Omnipotence

Omnipotence

When doctoring someone else’s work it is very easy to assume omnipotence. I would like to think I’m good at specifically script analysis. I tend to be very attuned to the needs of a story but if I get a pleasure from the process its hearing the writer’s perspective on my comments. Because the two groups of people that I work with like this are so smart and so incredibly apt at reaching for their goals it humbles me.

One script I read this week was pretty amazing. It tapped into a lot of things going on in my life right now and after the two hours or so it took me to read it I was very pleased with the experience. That’s great when that happens. I let it ruminate in my head and made a couple of suggestions to its author with regard to character and story structure and the reply she gave me was really cool. It was like yeah those things will make the story work but the crux of it is this…

And I’m like ‘wow what she’s trying to do here is really fucking awesome’.

What she was trying to do was show character growth. She was trying to show in one instant that her heroine had become the person the audience wants her to be and knew that she could be. I have never tried to do that. I’m an amateur in a lot of ways and I see that. I didn’t go to school and I haven’t written as much as some other people.

Having started the fourth draft of my novel I think I will endeavour to do this in that text. I am going to try it with one of the characters, the most important character and a character that, up until now has been very one dimensional in an almost George Lucas-esque manner.

This is why I say when my friends and family write it inspires me to write. We all have skills and qualities we bring to the table, I am idiosyncratic. I don’t like to let words like nice or things slip bye when I can be specific, I know that that is laziness. I can’t spell. I work in fits and when those fits are over I have a tough time sifting through the mess to bring out anything workable.

I am messy, but I am messy like a hurricane.

My brother and my aunt are both very deliberate. They write on intellect I write on emotion. I literally feel my way through stories. They think their way through, its very different and I admire their ability to do that. I think writing would be easier for me if I could do that.

But if I could do both I’d be omnipotent.