Gamers Recap

Off and on over the last decade, I’ve been outlining a screenplay concept called GAMERS. When I started writing, I even did a series of blog entries covering the process. (It’s easier to write about writing than to do the actual writing, of course.) I’m getting back into this project, so consider this a recap of Gamers writing ephemera from the last several years. This is mostly for me to keep track of where I’ve been and where I’m going, but feel free to read along at home.

Post-apocolyptic Prologue December 2010

I decided a great opeing would be for Jess to be wrapped in protective clothing, pursuing the antagonist through a burnt-out city. Then we’d flashback to “Three Weeks Earlier” to see her in normal settings. The idea would be that something has happened to the world — or another world — and Jess will be a changed person by that point in the story.

Slush Notes June 2011

This is me trying to lock down the mechanics of the cross-dimensional game, the nature of the story’s external conflict, and the nature of the multiverse.

Loglines May 2012

Writing a logline can be a great way of focusing on what your story is. I was taking a cue from Chris Soth’s method: your logline should have your protagonist, an action verb, an antagonist, and the world in which the film takes place.

Handwritten Notes August 2014

Here’s where I started to wonder if Jessica should be a journalist or something more related to quantum physics.

Gamers two page treatment 2016 V4

At Rochester Writers Workshop meetings, my friend Wayne told us about Lew Hunter’s “two minute movie,” which is really another way of saying treatment. You should be able to sum up your film in two pages: a paragraph for act one, a few for act two, and one more for act three. I found this this incredibly difficult to do, mostly because I don’t know what’s going on plot-wise in the second and third acts.

GAMERS two page treatment 2017 V6

Here’s a later version of the treatment, now with Jess as a graduate student in physics (theoretical or applied?) rather than a journalist.

Character Sketches 2016 – 2017 

Also inspired by Writers Workshop sessions, I tried my hand at writing backstories for the characters and the world in which dimensional travel became commonplace. Very difficult for me to get my head around. I feel more in my element when writing actual scenes.

Last Starfighter Analysis March 2018

One of my inspirations, structure-wise, is The Last Starfighter. The hero is stuck in place. He shows his skills (at a videogame) which opens up a new world to him. He refuses the call, goes back home, then discovers that the fate of his planet (galaxy?) depends on him getting his act together. That owes a lot to the Hero’s Journey, but the fact that he literally goes to other worlds got under my skin. So I went through the first act and took some notes.

Notes May 2018

Wayne had said something about crop circles being a possible artifact of dimensional travel, which was fun to think about. How would that work, logistically? There’s a mention of Jess being motivated by the loss of her father, which I started thinking about when writing character sketches.

Crop Circle Prologue August 2018

In 2018 I bought a copy of Highland, a screenwriting program for the Mac. I generally like it, but I feel a little restricted in that I do most of my daily work on PC, not on my laptop. Anyway, here’s an alternate prologue I wrote, setting up Jess and her father’s relationship. What if he was making crop circles as a way of activating the dimensional beams? And he disappears or dies, leaving Jess to work on the same problem from a theoretical physics angle years later. Is this a new goal for Jess, to track down her father? That was the plot of the latest Tomb Raider movie, so that gives me pause.

Knight and Day January 2019

I revisited this movie, since I remember it having a similar relationship that I wanted for Jess and Trevor. Cameron Diaz gets swept up in Tom Cruise’s world of action and espionage. By the end, she’s the one saving HIM. It’s a great flick, but upon a rewatch I saw that Diaz is out of her element for much longer than I want for Jess. Her experience is mostly comedic as well.

Midnight Meat Train Analysis January 2019

Something made me decide to rewatch Midnight Meat Train, which I also remember liking a lot. The movie is about a photographer who gets in over his head when he investigates a series of murders which turn out to be supernatural in nature. The plot structure was much more in line with what I want for Gamers. So I took some notes. The murders can be replaced with “weird sci-fi event” and it could totally work.