Wow. I just made it through one of those sections of the plot outline that was a single line, and even that line was hand-waving. (Seriously, it read “Block 5: montage of LURVE.”) It’s the part of most movies that doesn’t work at all if the actors don’t have chemistry and the director doesn’t have a soul, so there’s usually not a lot going on in the script.
Unless that script is The Princess Bride.
If you haven’t seen that film, go watch it now. Now. I’ll wait. Done? Okay. Compare the scene in the fire swamp with the scene at the beginning with the water jug. Which one makes you believe that these two people love each other? Which one makes you wonder if it’s going to be a kissing book? Exactly. What’s the difference? In the fire swamp, the actors have a steady stream of dialogue and actions they can hang their emotions on, and the director has a million places to insert a hand-holding here, a quick embrace there, a significant look.
I did not, in fact, write a scene like that. However, the scenes I wrote were a lot more like that than the water jug scenes, so I’m hoping the audience won’t have to take it on faith that these two cardboard cutouts really are meant for each other. That will come in handy in the next few scenes when I pit them against each other.
Word count so far: 6,965.
