Have you ever set a goal right down to a certain day and time and instead of feverishly attempting to hit said goal, you sat at your desk with a glass of wine watching the minutes tick away? Letting your heart skip a beat – quite literally – with each passing hour until your deadline is nigh? No? Well, I don’t recommend it.

I set a goal to complete my second feature film script by TODAY in order to submit it to the 2016 Academy Nicholl Fellowship competition. Yes, that Academy. While I have completed my first draft (huzzah!), I need time to edit and revise and refine the thing so instead of killing myself to get it done (entries must be uploaded by 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time tonight, tick tock) I’m going to blog about not getting it done. How’s that for productivity?

Self-loathing aside, Los Angeles is a great place to be if you’re learning how to craft and develop a script. Not great in the sense of risking everything to be here just to pursue screenwriting. Don’t do that. Great in that there are so many resources for writers, whether you’ve been at it a long while, or you’re brand new to the game. Live reads, lectures, table reads with your nieghbors, you name it. Hell, head to the Venice Boardwalk and read it aloud to passers-by. Fuck it, anything goes in LA.

Before diving into the joy of editing – and I do mean that sincerely, editing is the fun bit – I decided to take this time to review the notes I was given on my first script, which I submitted to the Nicholl Fellowship competition last year. My very first script, a story based in part on real events in my life followed by a whole lot of fiction. A story about a girl who is dating a boy who is horrible to her who a few years later turns out to be gay and in a strange turn of events moves in with the girl and her husband temporarily until one day the girl dies and in the end it’s all very monotonous, save a few surprising plot twists sugared with punchy dialogue. Obviously, I should stay away from writing my own film synopsis and/or movie marketing.

Here are a few notes I found helpful and not completely soul-shattering…

Title: However Unlikely
Genre: Romantic drama

However Unlikely has an interesting premise. In a reflection of modern Los Angeles society, a newly married woman helps out her gay ex-boyfriend by letting him stay in their home. After a while, it all makes complete sense and they all become close friends. There’s a certain so-crazy-it-sounds-true to the story.

The dialogue is real, the characters are not all well rounded, but they are all believable and enjoyable.

The writing is adequate and has energy at the outset that quickly diminishes. The descriptions are visual enough for the little action. The high point moments of dialogue are snappy and humorous. Unfortunately it can’t make up for the lack of action.

Here’s the thing. This is such a fun, cute, fresh premise. I really like the idea. The trouble is the execution. This script needs to go back a few steps and be restructured and tell the story it means to tell. And then there will be something really nice here. As is, there’s a lot of obstacles that get in the way of a good idea.

Good advice for any script. I may revisit that story at some point, but for now I’m submerged in something new. This time the story is set in Los Angeles, New York and London in the 1960s. This time the story is not based on my own experiences, but the memoirs of two notable women of that era. This time I’m really trying to knock it out of the park. Sorry, looming deadline, I’m gonna have to let you go.

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