Hi everyone, I am taking a writing workshop I will transform a song to a short script 5-15 pages long (look up : ) if you are lazy to loo it is about a guy who couldnt enjoy his young wild years and got a unhappy marriage. Well at the end he burns his house down while his wife and dog in it. Ups. But I am having some problems with plotting. So I was thinking of a different way to adapt it. Like this all happens and suddenly the protagonist dies in a car accident after 5 mins he burns his house down. The screen gets pixelated and says Game Over! it was just a simulation. And we see Troy and his 18 year old friends in a gameroom making a fuss about the game. Like, man even I couldnt bare to your wife just watching it blah blah. I wrote until here but I couldnt decide what to write next so waiting for your suggestions, any kind of critic is appreciated. One possibility might be : Troy plays game again and again but all ends up he killing his wife. And he kills his wife in real time maybe??? Okay sounds odd already... Thanks! Edit: typo
Revealing that your entire story was a dream/movie/game is a surefire way to piss all your readers off in one fell swoop. Just throwing that out there
Probably should have mentioned that this is one of my first trials... Will consider though. Thanks! But I reveal the game thing on the first page. Do you still think it is a big problem?
Yeah, like he said... don't use the dream device. I'd probably start by choosing another song, one that isn't so definite in its content. I'd probably go with a classic folk song, something gritty that can be interpreted in different ways.
Yes that would be the best but I have to go with this one. There is a second option with a guy who tries to forget his love pain through working hard in a cafe, like both of them have these elements you have to include if you want to adapt them to a screenplay... The choruses go like this. http://lyricstranslate.com/en/uykusuz-her-gece-sleepless-every-night.html#ixzz53jtiFYol Sleepless every night At this cold café I sometimes work all night through for days So that you can't come into my dreams Sleepless every night Tired to death Would I ever forget about you even if I get tired every night
I think this can work. The problem with stories that turn out to be dreams is that the reveal robs the reader of their investment in the reality and meaningfulness of the narrative. If it's signposted far enough in advance that they shouldn't, there's no problem, an example being the David Cronenberg film eXistenZ. What makes less sense to me is applying this approach to the sleazy realism of a Tom Waits song. The lyrics' perceived power (if perceived) lies in the events that happen to it's characters. Adding the dream/simulation aspect, whether in a reveal or signposted in advance, seems to jettison the attraction in adapting the story in the first place. If you want to do adapt Waits, surely setting your story in the more realistic world of losers, bums and barflies is a better way to capture what he's about.
I think OP's story is interesting as it is (MC plays game where he kills wife, then wakes up and kills her in real life). The idea that "it was a dream" endings are hated by readers seems exaggerated by critique groups simply because a lot of those appear in critique group writings and fail to impress. But then the real problem is that the stories "fail to impress", isn't it. I think it's much more reasonable to see if such ending works for the particular story in question. Yes, it worked in "eXistenZ", and people hated it in "Dallas" but if you ask me which season of Dallas that revelation happened in, I won't be able to tell you. Because I remember the trials and tribulations of the characters and I enjoyed watching them. So that little moment when they revealed it was all a dream seemed really insignificant. The overall result was alright. If you manage to create a story which the reader would remember as "alright" (at least!), then your story is a success. It's the whole package that matters. There are a lot of enjoyable stories with unsatisfactory endings. Nobody's perfect
