Screenwriting 101

It was supposed to be an epic romance, an affair to remember.

And make no mistake, it was, is, and will be that, but I think I'm going to take "Five Years Apart" in a different direction.

It's going to have everything I originally planned, content-wise, but I think there are deeper, richer themes than that of romance and--in keeping with what I wrote in my last entry--Happily Ever After that should be emphasized.

Now, I don't want to mislead people. The movie is still about love: pure unadulterated, intoxicating love. It's going to be a very romantic movie. But as we all know, sometimes, for better or worse, things just don't turn out the way you want them to turn out. That's one idea that this script is really going to explore in-depth, as well as delving into themes of family, responsibility, that grey area we all know as Right & Wrong and, ultimately, self-actualization.

I think, for this movie to truly work, I think the characters need to grow up, learn a little before they get what they want. And for one or two of the characters, just like in Real Life, what they want isn't what they're necessarily gonna get in the end, even after they make positive (or negative, depending on how one looks at the behaviors of the characters) changes in their lives.

Speaking of growing up, I'm cutting the character that's based on me pretty close to the bone and, in writing this character, not gonna lie, I'm really nervous about whether or not people are going to embrace him or not.

He's kind of a whiner. I mean, he cries...a lot. Not only that, but he's a creature of habit to the extreme. Not only that, but he's kind of, well, a depressed person. The opening scene pretty much explains him to a T. We find him getting dumped by a girl who thinks he's a really sweet guy, but he's just too much. He's always on. He's an onion of neuroses with layers upon layer of quirks.

But what kind of a story would it be if our hero didn't experience some sort of growth? It would be flat, static, and one-note.

Here's the thing: I don't want this movie to have any villains.

I don't want to necessarily judge any of my characters. They're just people doing what they think is right for them at any given moment. They are people who aren't bad, just complicated. They are people who are misunderstood. In other words, characters we thought were complete douchebags in the beginning may become more sympathetic as the story progresses, while, on the other hand, characters who we maybe were rooting for in the beginning might become less likable. And then things might just double back again. Who knows?

Well, me, actually. Only I know how this movie ends.

The truth is, there's a lot of fertile ground to explore in this script of mine. And lucky for me, a lot of it is Based On A True Story.

Well, at least 90% of it. The names and places were changed to protect the innocent and, well, the less so.

Seventeen pages down, five years to go.