Here’s my situation…
Guy #1 wants information from Guy #2, who is hesitant to give up the goods. Guy #1 gets aggressive, roughs up Guy #2, threatens to get really nasty, and gets what he wants.
…by the way, all of this takes place in a shady dive bar full of lowlives.
See any problems? Neither do I. Let’s go with it. Now, where’s my million dollars?
[Crickets]
See what I’m getting at here? I’ve got a wealth of integral story beats that I’m floundering to find an interesting, cliche-free way to illustrate.
The pivotal sequences are easy (well, not easy, but, you know what I mean). These are the inspired bits that I can see clear as day in my head. These were conceived in the very beginning, and they’re the collective reason I’m writing this script. They have something truly different and fresh to offer, and they’ll be the highlights of the piece. But, what about everything else?
We all know there’s no point in even firing up the word processor if you don’t have anything to say. Maybe if I have something truly personal and sincere to say with every scene, the quality can match those special aforementioned few. But is this possible? Can the “girl trying to seduce the guy before the pizza arrives” scene really be as deeply meaningful as the “girl realizes what she’s made of and destroys her abusive stepfather’s whole empire” scene? I’m not sure… gotta stew on this one for a while longer.
But for now…
Avoiding cliches is an easy thing to talk about about. Spotting and thrashing them in someone else’s work is child’s play. However, I’m finding that keeping them out of my own back yard is another story.
So, I’m currently at a read-through point (yippee!) and experimenting with ways to join points A and B in each scene by some method other than a straight line.
Once again, easy to talk about, tough to implement. It seems to have a lot to do with really putting the screws to my hero whenever possible, and doing everything I can to subvert expectation. In short, I’m trying to enact Murphy’s Law at every possible turn.
Maybe Guy #1 enters a shady dog kennel (the legitimate front of a multi-million-dollar drug trade), prepared to rough up Guy #2 for the info, then BANG! BANG! Guy #3 shows up and shoots them both, wounding #1 and killing #2 before he can talk.
Hmmm… An egregious, shopworn trope replaced by a slightly-less-egregious, shopworn trope. But, maybe we’re moving in the right direction.
What do you think? What techniques have you found useful to make every beat stand out and engage the reader? Let me know below!