is two guys collaborating to write on writing and collaboration.

Tuesday
Mar 21, 2006

Re:[2] Sequence Method Question posted by Martin

If, however you’re dealing with some Altman Short Cuts type shit, then you’ve got several stories on your hands, and you probably should chart out each one.

I don’t think my ambiguity is really serving any purpose here but to guard me from potential failure and looking foolish, and that’s not a very good reason. In fact, it might be more useful to myself and everybody if I reasoned this breakdown I’m doing out loud, since it’s the first I’ve attempted.

The movie I picked is: Blue Velvet (I just watched it again for the first time in quite a while). So, the questions of PONR come up in conjunction with protagonist Jeffrey Beaumont. Here are a few of the PONR I’ve identified: (it goes without saying, but we’re just the type to say things that might usually go without: SPOILERS AHEAD).

1. When he hides in Dorothy Vallen’s apartment (can’t go back then!). This relates to the plot thread of Jeffrey as detective and / or voyeur, which is his motivation for getting involved in what happens.
2. When Dorothy discovers him in his closet, and attempts to seduce (er, rape?) him at knife point.
3. When he witnesses the “ritualistic rape” (as it is often referred to) and first sees Frank. This relates to his emotional involvement and sexual attraction to Dorothy Vallens. He is pulled so far into the story that he won’t let himself back out.
4. When he is discovered with Dorothy by Frank. This PONR, like number 2, is completely out of his hands, so may actually be the one that stands the strongest in relation to the sequence method since it compels a lot of action and thrusts him into a very dangerous situation. But, it doesn’t really speak to the fact that he already was drawn in and completely absorbed. This event is actually a consequence of 1 and 2 and 3 combined, which pulled him back to her apartment when he probably should have just stayed away. Which leads me to (out of linear order)
5. Going back to Dorothy Vallens apartment of his own free will. Twice.

I guess one question can be: 1. Which of those five draws the action into the second act? That’s tricky, because I’m still deciding where the dividing line for the sequences are, especially during the long second act.

Obviously, this is very different than an Altman sort of many-threads-converging thing. It’s all one story, but very layered and nuanced, so the line is anything but direct. Any ideas?

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What is Spitball!?

Spitball! is two guys collaborating to write about writing and collaboration. We're writing partners who have worked together since 2000, and placed in the top 100 in the last Project Greenlight for our script YELLOW.

Currently, we are both working on multiple screenplay, short story, and novel ideas independently and together, and collaborate on this blog.

What Spitball! used to be

Spitball! started as an attempt to collaborate on a screenplay online in real time. From January 2006 to July 2007 we worked on an interactive process to decide the story we were going to make. A full postmortem is coming, but you can find the find all the posts by looking in the category Original Version.

During this period, we affected the personalities of two of the most famous spitball pitchers from the early 20th Century. Look at our brief bios for more info about this, and so as not to be confused as to who is talking when.

We rebooted the franchise in early 2009 in its current form.


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Kent M. Beeson

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Kent M. Beeson (aka Urban Shockah) is a stay-at-home dad and stay-at-home writer, living in Seattle, WA with his wife, 2 year old daughter and an insane cat. In 2007, he was a contributor to the film blog ScreenGrab, where he presciently suggested Jackie Earle Haley to play Rorschach in the Watchmen movie, and in 2008, he wrote a film column for the comic-book site ComiXology called The Watchman. (He's a big fan of the book, if you couldn't tell.) In 2009, he gave up the thrill of freelance writing to focus on screenplays and novels, although he sometimes posts to his blog This Can't End Well, which a continuation of his first blog, he loved him some movies. He's a Pisces, and his favorite movie of all time is Jaws. Coincidence? I think not.

Martin McClellan

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Martin (aka Burley Grymz) is a designer and writer. He occasionally blogs at his beloved Hellbox, and keeps a longer ostensibly more interesting bio over here at his eponymous website. You can also find him on Twitter.