Roll Credits

I’m done. One hundred and one pages, with a full day to spare. And the script has an actual, mostly-logical ending.

Incredible,

I wasn’t really worried about the timeframe. One hundred pages in a month is relatively easy for me, especially when I’m limited to screenplay format. It cuts down on my tendency to overwrite, and forces me to focus on the core story, rather than letting me run with whatever shiny tangent has caught my interest. And there’s a lot of whitespace in those hundred pages.

I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to tell this particular story well, or without dragging on for another twenty pages. And, thinking about it, most of my first act can be cut (it deals with a subplot that I don’t really touch on in the rest of the script, and introduces a character that’s entirely absent for the rest of the movie), and I really need to tighten up the third act. It drags a bit, and it really isn’t as frightening as the second act. (Which might be a bit of a problem for a horror story.)

But it’s done. The good parts are good, the bad parts are fixable, and I’m finally, finally feeling like I’m back on my feet when it comes to writing.