Rewriting. Again.

I’ve got “something viral” according to my doctor. I’ve been throwing Tex Avery cartoons, “Whose Line Is It Anyway” and lots of drugs at the symptoms. Of course, the writing must go on. 🙂

So last night I printed the treatment out and took to it with a red pen. I discovered the last half just doesn’t gel at all. The developments and turns of the story seem kind of retrofitted, artificial, untrue… they read like ideas thrown at the wall, still. I haven’t hit that killer story flow yet where everything follows character, coheres nicely, feels believable and makes sense in and of itself.

And man does it have problems with tonal consistency. Ugh. It started as a sci-fi thriller and in trying to turn it into into a sci-fi comedy I ended up with a sci-fi comic drama. But I wanted a sci-fi comedy, damnit! Something piss-funny as we say in these parts. Heartwarming? Stuff heartwarming. I want funny. This halfway-there treatment will not stand.

I think I can see a path out of the story quagmire from here towards where I want to go though. It means carving away one of the sub-plots that isn’t pulling its weight, shifting the events of the story around, tweaking the characters just a leetle bit to make the sparks fly a little bit more naturally.. but that’s what it’ll take.

Now to lie down and watch all these characters in action on the back of my eyelids for a bit.