Hello fellow writers and readers and creators!
First, I apologise for no newsletter last month. There’s no excuse. I was simply being lazy, and because it’s summer in London right now, we’ve had plenty of visitors from around the world staying with us, which means I’ve been too busy being popular to stare at my screen.
Also:
I made a film!
The film is tentatively titled Not Looking For Anything Right Now, although I’ve already had feedback from more than one person that the name being too long. What do you think?
It’s a short film, a dialogue-driven romance in the same vein as Before Sunrise. Two people walking and talking, and falling in love. We filmed it over two days in various locations around East London with a micro-crew (myself, two actors, a DOP, a general everything-man, and a sound recordist).
Note: Because the film isn’t finished yet, I’m going to do my best to not give anything away. But I’ll let you know when you can watch it, and then I’ll give you all the juicy details of making it. For now, I want to talk about the process of writing and rewriting.
The Idea
Filming a script you’ve written inevitably teaches you more about writing than reading a dozen ‘how to write’ books. This small project was no exception.
I smashed out the first draft of NLFARN (as it’s referred to by nobody) a few months ago. I was inspired by the beauty of Victoria Park and Regents Canal, and felt a strong desire to show everyone how lovely living in this area is. I was also moved by the countless discussions I’d had with my female friends here in London about how difficult it is to meet men nowadays.
London is crawling with beautiful, smart, sparklingly magnetic women in their 30s and they’re out to find love. Most modern dating revolves around the dating apps, and it seems like every guy my friends meet through dating apps is either
- Only looking for casual fun
- Struggling with man-child syndrome
- Just weird
I met my partner through an app (Bumble), so I’m not here to bash dating apps. I think they can be a massive shortcut to meeting like-minded people and fast-tracking relationships. It also helps to mitigate any awkwardness of having to ask ‘Are you single?’ upon meeting someone you like the vibe of. But the apps are exhausting. It’s a numbers game. 200 swipes might get you 9 matches, of which 3 of them even reply, and you can have a dozen conversations going on at once, juggling what conversational subjects you’ve covered with who.
I remember meeting people in real life. When I was 20, the apps didn’t exist. Either you met people through friends, work, or drunk out in bars. Somehow, we managed it. I remember asking out a girl I met at the library once. It took a lot of courage, and the pitying look she gave me as she told me she had a boyfriend, while her workmate laughed behind her hand, made it all worth it.
The “IRL meet-cute” is now seen as a relic of days past, peered back fondly upon in the same way we look back at being able to safely swim in any waterway in Aotearoa, or Tamagochis.
So, I wanted to write a modern fantasy, where two people met in real life, and carried it through to having a one-night stand on a canalboat.
First Draft
The first draft was 20 pages long. It was filled with excess dialogue, screeds of banter that made me look like a smart writer but told us nothing about the characters, but the core idea of a cute story was there. Every scene had a point. And the characters felt reasonably solid, albeit overly talkative. They felt real, their motivations felt real, and the words sounded real coming out of their mouths.
Next step: casting.
Casting
One of the strangest things about making a screen project is getting other people on to collaborate with, and seeing how they interpret your story. With a book, everyone’s inner experience is private, and therefore untouchable. A million different versions of the same story can exist in a million different people’s minds. When you read the words, ‘the ragged dog barked, scratching its nails at the door’, chances are you’re seeing a different dog to me, hearing a different bark, and feeling a different sensation of scratching. And with books, that’s fine. Our two different interpretations can exist independently of each other.
But with film, you collaborate with cast and crew. And, if you’re a good collaborator, you invite their thoughts, feelings, and suggestions. If you’re lucky, you collaborate with smart people who have the same goal as you—to make the best product possible—and then you can benefit from their input. Every good idea they have, you’re allowed to steal it! And take all the credit! It’s fantastic.
The way that we cast this short film was unusual. Because I’d decided to make the film with no budget, I couldn’t go through the normal process of casting, which includes casting agents, audition tapes and callbacks. Instead, I simply told a bunch of people in my life about the project and requested they let me know if they thought of anyone who could fit the role.
Turns out, this strategy worked incredibly well. One night, while I was having dinner at my friend Olly’s house, he told me about a Kiwi guy he’d met at an outdoor gym. One of the roles is for a non-British character, and being Kiwi myself, this would be a good fit.
“He’s tall, he’s ripped, he’s charismatic,” Olly said.
“Nice. Good actor?’“
Olly shrugged. “I’ll send you his Instagram.”
