by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The character of Ellen Ripley in the Alien franchise was originally written as a man. I find myself working on my first screenplay and in my mind, I’m using Star Wars as my guide for structure.
But as I really begin to get into the development of this story, I realize that following the Star Wars plot too closely just doesn’t make any sense for modern audiences. People have grown so accustomed to a tough as nails woman in stories that they might feel any variation from that in a story like I’m working on is rather quaint.
Having given it even more thought, the idea now is we will have a Hero like in Star Wars, but the context is different. Or, the spin on how our Boy Hero becomes a Man Hero is different than you might expect. If things work out the way I hope, the story will have a lot of heart.
It’s a real relief that I’ve figured out how to pivot what I know about developing a novel to doing the same with a screenplay. It really speeds up the process of getting myself to the point where I can start to attempt to get past the learning curve of Final Draft.
But my main focus is going to be on the four novels I’m working on. It’s just occasionally, I need to distract myself from working on the novels so I can look at them with fresh eyes.
