Let's let the cat out of the bag here, people...
I have a productive and social day. Jeremy and Jody were in town apartment hunting and took me to the Laotian restaurant for lunch. Then Anne and I did some grocery shopping and ended up eating guacamole at Eric's, gossiping and drinking beer. Now I've come home, and since it's late but not bed time, I wanted to tackle one academic project, namely my second short scene for production.
I wrote my first scene last week and I wad pleased with it - but it's hard to follow up a strong showing from the first round. My first script is clever, suggestive, and complicated... now I have to write another, max 2 pages (this is a challenge) and the subject matter is assigned.
In this script, person A has to get person B to reveal a secret. In such a short script (which has to have intricate character development), the secret can't be too heavy, I think. Just the same, it's hard to think of something that a scene can pivot around. With my writing, I at least like to take a germ from real life and my experiences - and I admit here, my friends have failed me. When I think about a "secret revealed" it was always a matter of someone uncloaking a not-so-clandestine sexual orientation, announcing a hidden bit of gossip (namely a sexual indiscretion) but it is only interesting because of a long and complicated past, or perhaps, at a later date, providing a fuller picture of a past event (whereas the first telling left room for the imagination). One good secret, which is honestly more of an inside joke, comes from my debating days when some cohorts revealed to Mike Wiser that a run in with the police over some inappropriate behavior on a CB-radio was actually staged. I can't see how this would be amusing as a 2-page script, it was only funny because he had the fear of god in him for almost three years.
So I am not immediately inspired by my real life. As a way to fish for ideas, I just searched google for "secrets" and "secrets revealed." Sadly, I am left with a lot of links about "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" and links to cheat pages for video games. Surely a deadend - anyway, I am stuck here people - what kind of secret needs revealing? On principle alone, I won't write a script about "hidden" infidelity because it's horrendously overdone in our class. It is also beyond obvious to have one person confront another about suspected drug use / gambling / other illicit and illegal affairs and have the other confess, boring city. Part of me wants to write a spoof script about the whole Justin Timberlake / Janet Jackson thing, having someone confront them about lying about the accidental titty-reveal... but then another part of me says that this route is too gimmicky and doesn't need to be repeated and labored over. But I think that I am really stuck here - once I can pin down the secret, I feel like I'll be off and running and the rest will write itself... how I'd love to stumble upon it before I hit the sack. Divine inspiration, inspire already - I am very impatient when it comes to muses.
posted by lmjasinski at 11:49 PM
