Hey Tim,

I'd like to tackle the character issue. If I understand correctly, you're
concerned about introducing unlikeable elements of your character too early
for fear it may turn off a script reader.

What I hear time and time again, is that most producers/actors/readers are
looking for characters that are, above all else, interesting. You certainly
wouldn't want a character that has absolutely NO redeeming qualities (unless
of course you do:) ), but a flawed character is interesting. That's
important.

I wouldn't worry about it killing a reader's interest. If anything, assuming
the rest of the elements in your script are good, the flawed character
traits will probably keep your reader turning the pages.

One question though: Is this your lead character?

The issue regarding your apartment room scenes is one I've heard many times
before. There seem to be various accepted ways to handle this. I often see
this issue when a character in one of my scripts moves from indoors, to the
driveway/parkinglot and finally to the interior of a vehicle. (In this
instance, I think int's important to break with new scene headings.) How you
handle it can depend on how you want the scene to flow. In your case, I
definitely think it's a mistake to break the scene up with multiple scene
headings.

I think the way you're suggesting is acceptable. The bottom line is that you
don't want to make things hard to understand or clunky because this will
definitely alienate your reader and annoy the hell out of them!

I may suggest mentioning in the scene description that your character moves
throughout the apartment, as a heads up to whoever may be reading.

Good luck! I hope this is helpful. ~Ryan



http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WriteItRight/
http://www.epinions.com/user-officer

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Hello. I'm new to the group so let me first say my name's Tim. I've
been writing for about 3 1/2 years now. Yet to finish one but
they're getting better.

A couple of questions.

First, about changing scenes. I have a couple of scenes in an
apartment where the characters are going from the living room to the
bathroom, bedroom and so forth. I don't want to create a new scene
heading so I've been doing it like this example.

INT. APARTMENT -- DAY

He gets up off the couch and goes into the

BATHROOM [in bold]

where he takes his medications.

He then goes back into the

LIVING ROOM [in bold]

and sees her standing at the doorway.

FADE OUT.

I shortened it just to demonstrate but I'm curious as if this is
acceptable when it comes time to submit or am I going to have to
create new scenese for each room. In the script, it is essential to
have the different rooms in there. There's a lot of moving around
back and forth and such. Does that make sense?

The other thing, I built about ten pages demonstrating the strong,
loving relationship of this couple. The thing is, the main character
is suicidal and I really need to demonstrate that within the first
act. Is this a suicidal move on my part? I know throughout the
second act I can overcome this. But, it doesn't do my any good if
the person reading (agent/producer, whoever) doesn't like the
character well enough to continue reading.

Usually I can find my answers in books or through a writing class but
this seems to be absent of anyone's "honest guess". Thanks to anyone
who can help.

cul8r
tim

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