30 Days With Aristotle And Me

It took a bit of listening to some butt-kicking folk metal (Eluveitie’s excellent Evocation I), but I think I solved a problem that has plagued me for the past 2-3 days.

As I wrote earlier, my Act II consists of many flashbacks, stories that are taken from the series of books on which the entire movie is based. Those flashbacks – which are, in a sense, little movies in themselves – gave me pause. How to write them? How literal to the source material should I be? And can I capture the essence of an entire book with each flashback/story in 10-15 minutes, roughly 5-8 scenes?

The enormity of the challenge bogged me down.

So I decided to break down each story and write it apart from the whole, then put them together when I’m done.

Tackling them one by one in that fashion makes them less daunting.

Plus, I thought I was giving too much away in Act I, which opens with a flashback. I realized I could cut the opening flashback in half, then paste the balance into its appropriate spot in Act II. I was going to refer to it again in Act II anyway. This way, I could tease in Act I and reveal in Act II.

So, today I made progress. I wrote 3-4 pages and am now back on track.