Only My Scriptwriting

After All, It's Act Four

After All, It’s Act Four

I got twenty-two paragraphs written today for the Part Two Scene Outline for my Water Wars scriptwriting project: ten to end Act Three, ten to begin Act Four, and two Establishing Shots. At first, I didn’t think I was going to get seventeen paragraphs written today. After all, it took me most of the afternoon to write the first ten.

I’m not surprised that it took me so long to write the last ten paragraphs to finish my Act Three numeric scenes. I often have problems writing the Teaser Acts, Act Ones, and Act Threes for my Scene Outlines. It doesn’t matter if they are single sentences or single paragraphs, I have trouble writing them. But it’s harder on the paragraphs.

It's just the opposite with my Act Twos, Act Fours, and the Tag Acts of my Parts or Episodes. They are usually a lot easier to write because Act Twos end the first half of a Part or Episode. Act Fours and the Tag Acts end the second half of these Parts and Episodes ie the Part or Episode.

That is what happened to me today. It took me almost three hours to finish writing the last ten numeric scenes for Act Three. And I only had about five hours to get any writing done today. Luckily, it didn’t take me as long to write the next twelve paragraphs that started Act Four.

Yes, I know twenty-two is an odd number of paragraphs. But that’s what it will probably be because it’s at the beginning of each Act. Up until now, it was three or four extra paragraphs because of the Establishing Shots, but now it will probably be only the two at the beginning of each Act. That’s why these paragraphs are odd.

Of course, I may have some Establishing Shots within an Act when a new Location is revealed. But that won’t happen too often. Most of my scenes will now revolve around the EXT. and INT. of their InWaterStructure. The only other thing that may make my paragraph numbers odd is a flashback. I had one of them in Act Three. But it wasn’t a three-parter.

I arranged it within the Act so that it was a three-parter, but it also wasn’t one. A three-parter takes place in the present for Part One and Part Three with Part Two being the flashback part of it. That isn’t how I did it this time. It is still this way. But I broke it up into three scenes.

If I remember correctly, it was Scenes Three, Fifteen, and Twenty-Four with Scene Fifteen being the flashback. I probably won’t do it this way again. Then again, I might. After all, the three-parters take up more room in the Outlines and the scripts than in this way.

I only have twenty more numeric scenes to end Act Four. Will I get those twenty paragraphs written tomorrow? Because it’s Act Four, I may do it. But tomorrow is also a Monday. And my Mondays are often too busy to get too much writing done if I can get any done at all. So, it’s up in the air whether I will get twenty written tomorrow.

Hopefully, I can get these twenty paragraphs written tomorrow. Even better, I also get the two Establishing Shots for the Tag Act of this Scene Outline. That will be another twenty-two if I can accomplish that. I won’t count on that until it happens though. After all, tomorrow is a Monday. And I may not have too much time to write tomorrow.