Words' Worth

Procrastination strikes again. Well, I've been doing a lot more lately than I have in the past several months, so I think I deserve a little break.

I'm doing a lot of writing right now. Usually when I'm writing, though, I end up writing little descriptive pages detailing one thing or another in the story world and not actually writing the story, which is probably what I need to focus on. But surprisingly I've been sitting down lately and getting a lot of actual story roughed out and written in one form or another.

For the past several weeks, I was struggling with what the first episode was about. I didn't really have a conflict or plot thought out. I had an idea on what it would involve, and the mood I wanted, which is what I usually start with. But it's hard to craft an engaging story with just that. This lasted for weeks, until just a few days ago I decided to sit down and do a scene-by-scene breakdown of what would happen in this episode. It started off good, and I got a good beginning written down. Then came the point in the story where because of a lack of conflict, I really couldn't go on. There was really nothing more I could write before the whole thing fell apart. I just stared at the monitor for the longest while, struggling with myself to come up with something. Anything.

I eventually had to take a break and paced around, thinking. I played out the scene in my head, almost as if I was watching the show. I came up to the point where I was stuck again... and pushed. Then it happened. I just thought of a piece of dialogue and... it just... flowed through. I don't really know what happened, but somehow I managed to continue the story and some kind of purpose in the story bore fruit. The rest of the story really wrote itself. It's kind of true what they say, the author doesn't make up the story, rather the story reveals itself to the author.

Anyway, I managed to complete the scene-by-scene breakdown and that just got me all excited. I'm working on the script now, which has proven to be a challenge in itself. I guess I'm not used to writing a lot of dialogue like this. My characterizations are horrible. But I guess that'll improve as I do more. Despite that, I'm really enjoying the writing process, but I really can't wait till I get to the storyboarding part, and eventually the finished product. Gotta say that I'm really, really excited. I'm finally getting things done around here.

If all goes according to plan, I'll finish the first draft of the script tonight.