Stripping it Back

Away from my Hawks Hunt, I'm still trying to get to grips with a story I've been faffing* with for 10 years, now no longer faffing but molding it into a screenplay.

But even after 10 years, I'm kind of faffing, not by fiddling or wasting time (or am I?) but by trying to get ahead of myself. Consequently, this has resulted in some false starts and reinforces in me the need to get everything clear from the beginning. By refusing to look at things from the ground up, my story does move forward but then stops and finds itself with nowhere to go, specifically concerning the ending.

So, I'm stripping it back down to its roots and separating all of the elements so I know exactly what their place is in the grand scheme of things. And, hey presto, things start to become clear again. Avenues I'd forgotten about reappear and more story possibilities are, well, possible.

And most importantly, by reminding me that I can back out of a blind alley by carefully reversing, it makes me get excited about it all over again.

Lesson learned - don't get ahead of myself and keep it clear.

Coming soon, my thought on Hawks' Scarface. And then I'll be watching The Crowd Roars.

Hawks and Cagney. Love it.


*I'm surprised to discover "faffing" is recognised by the Google spellchecker.