I finished a draft of a script last night. That's the fourth draft of my script She Hates the Idea. The third draft had not been well received by my early readers. They made it clear there were pretty major structural problems that kept them from getting involved with the story at all. Obviously I had made some mistakes along the way.
I think my major problem was in prioritizing the rewrites. Usually draft one is just a mess. But I'm happy to have it done because now I have something to work on. The second draft is usually about strengthening the characters and filling plot holes. Third drafts are all about strengthening themes and making connections to make everything stronger. Or at least that's how I tend to think of the process. This time I seem to have skipped the part about filling plot holes. Actually, looking back at the process I just wrote out, I noticed that I never mentioned story. And that is why this particular script had big structural problems. I kind of forgot to tell a complete story. All those other elements were addressed and refined but the story itself got a miss and that meant that none of it actually worked. So this draft was all about story.
Hopefully I've fixed it and it actually tells a story now. It's baffling to me that I failed to notice this through three drafts of work. Kind of embarassing actually. But that's why I have people read the damn thing before I let it out to meet the public. I'm fine with friends and family knowing I can be an idiot. Actually, I'd be surprised if it took reading my stuff for them to figure it out. Exposure to me should be enough. But I'm not comfortable with people that I want to take a professional interest in my stuff knowing that I can be an idiot. Since my script is the first impression they'll likely have of me, it had better be good. So now we'll find out. The script goes back out to my early readers. If that goes well, maybe I'll expand the circle a bit before sending it out to try and sell. In the meantime, I need to go over my other two completed scripts and see if they need any work.
And of course somewhere in there try to work on the zombie thing.
