Posted on 12/07/2003 7:01:44 AM PST by geedee
I need a disease where a dying female offspring requires a bone marrow transplant where a parent, preferably the father, is the ideal donor. Or some disease with a similar type procedure -- the key is the father MUST be able to donate what's required and remain conscious.
In my nearly-finished screenplay the father is the boogie man and the mother is the heroine and the father blackmails the mother to do as he wishes AND in return he promises to be the donor. I've found a gazillion "potentially fatal" diseases with "relatively" simple procedures required but most aren't geared towards the parents being the donors. And I haven't found one where the father is the ideal donor for a female child. So I decided if I could fine one where the parents were ideal donors then I could eliminate the mother for some valid reason and that would leave the father.
If it's believable, experimental diseases are okay. LOL.
Right now, I have the daughter dying of leukemia and the father supplying the bone marrow -- with the proviso that it has to be "experimentally" modified by genetic engineering. Kinda lame, huh?
Well . . . that's why I'm asking for your help! So if anyone can help this writer-wannabe -- it is a helluva story by the way -- I sure need it. This is all I need before I can call the screenplay complete and join the gazillion other dreamers pitching their naive ideas to a shark-dominated Hollyweird.
My heroine has DEFINITE conservative streak in her . . . so it's damn sure unique! LOL.
I agree whole-heartedly. Passion and perseverence gets one published, not ability.
I'm 50 years old. I had a college professor a hundred years ago tell me to write, edit, bleed, and sweat over a million words of finished product before I ever contemplated even trying to get something published. It's taken me 28 years to do so -- what with career and family obligations. With this screenplay, I complete my millionth word.
So now I get to try and peddle it along with two completed novels while finishing up nine semi-completed novels. Luckily, my rich and best friend has traveled every step of the way with me. She's just as passionate about the project as I. One needs a champion in your corner now and then and we're going to try to swing the movie-making on our own.
Hang in there. If us conservatives keep kicking at the door, the damn thing has to give way eventually.
What was the name of the movie with Kevin Bacon, a s a screen writer, made back in the late 80s, early 90s ? "She's having my baby", I think . . . a great movie.
I'm pretty sure the bone marrow donor does not have to lose consciousness to donate. On the other hand, he does not have to be physically present alongside the recipient either. I don't think they remove that much marrow from the donor. They kill the recipient's marrow with radiation down to the last cell (or try to). Supporting the patient in a sterile environment, they implant the donor cells and give them plenty of time to "take" (reproduce, spread, and become established in the new body) before removing the patient from extreme isolation. If the donated cells don't take, the patient is toast, but he or she was out of choices already.
If I was one of your professors, I would have smacked you upside the head for that! ;-)
I remember a situation on, IIRC, "As the World Turns" where one of the characters was laid up for quite some time with locked bowels.
Tried to figure this one as a candidate for father-daughter symbiosis, but all that's done is give me the "locked open" feeling.
You need to spend some time at this web site.
01. A Foot in the Door. "The Warner Bros. Hallway Test" emphasizes the importance of concept. The concept you choose is the first test of your creative sensibilities, and is your calling card to Hollywood.
02. Strange Attractor. The biggest mistake most writers make is that they start writing with a mediocre concept. A new way to think about film concepts -- the strange attractor approach. Your idea must be more than just clear and simple, it must attract audiences and professionals to your project.
03. Beachcombing. Everyone in town is combing the beach for the next great idea, examining each tiny grain of sand. Meanwhile huge conch shells are just sitting there, obvious once somebody points them out. Techniques on how to come up with a salable film concept. How to know when you've got one.
04. Steal this Column. Registering your script with the Writer's Guild is a great idea. But the time to worry about losing your script is before you write it.
05. Death to Readers. Here's a checklist similar to what many studio readers use when assessing the quality of your screenplay. Does your script pass the test?
06. Crap-plus-One. Many writers are encouraged -- and inspired -- by bad films. But many of those projects began as good scripts, and went bad as a result of studio politics. The standards held to the first-time screenwriter are higher than it might seem. Better to be inspired by -- and aim to match -- the really good stuff. (04-00: rev.; originally "Inspiration")
07. 23 Steps to a Feature Film Sale. Writing advice I'd give my best friend. A plan of attack once you have your basic idea. The Disney animated feature approach. Much, perhaps even most, of the work happens before you write FADE IN. (09-00: rev.; tweaked)
08. Impressive Failure. Elevate your heroes by focusing on their failures. In RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, Indiana Jones, the greatest action hero of all time -- fails repeatedly. But he fails impressively. Another tool in your screenwriting arsenal.
