2022 Zero Draft Thirty March Challenge: Day 16

One month. FADE IN to FADE OUT. Creativity meets Productivity.

Zero Draft Thirty: Day 16.

Write an entire draft of a script in March — FADE IN. FADE OUT. Or any sort of creative goal you have in front of you.

Feature length movie screenplay. Original TV pilot. Rewrite a current project. Break a story in prep. Generate a month’s worth of story concepts.

Whatever you feel will ratchet your creative ambitions into overdrive…

DO THAT!

As for me, I will spend the month co-writing a feature film spec script. It’s based on a story concept I came up with late last year and it may be the strongest comedy idea I’ve ever worked on. My writing partner and I have spent the first two months of the year on character development and breaking story. Now it’s time to jam out a first draft!

If you join the Challenge, I will be right there with you writing each and every day in March! Let’s do this together!

To download your very own Zero Draft Thirty calendar — designed and created by Steven Dudley — and track your daily progress.

On Twitter, use this hashtag: #ZD30SCRIPT.

Join the Zero Draft Thirty Facebook Group: Here. 4,500+ members strong.

Today’s Writing Quote

“Don’t write about a character. Become that character, and then write your story.”

— Ethan Canin

Today’s Inspirational Video

If you’re not familiar with the musical group OK Go, they are known for doing elaborate videos. Like really elaborate. Check out this Rube Goldberg inspired take for their song “This Too Shall Pass”.

Today’s Loos Award winner: Liz Correal.

Over at the Zero Draft Thirty Facebook group page, Liz posted this:

Am starting to have a nervous breakdown. My characters are all blah blah blah. There’s too many of them and the end of the first episode keeps getting further away rather than closer. Think I might need to start killing them off.

First off, this is worthy of recognition because Liz reached out for support from the group. There is no shame in our writing struggles! The simple fact is:

WRITING IS HARD!

So seek out help where you can get it.

The second thing is Liz’s comments gave me the opportunity to remind us all — myself included — of some key questions we can ask about our characters and one set of tools we have which can help us find each character’s narrative purpose and focus. Here is my response to Ziz:

Liz, before you begin to randomly execute characters, why not step back for a day and ask yourself these questions about each one: What is their function? Why do they exist for this story? What purpose do they serve?

This may be where working with five character archetypes comes in super handy: Protagonist, Nemesis, Attractor, Mentor, Trickster.

Here is a Go Into The Story article I originally posted all the way back in 2008 on the subject: LINK.

In fact, Part II of my book The Protagonist’s Journey goes into this subject in great detail.

As far as triage mode goes for your project, in addition to the questions I posed up top, think about each character and consider which archetype function they may play in your series.

BTW, that function can change from season to season. Great example: Nate in “Ted Lasso” evolves from Mentor (S1) to Trickster (S2) to what appears to be Nemesis (S3).

Hope this helps!

I encourage folks to check out my 2008 article on the five primary character archetypes. One of the reasons I was excited to write The Protagonist’s Journey was it gave me the opportunity to expand my understanding of this concept in applying it to dozens of movies and TV series.

So for all that, today’s recipient of the Ben Hecht Award is Liz Correal!

For your chance to win the Ben Hecht Award, one given away each day during the Challenge, post something inspiring, here on the blog, via Twitter (#ZD30SCRIPT), or the Facebook group.

For background on how the Zero Draft Challenge came into being and what it is, go here, here, and here.

Zero Draft Thirty: Day 1
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 2
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 3
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 4
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 5
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 6
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 7
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 8
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 9
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 10
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 11
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 12
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 13
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 14
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 15

Now Zeronauts, Scampers, Word Warriors, and Outlaws…

SPREAD THE WORD!

GO WRITE!

POUND OUT PAGES!

SEEK OUT SUPPORT!

TIME TO GET IT DONE!