On A Quest For Critique Partners: The Casual Ties of War and After The End (There Is No End)

    Howdy everyone!  It's Maggie again, your spideriest writeriest nerd dork, back on a quest for CPs.  After going over The Casual Ties of War three dozen times over the last year, I'd still like to get another few sets of eyes on it.  Plus I have a newer project, a screenplay by the title After The End (There Is No End), which I'd like to get some input on.

     The description of each project is below, so if you're at all interested in trading manuscripts, let me know!  Your project doesn't have to be a stage or screenplay, either--if you have a novel or a collection of poems or short stories you'd like a critique partner for, I'm down for that too.

     If you'd like to get in touch after reading the blurbs below, send me an email at TheSpiderWriter@gmail.com with a summary of the work you'd like critique on, and we can talk shop.  I hope to hear from you soon!


   

The Casual Ties of War:  A ~13k dramedy of errors about love, duty, and the costs of war.

     Delial does not fall in love with her superiors!  ... Except maybe just this once.  But Soro is so sweet and kind, and better with a blade than anyone Delial's ever met!  And, technically she's not Delial's superior, just a superior.  She's not even older than Delilal, she's younger by two years and then some.  So it's not as bad as when her sister or best friend do it.

     ... Unless Delial mistook Soro for someone she's not, and Soro lied about who she really is in order to feel like she was someone's equal for once.  I mean, that could be so dangerous!  Especially if Delial wasn't who Soro thought, either--and if the mission Delial's on is meant to culminate in the death of someone that Soro's pretending she isn't....

     In the long-running war between Terra and Forma, tundra kingdoms of the frozen north, there's a lot that's been lost, but these young women will soon find out that even in a time of perpetual war, in a place of perpetual frost, there's a lot still left to lose.

After The End (There Is No End):  A ~21k urban fantasy about reincarnation, intertwined fates, and promises long since broken.

     When a struggling voice actor shows up at new president-elect Noel Estavez's celebratory party, famous screenwriter Cassandra Spell recognizes him instantly as her brother from a past life.  The one that killed himself before they saw their mission through to the end.

     That mission?  To kill the White Witch, the enchantress that stole them from the heavens and placed them in human bodies, now going by the name Noel Estavez.

     Constellations-made-flesh Cassandra and Barnabas fall back into step as they track down Andrew and Celeste, the former Andromeda and Cetus constellations, and resume their efforts to destroy the White Witch and her new Starchildren before they manage to overrun the world.

    But the lies Cassandra's been telling to protect her siblings-cum-lovers (and her habit of tipping the bottle) have to catch up with her sometime.  Eventually their war can't be fought in the dark any longer.  In time, all stars must die.

     The question is, can they take the Witch with them?  Or will they be extinguished before their timer runs down?

Some Quick Tips For Writing Scripts

1.  1 Page=1 Minute

     When you write a script, whether for stage or podcast or screenplay or teleplay, the given rule is that one page of dialogue, properly spaced, will yield one minute of stage or screen time.  If there's a good deal of action going on, or the page is full of three-word quips it'll be longer or shorter of course, but generally speaking those instances tend to balance each other out.
     If it's a full page of monologing though, as is the case with something like an audio book or a one-man podcast, my experience is that it tends to be closer to three minutes per page.

2.  Keep An Eye on Length

     There's a reason vines are six seconds; that's the length of a vine.  Vines are like visual haikus, an artform built up around limitations and how to make the best of them.  If you're writing a script for a vine, it's probably only going to be a page long at the most.  If you're writing a short film, it could be two to ten pages long, and if you're writing a full out musical it's probably going to be at least nintey pages, if not more so.
     Know your genre, know your limitations.  Most of the time, people prefer scripts that are sixty-to-ninety minutes for full plays and movies, a hundred and twenty tops, and while I'm certainly not going to hold you to that a hundred percent of the time (Les Mis is like four hours long, The Sound of Music is three and a half, and the first play I ever wrote was a resounding five hundred pages long so I'm one to talk), it's good to keep in mind what you should probably be aiming for.

3.  Write It How It Makes Sense--Format Later

     Formatting with scripts frustrates me.  Primarily because no one uses the American formatting for their finished copies, it's all done with the UK style, yet we're expected to submit using American and--blagh!  Blargh, I say, blargh!
     Regardless, while you'll eventually get the hang of formatting, when you're starting out, write it how it makes sense to you.  As long as it flows smoothly, you can bother with the format when you go to submit it.

4.  Read Scripts

     Read a lot.  So many.  Drown in scripts. It's important that you read scripts to see how different playwrights work their magic, and it'll help you figure out what you want with your work.  Are you more of a modern minimalist?  An Arthur Miller expositionist?  A Shakespearean skelenator?  Somewhere in between?  All of the above?
     Reading scripts helps you know what kinds of things to put in the script, too--what works and what doesn't work.

5.  Read It Aloud

     This is important with all your writing, but ESPECIALLY with script writing.  For the love of all your Gods, read your words aloud, get a group of actors together if you can so they can play off each other.  More than with any other written piece, a script needs to flow, it needs to sound natural in the mouths of the speakers.  It can look beautiful on paper, but that won't do you any good once it's in the mouths of your actors.

     Now go forth, my burgeoning playwrights, and bring your dreams to life!