09. Name-dropping. Believable, memorable, distinctive. You'd be surprised how much time you should take to get just the right name. Subliminal and symbolic meanings.
10. The Audience is Listening. Don't try to sell me a confused story that makes me feel bad about your characters, your outlook on life, you as an artist, and finally me as a viewer. Exert an artist's control over your material and the feelings it invokes.
11. The Wind-up & the Pitch. Use show and tell to take the focus off of you and put it on your story. Creating a new industry standard for pitching. But you feel silly walking around carrying a big cork bulletin board.
12. It's Been Done. Focus your plot by referencing it to one, or a combination of, Georges Polti's "The Thirty-six Dramatic Situations". That's all there are, 36, no more, no less. (See Archives for all 36 in HTML & plain text formats.)
13. The Big Finish. Endings must be decisive, set-up, inevitable -- and unexpected. And that's not easy to do.
14. Anthropic Principle. For believability, embed the origin of a story coincidence in the set-up that brings about the need for the coincidence. Set the initial conditions of your story, and let time do the rest.
15. Building the Bomb. Writing the adaptation of Robert Heinlein's THE PUPPET MASTERS -- what went horribly, horribly wrong. (Subtitle: "Q: When is a Space Ship Not a Space Ship? A: When It's a Brain Coral.")
16. Tinsel-speak. How can you take this town seriously? Look at how they talk! A not-too-serious glossary of insider terms.
17. Fudging. Formatting tricks of the trade, to manipulate the all important page count. For the obsessive-compulsive screenwriter. Or is that redundant?
18. Me & My Ampersand. My writing partner, Ted Elliott, writes an article on writing partners. No, we don't fight all the time. The art of ego-less arguing.
19. You, the Expert. Pretend that every agent in Hollywood has a brain aneurysm. The way they'd pick a doctor is the way they'll pick a screenwriter. They want an expert. Don't ask me if your script is good -- know enough to tell me that it's good. You be the expert.
20. Story Molecule. The strange world of subatomic story physics. Story elements do not exist in a vacuum; there's always who said it and how it was said. Exploring the true nature of the story molecule; the periodic table of story ideas.
21. Risk vs. Reward. Spec script or writing assignment? That delicate balance between money, risk, and creative control. Spec script sales torn from trade headlines. What are the odds?
22. Ink & Paint. The growing animation market. Is there such a thing as an animation spec? How animated features get started. And then the animation process takes over. Writing the deep-fly sacrificial draft.
23. Points for Style. "Write what you see." Force the reader's mind's eye to see your direction. Shane Blackisms. Don't embed needed information in prose. The Left-hand Line Technique. 14 specialized words you need to know.
24. Title Search. A project isn't real until it has a title. Titles to avoid: 'PERFECT, the Legend of.' Don't help the reviewers along. Saying the title in the story. Lamenting the loss of the literary title.
25. Hard Bargain. What to ask for when the bidding war happens. (May you have such troubles.) (02-00: rev.)
26. Your First Contract. People breaking in want to see real stuff, not someone's diluted re-cap of their interpretation of events. Hard evidence, please. So here's an actual film contract. (See Archives for sample contract in HTML & plain text formats.)
27. Adaptive Behavior. The shoulders of giants. Above all you must make a good film. A perfect adaptation re-creates the emotions of the reading experience in the form of a film experience.
28. Pencil Test. Writing for animation, a multiple-choice quiz. Sympathize with the plight of the storyboard artists and animators, and maybe they won't want to string you up from the nearest tree. (09-00: rev.; updated)
29. Deep Thoughts. Write about something. Jeffrey Katzenberg: "Show the positive theme by demonstrating the negative viewpoint." A collection of personal thoughts to inspire. (01-99: rev.)
30. The Task. You might not know it, but your story does -- you need a task. Plotting's dirty little secret. Invent the task, or it will invent itself. It all comes down to that thing which has to be filmed.
