Four Projects one idea

hi

This has been a unique writing experience. I wrote a short story that became a short film, but only one particular aspect of the story became a short film. The love story. The original short story was a haunted house story. The short film was just a love story, and the next short film was about the haunting again,n and now the feature script will be about the haunting again.

Each time it has evolved and has helped me structure the next piece of art in the line of different works. I wrote a script called The Twisted Mr. Bendy and let it sit for a couple of years before making a new feature-length out of the prior forty-page screenplay. Character name and plot were the same,e but everything else was new.

So let that be a lesson out there to any writers. You can totally let one work inspire other future works, ks and one idea can literally turn into four separate pieces. Where do we put the lens? That’s all I did for the short story and the short film, and suddenly, a short horror piece became a romantic piece instead.

Just because one work did not turn out the way you wanted does not mean it had no value. If you can take away how to improve it or help you in future projects, it was a win. Writers have to microfail. You will fail over and over, but you keep going. Macro failure is quitting. You do not want to macro fail. Writing is a process and is constantly evolving.

I am proud of the other work,s but even just two pages into the feature, re I understand the structure and feel the feature has better structure than the other prior works because I know where I am going now. I have added and subtracted characters when necessary,ary and it is all part of the process. Movies are heavily structured.

Even just my last draft, I didn’t set up the haunting prior. You must show us how these ghosts came to haunt the house; at least this was necessary in my script, and I am doing so in the current screenplay. Think about the Conjuring. Clocks stopped at 3:07. We don't learn that till later, but in the Amityville Horror,r we hear the time of death was 3,15 so we know why it is significant later on.

Why does my character weep? She was falsely accused of having an affair. When she returns as a ghost and weeps, we know why, and if it sounds like her, we know it is her just by hearing and not even seeing. And we can subvert expectations because now she could be crying cuz she was dead.

Another ghost in the story was a mimic. Maybe he is all the other spirits. who knows? I have structure,e and I have a road map to tell my story. Know your story and know your characters. What genre aI i telling, and what story am I telling? I knew I was telling a horror story,y but I cared more for the romantic subplot at first,t so I finished the horror story and told the romantic one afterward. The first Conjuring was romantic and scary, but James Wan knew the horror came first.t

Conjuring four made the horror suffer at the love story’s growth. Know the limits of the genre and write accordingly. Is this really the story and genre I want to focus on? Horror does not usually have a strong B plot because it takes away from the horror. Thank you.