Right, well Easter was a bit of a washout in terms of Script Frenzy and writing.
Too much chocolate, not enough writing.
Still life, friends and family came first. They do sometimes.
What I did is lots of re-writing of those first 12, though. It was important stuff, but I'm not going forward.
Must do better...
I still feel as if I haven't quite worked out some of what drives my protag towards her goal (for she is, indeed, a she). I know what she has to learn, and how she has to learn it, and when. I've got the plot, the events, turning points, set pieces, blah, blah, blah. I'm just not sure if what I have as her reason for going on this adventure is enough. In that, if she learns everything she should by the end of they story, then she won't want the goal she set out to achieve at the beginning. But she kinda needs to, story-wise. Otherwise we don't have the big finish. She just walks away, which is not very satisfying for the audience. Now, that's fine if she makes that discovery as she carries out the final task. The prize isn't the prize any more and we love our hero for realizing that and being a better person, etc. But, if she already knows that before getting to the final task? Why even go through with it? She's doing it for herself. She'd just get there and say, "Hey, I'm not that person any more. These things don't matter to me." Great. Our hero's a better person. We love her.
And Act 3 is 2 minutes. With no conflict.
On the other hand, if I change her outward motivation at the beginning of the story, adding something in with much higher stakes, it could drive the story through much better in terms of her goal. She has to get the prize for external reasons. No matter what she learns, she still has to go through with it. Great. Big finish. The problem is, that will give her less choice at the end. If she has to follow the story/goal through, whether she wants the goal anymore or not, then she doesn't get to choose, when what she chooses is what defines the change she has made on the journey. So, maybe we don't love her the same.
I always have this issue. It's logline stuff basically. What does your character want and why? What's stopping them? What's it ABOUT??? That's what I always come back to when I'm writing. That's what I have to solve.
So, I'm faffing about re-writing.
Or I'm processing all this info, ready to charge forward when a spectacularly good idea has presented itself.
You decide.
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