31. A Hot Script. Use unique details to make sex scenes memorable. A real-life fictionalized example.
32. Plot Devices. Wang theory. Clone Wars. Don't cut the last thing for a character. Subplot reveals theme. Don't internalize the story, externalize it. Play the beats. Reversals. Sixty two-minute scenes. Three great scenes, no bad ones. Story vs. plot, how you tell it vs. what happens. The MacGuffin. (Co-written with Ted Elliott.)
33. I Love LA So, do you have to live in Los Angeles to be a screenwriter? Yes and no. Or, more precisely... no and yes.
34. Throw in the Towel. Not all people are going to make it. And you probably won't. The qualities that people who make it have: passion, history, care for the moment, objectivity. Give up before you waste any more time.
35. Hacking Through the Underbrush. Ted Elliott weighs in on a weighty issue -- social responsibility. How do I offend thee? Let me count the ways.
36. We're Not Worthy. Meeting your heroes. What I learned from Spielberg, De Bont, McTiernan, Parkes, Rodriguez, Avery, Sonnenfeld, Hanks, Jones, Musker, Clements, Williams. Etc.
37. Proper Treatment. The ultimate no-win situation. No matter what you put in, they'll criticize what isn't there. And you don't even get paid. (Includes links to two outlines & one treatment.)
38. Breaking the Ice. The query letter. Getting to the second date. Twenty common mistakes from the slushpile. Three real query examples: the good, the bad and the ugly. (Includes links to three query letters.)
39. Cover Me. Real examples of studio coverages. Step-by-step, the making of a big summer movie deal; how we got one writer over the wall. (Includes links to five coverages.)
40. The Off-Screen Movie. Building momentum into your story. Reversals, exposition, and creating a compelling world. How to write a boring script. (Co-written with Ted Elliott.)
41. Point of View. The more limited the POV, the more elegant and effective the story. One of the key considerations in the initial stages of story design. Easily overlooked, yet a crucial aspect of storytelling; an advanced technique of great concern to pro writers and directors, even if nobody really understands it.
42. Mental Real Estate. Exploring the unique power of the familiar. Known items and situations give the storyteller power, granting access to the audience's mind. And it might even help get the studio to commit to a green light. An explanation offered for sequels, stars, trailers, remakes, franchises, and the popularity of "Harry Potter."
43. Problem Solved. What's more important, talent or hard work? A group of MIT professors explore the question in excruciating detail and provide a very precise answer. Along the way a third crucial element emerges.
44. Never Wait. Writers are naturally patient. Writers are naturally hopeful. That can be deadly to a Hollywood career. Don't allow yourself to wait for anything, ever. Take responsibility for making things happen. The proper mindset of a writer: you're too busy doing stuff to wait for anything, anyone, anytime. Excerpts from Carlos Castaneda and Robert Heinlein.
45. The Storyteller Cut. An argument is made that at the most basic level there are two ways to cut from one scene to the next, and two ways to organize the scenes of your film: Storyline cuts and Storyteller cuts. One of them makes sense and is relatively easy; the other will drive you nuts
You're making an assumption on something that, honestly, you know nothing about. This thread was about finding a disease that would work within my story. You assume that's what the story is about. I didn't say that nor is that what my story's about. It's a small, small part of the story.
ET's main priority was getting back home, to "phone home." But the story wasn't about some extra-terrestrial feeding at AT&T's trough.
But I do appreciate the web site referral and I'll check it out. Any story, even those "Disease-of-the-Week," "Made-for-TV" varieties can always use some more work.
Yikes! LOL. I know what you mean. I hired my old college professor two years ago to be my "in-house" editor. He's a savage bastard. LOL. But he's edited work for top-of-the-line novelists so one must listen to him. Besides, I'm paying the old codger and if I'm not going to listen to him . . . why in the heck did I hire him in the first place?
My fingers are crossed but he's given me two kudos in the 28 years I've known him . . . for this screenplay and for a novel I just re-finished for the fourth time this year that he's shopping for me now.
He's really an intriguing old fella. Like you, he believes more in talent and ability than I do. He says he's just like a "piano bar" player who took all the courses, went to all the right schools, and bled to the bone to be a concert pianist but he just doesn't have whatever "it" is to be a concert pianist. He says he can recognize talent and marketable projects, he just can't write himself.
Now THAT must be frustrating.
