One challenge I have come up against in the past few days is balance and getting the right quantities of backstory and present story in the screenplay. In the first draft for some reason I thought that everyone knew my head. So the reader would instantly know the backstory of each character. In the first draft Ed had a discussion with one of Jen's brothers, however this was the first appearance of her family in the screenplay and I assumed that everybody knew the backstory and why they were estranged. So I ended up writing a strong scene explaining what had gone on before.
The problem I’ve got now is making sure that there is a limit of how much backstory there is, before it overtakes the present day story. And also how you display it, which has proved tricky. For me there seems to be only one way that backstory can be shown and that’s through a flashback. (If anyone has any other ways please let me know.)
With Coops’ initial feedback (of getting rid of the Halla and Olly plotline) I reduced the number of main characters from 6 to 4, and this has proved a little troublesome sometimes when it comes to balancing each couples’ plots, and making sure there is equal distribution of each couple’s plot so it doesn’t side with one couple. This factor in particular is a continuing problem. However maybe once I’ve written all the scenes, it might be easier to play around with the order. When there were 3 couples in the screenplay, I’d always use the third couple as a way of balancing the distribution of the other 2 couples plots.
When it comes to character development, with adding extra backstory scenes, the characters have developed in different ways. With Jake and Sydney, their struggles are from the offset physical and happen around halfway through the film (currently) and with Ed and Jen, their struggles are more emotional and are established at the start of the film. I like the contrast in how each couple have different types of struggles, and when I started writing the screenplay this wasn’t initially how each couple would be. So I like how each character is growing and developing from what I first came up with.
In summary what I’ve found this rewrite is it reminds me a lot of baking and getting the right quantity of ingredients in the mix. You need just enough backstory to make the story rise, but put too little and the screenplay falls to flat. And it’s the same vice versa, put too little present day story and too much backstory and then your screenplay just wrote rise as it’s just not moving anywhere.
Over the next few days I’ve got one more important scene to write and then it’s just a case of seeing what scenes are still a decent standard from the first draft to include in the second draft, and make sure both plotlines with each couple are fully developed. I don’t want anything ending up half baked!
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