pleasing order.

First drafts suck, though. No getting around that.

I’m writing it in Word. I have the Final Draft software, specially designed to make screenplay formatting quick and easy, but on some level it irks me. Like bread machines (baking bread is simple, and you sure don’t need a separate appliance to help you do it), Final Draft creates a solution for a problem that doesn’t really exist: sure, it’ll format your screenplay for you, but seriously, how hard is it to press the Tab key?

The script is shaping up pretty decently, I’d have to say. Boy-Morgan and I collaborated on the plot, and I’m sticking to our ideas, so the finished product shouldn’t come as any sort of horrible surprise to him. Our plot is solid. It’s clever. It’s icky. It’s scary. It’s funny. We’re both probably far too fond of in-jokes and self-amusing running gags (references to One Day at a Time and Rice-a-Roni abound. Rice-a-Roni is inherently funny, especially in a film set in San Francisco. I defy anyone to tell me otherwise), but if that’s our worst flaw, I’d say we’re in decent shape.

Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a first draft in need of completion.