I wanted to write a little bit more about the
genesis of the project and, as promised, explain why it’s not as weird as it
sounds. If it still sounds weird after this, I don’t know what to tell you.
Just to refresh your memory, the screenplay
grew out of a dream I had where Matt Rubano was in the hospital after being
attacked by a vampire, and one came to finish him off. I tried to fight the
vampire, but failed, and then Tyson Ritter came to the rescue.
The first thing to know is that when I had
the dream, I was going to see the All-American Rejects in concert that night,
and then a few days later I was going to see a play of The Lost Boys,
and I was looking forward to both of those things, so I think the
Rejects/vampire mix is actually pretty understandable in that context.
In terms of the content, I have dreams about
celebrities fairly often. I think this has gotten more prevalent now that I am
usually on Twitter shortly before bedtime. I also dream about people I actually
know, so there’s not a celebrity obsession or anything, but it happens.
It is also not that unusal for me to have
scary dreams about vampires. When I was younger I had kind of a phobia about
being bitten, and I had a lot of vampire nightmares. Some of those have become
stories. It’s been a while since I had one of those dreams, but I think having
the play coming up was a factor.
In terms of how it played out, that the lead
singer was the one who played the heroic lead is completely typical. My failing
to fend off the vampire could show that I was feeling insecure or inadequate for
something, which is plausible. Why it was Matt in the bed, I have no idea, but
two out of three isn’t bad.
The thing is, it was
just a little fragment of a dream, and yet it left a strong impression. I
couldn’t get it out of my mind and it kept taking more of a shape and a back
story filled in for how everyone who was in that hospital got there, and why.
That was also not unusual. At this point,
four out of eight screenplays I’ve written have started as dreams, and there
are several more dreams that have characters and a storyline that I may write
in the future. If I do buckle down and write that other television pilot, that
started as a dream too. So, turning dreams into screenplays is still fairly
typical for me.
However, I had just spent seven months
working on a script where the main characters were My Chemical Romance.* Was I
really going to write about musicians again? I had just decided that I should
focus on editing the old stuff that I could actually sell! But the story kept
getting more insistent, so the next day I gave up fighting it and wrote 8 pages
just like that.
To be fair, that was my easiest set, and the
writing had gone very slowly. The MCR one took seven months because it ended up
being well over 400 pages. Family Blood is still less than 90 pages, and it
took a little over three months to even manage that. It was a very different
writing experience.
I’ve been wanting to share it lately, and
write things about it, like in Monday’s post. I have been thinking so much
about the guys, and how they turned out as characters, and why, and why Matt
had to die, and now I have written all of that out and it’s a relief.
I do think it can be commercially viable. It
is disadvantaged as a vampire story in that it is neither ultraviolent and bloody nor
romantic and sparkly. With the smaller scale, that leans more towards
independent film, but it’s not really cynical or weird enough for that either.
I still think it’s a good story, and unlike the MCR one, it is not based on
characters and settings that are property of others. Here, they are just
people, and the story is completely original.
The issue with talking about it then becomes
that you end up giving away plot details that could make reading the whole
thing less appealing for people, or you give out information that makes it
possible for others to copy your ideas. Just putting it out there on the Studio
changes the game. It’s saying “read it” and making it possible for people to
read it, and it creates a record that this is my work, associated with me.
Right before vacation I was trying to finish
so many things, and one of those was finishing the last scene for Family
Blood (Maureen’s death) and posting Coulrophobia to Amazon Studio. I
was not satisfied with Coulrophobia, but it still felt necessary to get
it up there. I thought when I came back I could revise and post the update, and
work on my profile and all of those things, but I came back sick and with no
energy. Maybe that was a practice run, and I will do a better run with Family
Blood, and just go through each screenplay until somebody buys one. (Coulrophobia
is still up, but it just passed its option period.)
The other thing with finishing Family
Blood was sharing it with some people, which I did via a PDF hosting link.
Those only last for 30 days. The people I offered to, I did so because they fit
into at least one of three groups:
- They think Tyson Ritter would be the best boyfriend ever.
- They expect Nick Wheeler and Dexter to be awesome.
- They have difficult family relationships, especially in terms of their mothers.
Obviously the first two fit well within the
Rejects fan base, but the last one does more than you think. AAR is not as
angsty as some bands, but they’re really good, so maybe that’s enough to
attract different types of fans. When I sent the screenplay out then, it was targeted.
For some it was because I believed they would enjoy it, but for some it was
that I hoped it would help them feel better.
Yesterday I wrote about music being healing,
especially in terms of helping us not feel alone. Storytelling can be healing
too. As it shows us people overcoming obstacles, we remember that obstacles can
be overcome. I don’t know how much it accomplished, and I don’t know how much
posting it here will accomplish.
I don’t really think this one will sell. I
would love that, but I don’t expect it. I would love a lot of people to read
it, and that is also not terribly likely. If a few people read it, and they
enjoy it, and maybe are encouraged by it, that’s pretty great (especially if I
know that it happened). I would have just kept obsessing over it if I hadn’t
written it, so that’s not a solution.
So, if you want to read about Nick Wheeler
being heroic, as well as his trusty dog Dexter, or you picture Tyson Ritter as
an amazing boyfriend, or if your family situation is bad, where you are
unvalued or endangered, or if you just like reading, check it out:
*About that MCR thing…so I just posted the
last chapter of When The Lights Go Out, and it was going to be emotional
anyway, but doing it a few days after the band breaks up exacerbates that. It
has been such a part of my life, and will continue to be as I get ready to draw
it. I anticipate writing more about that next week. There are things I could
not talk about before to avoid spoilers, but now it’s all out there.
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