Day 150: Rewrites Writer's Group

Tonight I took in about 8.5 pages including the rewrites on the press conference scene and a new scene involving Tyler buying his truck. The truck scene existed previously wherein Tyler was asking about a fancy pickup truck on the dealer's lot. He pretty much decided to buy it on the spot without a test drive. It was cute but lacking in action. Way too talky. For the rewrite, I put him and the salesman in the truck for a test drive, which was basically Tyler putting the vehicle through its paces and cutting a lot of donuts in the parking lot much to the horror of the salesman.

It has a lot more action, is much funnier, gets the same information across as previously and reveals more about Tyler's character. Everyone loved it and, unfortunately, I don't know that I need it. As of right now I have removed the scene completely and the script works just fine without it and reduces the page length. If I decide I want it at a later date, I can simply reinstate it.

The other big scene was, of course, the new press conference. This seemed to work well, but there were comments that Hiram seemed a bit stiff. They wanted to see more of him as a character holding a press conference. Right now he comes off as if he's just reading a statement. That's sort of what I was going for, and in that sense I got it right, but it wasn't as interesting a scene as it could be. So I'll probably play around with that this week and see if I can rework it.

The follow-up scene with Shep going to Grady's house worked nicely. There was a good sense of tension and rising stakes, and the characters were much more active than in the previous version.