Halfbrown

“A neurotic father goes on a wild goose chase as he secretly follows his 16 year-old daughter on her first date.”

That’s my first-draft logline for my first screenplay, a family comedy entitled “First Date”. And while it’s not necessarily the opener I’d use to pitch to a producer right now, it does accurately detail the general nature of the film.

I’m much further along than I thought I would be, too. I have the protagonist and antagonist fleshed out (including my hero’s story arc), I have my characters goals and corresponding conflicts, and I have all 3 Acts broken down and placed into the 15 beats as described in Blake Snyder’s Beat Sheet from his funny and informative book “Save the Cat!”. All major scenes are laid out and I can already see many of the shots in my minds eye. All in all I am very satisfied with my progress thus far.

Ever since I was in Junior High I’ve wanted to be a writer. I fell in love with books in Elementary school, but not until I moved to Maryland in the early-to-mid 1980’s did I think about becoming a writer as a career choice. As luck would have it, however, I bounced back and forth between career ideas for a long time (as most students do) and left writing by the wayside, along with some of my other artistic endeavors such as painting, drawing, and sculpting. But every now and then I’ll have a creative spark hit me and I’ll pick up the pencils, brushes, or a pad of paper and start to create.

To be honest, however, I take a while to warm up creatively, and my creations take a beating for it. There are literally reams of paper lining my shredder basket with stories, drawings, etc. that I’ve destroyed since they didn’t meet whatever standard I had for them at the time. I am very critical of my own work; but every now and again I hit on something which pleases me. Enough to not throw it out within an hour of it’s creation, at least. And recently I have hit upon something that hasn’t made me want to throw it out.

Over the last few months I’ve become interested in screenwriting, and like any hobby of mine I jumped into it with both feet and have been researching books, websites, and literally hundreds of articles on how to write, format, and market a story. Using the book “Save the Cat” as a template for my writing, I have finally narrowed down the half-dozen story ideas to one and have begun the process. I’m very happy with what I have so far, which is great considering I normally don’t get this far with my art.

Stay tuned for more developments.