What If I Don’t Feel Like Writing?

Hello and welcome back. I was really on the fence about making this update because I didn't really advance much this week. The reason? Well, life gets in the way, but also and most importantly, I was way too mentally exhausted. As you know, I had to figure out a big chunk of the story and plot it out in far too little time. As a result, I ended up having a bit of creative burnout. I felt like I needed some time off, and that's what I did. The reason why I am telling you this is because, at the end of the day, I think it is important to understand that the creative process is rarely a linear one. So don’t think that you will progress at the same pace in every instance. This is also a good reminder to try not to exhaust or overexert yourself. If you do, know that it is not meant to be sustainable, only to be used if, like me, you needed to meet a specific deadline, but I wouldn’t recommend that approach.

That being said, I really needed this week to rest and step away from the project, and now I am ready and refreshed to hop back in.

Where am I currently at?

I am basically at the same point that I was last week. The only thing I worked on during this week was to clean up the 30-point outline to make sure that the scenes or dramatic beats that I was outlining were dramatically coherent, strong, and, most importantly, that each one moved the story forward. Think about it as making sure the story works not so much on an emotional level, but on a dramatic/conflict level.

Now I need to get to the heart of the movie, which is the relationship between both detectives. For this, I’ll need to plot out beats, but emotional ones. First, I’ll go and make a character arc for each one, and then I’ll do a shared beats list where I can see exactly what actions or scenes move their personal relationships forward. Taking them from point A at the beginning of the film to point B. Once this is done, then I will interweave them with the narrative beats. And lastly, I will build the murder cases and clues.

How am I approaching the challenges?

So I don’t have an exact method to plot out my characters' arcs, especially because I am having trouble with the third act. Not in the fact that I don’t know how it ends, rather, I have to figure out a way the character gets there without it feeling cheap or out of pocket for the audience. My current strategy is to simply start writing the first act of the film and make a beat sheet on both my characters' relationship and journey (their internal emotional journey) and trust that the last pieces of the puzzle will become clearer as I go on.

As for the mystery itself, I will watch some real documentaries, see what I can pull, and then probably arrange the information chronologically and then scatter it around as best fits the story.

I’ll keep you posted.

I’ll see you next week. I know it was an uneventful week, but so it goes sometimes, and it’s important to understand this too is part of the process. So I hope you enjoyed it, and I’ll see you next week.

Wha