What Was I Thinking?

From early 2010...

The plan was to write FADE OUT on my kinda-new spec script 2nd SON sometime on Saturday, and then meet my friends and go out to dinner and then see IRON MAN 2 at the Arclight. Tickets were purchased way in advance so that we had the perfect seats. A decision was made that the Friday Night Movie Guys would meet on *Saturday* instead, because we knew opening night for IRON MAN 2 would just be crazy. But the movie was my “reward” for typing FADE OUT sometime earlier that day.

Except I did not type FADE OUT on Saturday, nor did I manage to type it on Sunday. I will probably type it sometime today (Monday). Pisser.

But I *did* see IRON MAN 2 anyway - dessert without first cleaning my plate (and eating those gross mushy peas). I was sure this would lead to the end of the world... and maybe it did. It didn’t really lead to the end of my script, I spent Sunday trying to figure that out. Oh, I know the end-end, I just don’t really know how to get there.

The reason why is simple - I’m an idiot.

You may remember this script from a little over a year ago - I started it, was happy with the with the way it was going, then an circling assignment went to script and it got set aside. I pulled it out a couple of times last year wondering what the hell I was thinking and couldn’t quite get back into the flow - and then something else would come up. I wrote a couple of *other* spec scripts instead, and just when I got back into it, landed another assignment and set it aside again. Pisser. The script is so close to being finished it seemed stupid not to just take the time and get ‘er done. But when I pulled it back out and started writing I ran into a couple of problems.

Problem #1: One of the times I was working on it last year, I came up with a really cool twist that upped the ante and improved the story. Now, as you know, a script is like a house of cards and when you change one little thing you also change all kinds of other things and may even screw up the screenplay. It’s the domino effect or the ripple effect or whatever the hell you want to call it. I did re-outline the end of the script when I came up with this idea, but that didn’t include the small things... like how to kill the villain. I now have something similar to that overnight rewrite I had to go on GRID RUNNERS where they lost the rooftop location so my villain could no longer fall to his death. Though this problem is even worse than that. It would be like changing the location for the villain-death-by-skyscraper-roof-fall to the desert. Not a building for miles. Not a mountain for miles. And limited ways to die quickly.

Problem #2: This script has some DaVINCI CODE type riddles in it, and I thought it would be fun to put the riddle that kills a supernatural henchman in a scene on page 15 - that way, the audience would forget about it by the time we get to that henchman’s death - and I would **not** mention the riddle when our hero kills the henchman. I would leave it for the second time you saw the movie. One of the things I think about sometimes is how to get people to watch the film again. If it is a theatrical, that’s another ticket sale - and get enough of those and you have a hit. I had to see THE SIXTH SENSE a second time to see if the twist end was there throughout the film - and it was. I mean, about a couple of minutes into that film M. Night Shamalamadingdong sets up the twist, and does it with such skill that you never see it! And watching that film with the knowledge of the twist turns it into a completely different movie. Though I wasn’t doing anything like that in my script, I did want to have some cool stuff with the riddles, so that you might want to see it a second time to see if the riddle prophecies were there and came true. But when I re-read that clever riddle prophecy for the henchman’s death - I was stumped. What the hell was I thinking?

The larger problem is - I didn’t write it down. At the time, the answer to the riddle seemed completely obvious to me - something I could never forget that was so simple to figure out I didn’t need to include it in my notebook for the script. This makes that one even more frustrating, because at one point in time while writing the script this was obvious to me - and now it’s the ravings of a madman. What was I thinking?

THE PLAN...

So, my plan on Sunday was to get on my bike and ride until I figured out the solution to problem #1 - which was required if I was going to do any writing that day. I might have to ride past a dozen Starbucks and Coffee Beans and Mom & Pop Coffee Shops before I figured it out. That was okay. I did end up taking a fairly long bike ride... and I also came up with one heck of a great ending bit. It strengthens the *villain’s* character and manages to demonstrate the hero’s character arc being resolved. I’m happy with it. It did require a better piece of dialogue in an earlier scene - and that made me happy. I went from having an okay line to something similar to Agent Smith’s little speech about the *smell* inside the Matrix. I am very happy with this solution.

But no matter how many times I tried to figure out that simple riddle thing - I still have no idea what it has to do with killing my henchman. What was obvious a year ago is a complete mystery to me today.

Now, there are two possible solutions at this time - I could change something in the script so that it matches the riddle, or change the riddle so that it matches something else in the script. That’s probably what I am doing as you read this. But that’s a pisser, because whatever I had originally intended will not be in the screenplay.

THE LESSON...

Um, write everything down. Everything. Obvious things. Things you think you don’t need to write down. I have a spiral notebook for this screenplay and I’m almost at fade out and about a quarter of the pages are blank. It’s not like I was going to run out of room in the notebook, and I have a bunch of empty notebooks on the shelf if I *did* fill this one. It’s better to have that stuff written down and not need it than not written down anywhere and need it - like with this danged script. I posted this on Facebook Sunday night, and a few other people replied that they have been through the same thing on their scripts. I have been through this on previous scripts. So, when will we learn to write stuff down? We are *writers*, not *memorizers*. (Folks - that survived spellcheck!) I do not know why I think I will remember things - especially when they are those freakin’ amazing flashes of genius that are like God’s voice whispering some idea in your ear that is way over your head and you know this is something you can never think of again...

And I didn’t write it down.

What was I thinking?

- Bill

2017 UPDATE: 7 years later and I still can't remember what the solution to that riddle was. Pisser.