LOL. I'm not wealthy, but I did retire two years ago when I was 48 and, yes, that's all I do is write.
I've always known I wanted to be a writer. Always. And I planned accordingly. I meticulously planned every detail . . . I didn't just say, "Hey, I want to be a writer one day." I planned everything. I scheduled my days around writing.
Like you, for the first thirty years -- I started working on my first novel when I was 18 -- I worked on it as I could. I minored in English Lit at college. I took seminars at night and on weekends. I went to writers' retreats. I went to editor/agent seminars. I took almost every course Writer's Digest offers. I took other correspondence courses. I hired editors and reviewers every five years to critique my progress. I stayed in contact with my old college professor . . . and he kept me on the straight and narrow. Hell, I know him so well I was Best Man at his son's wedding. LOL.
But, most importantly, don't forget . . . I've published SQUAT . . . NADA.
All I have is a plan. Plans don't get novels published or screenplays made into movies. I feel pretty good about my chances . . . but the odds are still probably no better than, oh say, one in five that I get my screenplay made into a movie -- even spending every dime I have -- and I probably only have a 5% chance of getting a novel published. But I'm 100% certain that I'll be a successful novelist and movie producer/screenwriter.
That's why it's called dreaming.
Writers don't write because they want to. Writers write because they have to. Something happened three months ago where I couldn't write all day . . . and I got physically ill. It was like I was having withdrawal pains.
Am I obsessed with it? Probably. But I assure you, even without having read ANY of your efforts, I'm not any better at writing than you are. If I'm ever successful, it'll be because I was lucky.
But I've also found that the degree of luck one has is directly proportional to how hard one works. If you keep working at it, if you believe . . . TRULY BELIEVE . . . and don't let anyone take your dreams from you, YOU WILL BE SUCCESSFUL.
Maybe you need to kick your agent in the ass. Maybe you need to peddle your wares yourself. I know, I know . . . every How To book and every Experienced person in the publishing world says you must have an agent. I say they're full of cacca. I say no one can be a better advocate for me than me. That's why I'm willing to spend my life-savings on my screenplay. Because I believe in me.
A writer-friend had the same kinds of problems you're having with her agent. I told her my philosophy about it. Nora Somebody . . . I never can remember her name, Roberts? maybe . . . anyway, some author who wrote a similar genre as my friend was signing books near her home. My friend waited until the book signing was over and approached the author. I told her . . . "Just give her one page of your novel, not the whole damn thing. Just one page." She did, saying, "Please read just this one page. I'm a good writer now. But I can do better with some professional help. If you like the first page, would you read the first chapter? And if you like the first chapter, would you . . ."
The results? Sadly, I can't give you the complete results now. But her ENTIRE manuscript is currently being read by acquisisition editors at FOUR MAJOR NEW YAWK PUBLISHERS! She's fired her agent.
You're your best salesman. I've read enough of your stuff on FR to know you've got the gorilla juice to do it. SO DO IT! DON'T TALK ABOUT IT! DO IT! I don't know where you live in Tennessee but you have to be close to some big city where an author will be. Or there has to be some major acquisition center around you somewhere. If you can't take off work on Mondays thru Fridays, go on a Saturday. Sell your work! Sell yourself! Don't feel sorry for yourself! Do it! Do it!
Hell, I'll even go with you if you'll come to God's Country . . . Texas. I'm a shameless jackass. If I believe in your work, I know damn well I can get someone to read it who has the ability to get it published.
You're a good FReeper. You've been kind to me on this thread and several others. You can do it. I know you can. Get your back bowed up. Do it!
I'm sorry if I got revved up . . . but I'm passionate as hell about writing and the shaft most writers get. Check the jackets of new novels. I know this is a generality I shouldn't make but, hell, I'm shameless, remember? I read the jackets and the pedigrees of the authors and the first thing I think about is inbreeding. This writer is either a relative of that writer . . . or knows that writer's great aunt . . . or is Jesse Jackson's illegitimate and gay son . . . or . . . This crap goes on continuously and forever and I get so pissed off because I know several . . . hell, hundreds of talented writers who can't even get their stuff read.
And it's even worse if you have a conservative bend to your writing . . . and they're not politically-based.
So please forgive my preaching and the length of this reply. I'm a shameless, passionate jackass.
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