Day 229: Final Preparations for Nashville Writers Conference

The changes to Come Ups, based on coverage notes from Screenplay Readers, are complete. There have been significant changes to the structure, characters and pacing of the whole story. I have to say, I feel pretty good about these changes. It was a considerable amount of work, but if I thought it was a fast read before, the changes have really made the script soar.

The last big effort was to strip out as much action description as I felt I could get by with and condense what was left. I had been making changes as I did the rewrites, but, with the concentrated effort at the end, I was able to remove another 4 – 5 pages of material. The final script is now 103 pages versus the 114 I sent to Screenplay Readers. That’s fully 11 pages shorter and puts me right in the middle of the recommended length.

Now my attention turns to cleaning up The Calling. It’s important that I complete the work on this script as there have been some changes at the Nashville conference, or at least things I wasn’t aware of earlier. I received an email about the pitch session that listed who the participants would be, and it seems to basically be other screenwriters. I won’t be pitching to production companies, producers or really anyone who is in the market to buy a script. It’s just screenwriters who could just as well write their own script; they don’t need mine.

So, I’m a little concerned about that development. It certainly wasn’t explained well on the website when I signed up. There also seems to be a problem in that a lot of people are horror oriented and not action. I was hoping to present Come Ups as my primary spec and The Calling as my backup. Now it looks as if The Calling may be my primary calling card.

Another big issue for me is that when we signed up for the pitch session, we were told that we would be guaranteed 6 pitches but most likely would receive 10. Now we are being told we will only get 3 and have to submit who we would like to pitch to with no guarantee of getting those individuals. So I don’t know if I’ll be pitching horror, action or something else entirely. I’m not happy about that. I’ve submitted my request but haven’t heard back yet. It’s getting a little close. I’m also forwarding an email inquiring as to why the pitches were scaled back to only 3.

But for now, it’s on to The Calling and trying to whip that screenplay into shape.