Writing third act first
Tuesday, March 22, 2011

I think I’ll try to write the third act first on my current project To Be.

The reason for doing the third act first is to prevent that I get stuck when I come to the third act. If I write it as the first thing I do - after I’ve planned the script - maybe I foreclose me getting cornered; maybe I can spill some of the passion I have when I begin writing a script in the part where I usually ruin my work instead.

I hope that a proper planning of all scenes is enough, but I don’t think I dare trusting that. Maybe it will turn out that I rushed it through after all. Or that the trait a character had, which was needed for the third act, has disappeared before I get there.

Just the thought of once again getting stuck when I get to the final part of the script is dispiriting.

I’ve finished six feature scripts. As far as I can recall I’ve get stuck at least at four of them. The first I wrote on pure passion and ignorance. The second is still one of my best feature scripts. But from there I’m pretty sure I’ve had third act problems every time. And then you need to remember that Sunlight was resting in a drawer for several years because of a missing third act and a mental failure stamped on every one of its pages.

I need to find a way around that. Maybe this is the way. At least it is not likely to turn out worse, because I will have some form of third act for the script and not just empty pages.