START YOUR STORY ON PAGE 1
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 10:20PM
David E. Tolchinsky

start the story on page 1, make sure there's enough conflict and the conflict builds (don't back away from the conflict), make sure there's a polarity/dichotomy between two activities/ideas, make sure we can see/know your character right away (ie comic book panel, cliche, etc.) but of course that's just the beginning, the character/situation is much more complex, make sure there's a secret and/or sense of DANGER at every moment.  and think about scope. what can you accomplish in 10 pages, not lots of description, what's the ONE detail that locks us in, don't write so much dialogue that energy is expelled/too much info revealed, also make sure your characters speak differently based on their personalities/upbringing/etc (one character speaks in 4 line chunks, the other one speaks  in single sentence fragment, etc.)

This week: Think about the differences between a 10 page movie, 20 page movie, feature.  What changes? What remains the same?  How do you know if your idea is for a 10 page thing or a feature or can one be developed or collapsed (or part of!) the other. 

What line have you written that makes me INTRIGUED to invest 10, 20, 2 hours in your world. So not lots of lines, but the one.

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