A week later, I was walking through the park with said actor, Korban, drinking coffee and chatting about life and love. Korban is indeed tall, ripped and charismatic, and after hanging out for two hours, I decided to cast him without needing any audition or self-tape. He had the right vibe.
For the other character, I wanted to find someone at ease with herself, a tiny bit spiky, and preferably British. This was a bit harder. There are plenty of actors in London, but despite watching a few showreels and having a few people reach out, I couldn’t find anyone with the right energy … until Stefan messaged. He said a friend of a friend had recommended a lady, a lady called Minty.
Stefan and I met up with Minty for coffee and after barely five minutes of talking, we were suddenly talking about the wild world of relationships and dating in big cities Minty told us that she lived on a canalboat. Which was wild, because the character I’d written also lived on a canalboat. A sign from the universe? Maybe. Either way, Minty was game, so she was in!
Read Throughs and Rewrites
Korban, Minty and I met up in Victoria Park to talk through the script. They were strangers to each other, so I gave them two minutes to fire questions at each other, and then we got down to work. We read the script aloud, beginning to end, then discussed how we felt. I asked Korban and Minty the following questions:
- What dialogue felt wrong to say?
- What scenes felt long?
- What moments felt particularly right?
When Dialogue Feels Wrong
There’s a reason. Sometimes, it’s because the rhythm is off. That’s a simple problem to solve. It’s the different between:
Do you feel like something to wet the whistle? and
Fancy a drink?
This isn’t just a case of shortening lines. It’s a character thing. Every line should feel like something that particular character would say. If they’re posh, they might say ‘beverage’, if they’re working class, they might say ‘bevvie’. (Do people still say ‘bevvie’?)
OR, it could be a deeper issue. With every line of dialogue, there’s the text (what’s being said), and then there’s the subtext (what’s not being said, but being implied). If an actor feels odd saying the following line:
That shirt makes you look pale. Don’t wear it.
It could be because the character you’ve written isn’t nasty or socially ignorant enough to say such a thing. Instead, they might say something underhanded with the same subtext, like:
I like standing next to you in that shirt because I look tan in comparison.
In the case of my script, Minty found some of the vernacular strange in her mouth. An expected issue with a New Zealand writer and a British character. A simple fix, we went through substituting the strange Kiwi-isms like ‘ay’ for their British cousins, like ‘innit’.
When Scenes Feel Long
This is the fun part. Scrutinise every line, every word, and ask yourself, ‘If I cut this, would the story change?’. As writers, we love our own work and want to keep everything, but one of the most often-repeated and least-followed adages is that shorter is often better. Be economical. Get brutal.
When Moments Feel Particularly Right
Celebrate.
And, for extra points, discuss why it feels right. What particular lines and moments resonate? It’s wonderful what you can learn about your characters when you delve deep like this, and running through your writing with someone else is tremendously helpful, and throws your work into a new light.
After we’d talked through our feelings about the read-through, we went back to page 1 and read the entire script again, hitting pause whenever we felt something else. I encouraged Korban and Minty to trust their intuition and speak up whenever something snagged. Whenever one of us had a thought, we’d talk about it, consider our options, and make amends to the script. It took us three hours to get through the script, and when we were finished, red pen marks littered every page.
When I got home, I typed up the changes and we were left with a stronger, more streamlined script. 10 Cool Points for collaboration!
Could This Work With Other Types of Writing?
Rewriting once you’ve cast a film is normal, and I consider it to be one of the most important and effective tools in a collaborator’s arsenal.
But what if your writing a book? Well, you can still achieve this by asking friends to read your writing out loud. I know this might be a lot of people’s idea of hell, but I swear it’s worth it. By hearing your words out loud in another person’s voice, all of the crumbly, awkward pacing and verbose diction is thrown into stark relief, and you’ll be amazed how obvious the necessary changes become.
A helpful note: Encourage your reader to be brutally honest, even though they might risk hurting your feelings by doing so. But if they’re brave enough to be honest with you, take it like a champ and genuinely consider what they’re saying. Any time they stutters, pauses, or gets tongue-tied, treat this like a neon sign saying ‘THIS PART NEEDS REWRITING’.
👩🏫 What I’m Reading: Who Wants To Live Forever by Hannah Thomas Uose
It’s our book club book and so far, it’s very interesting. It’s a great concept—some San Francisco whizz comes up with a medication that extends human life, and one by one, countries around the world are either legalising or outlawing its use.
The story centres around a married couple whose political viewpoints are diametrically opposed. Juicy stuff!
