Only My Scriptwriting

It Took Longer Than I Hoped

It Took Longer Than I Hoped

I hoped to get twenty-one paragraphs written to finish my ‘Skinless’ Story Outline within the first half of my first twelve-hour shift this weekend, aka the first six hours into this shift. I didn’t get it in six hours. It took me almost eight hours to write them.

Why did it take me an extra two hours to write these twenty-one paragraphs? What’s the usual reason why it takes me so long to write these sentences and paragraphs? That’s right, it’s because of my responsibilities at work. It was extremely busy at work yesterday evening and early this morning.

I’m not surprised that it was super busy at work during this twelve-hour shift. I expected it to be busy, but it was busier than I thought it was going to be, especially considering how bad the weather was yesterday evening and earlier this morning, and it was also extremely bad.

The bad news is that it took me longer than I thought it would take to finish my ‘Skinless’ Story Outline, but the good news is that I still had about three hours to work on my next movie, ‘The Lives of Billia and Helleni.’ That’s some more good and bad news.

I got another sixteen paragraphs written for this ‘The Lives of Billia and Helleni’ Story Outline written within these three hours. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I don’t like the way these paragraphs turned out. I’m probably going to start from scratch with this project later today.

Why am I doing this? It’s because I originally wrote my paragraphs with five lines for Billia and Helleni and four-line paragraphs for the other two storylines in these Acts. Still, all these storylines have the same number of scenes for each Act, except for who starts and ends each Act.

Either Billia or Helleni begins and ends each Act. Because of this beginning and ending, they have seven scenes in each Act instead of six like everyone else. So, in a way, they have three and a half scenes in the beginning of their Acts and three and a half scenes at the end of each Act.

Since everyone in each Act has six or seven scenes, they should all have the same number of lines for their paragraphs. Of course, the character with a beginning and end could have five lines instead of four, but it’s only half a line for each half of these Acts.

It will be easier to give everyone a four-line paragraph than mixing it up between fours and fives. That’s why I’m going to be starting this Story Outline from scratch when I return to work on my second twelve-hour shift this weekend. Besides, I think that it’s better this way anyway.

Why do I write that it’s better this way? It’s because I will be starting this Story Outline at the beginning of this second twelve-hour shift instead of continuing it from where I left off on my first twelve-hour shift this weekend.