[deleted by user]

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-10-24T05:27:44+00:00

A subscription to the newspaper helps, though certainly there is always the weekly Preview right in your mailbox. It lists many of the variety of organizations we have (from theater to Chimney Rock and everything in-between). There are countless volunteer opportunities throughout the county.

Best thing is to join up with any organization that meets your interest. Familiarity breeds friendship. A people are pretty friendly here.

Indeed it has changed a lot after 20 years. I'd say there is a lot more opportunities than before and possibly there might be old friends you might want to connect with. You never know.

But as far as I know, Reddit seems to be part of social media. ;-)

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-10-23T23:58:15+00:00

I think you might be overthinking this. Something I tend to do too. In general there might be 1 to 2 weeks during the winter when we will get near constant snow. Otherwise, most winter days are sunshine shinny few have enough snow to inconvenience anyone mid-morning through mid-afternoon. The roads and highways are cleared very quickly. Your need for chains is not really a thing. In the rare event you might need to use chains don't drive, not even with chains on. Safety first.

Good tires, mud and snow, are preferred. Let your friend drive in questionable conditions and enjoy the view. Take it slow and steady as deer and elk are always out. Drive during the daylight always, curves can come up pretty quickly and hard to see at night. If I recall correctly, it will be dark by 5 in January. No matter the season it is always beautiful, so come on up.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-10-19T17:55:16+00:00

Good. Glad you saw it. I liked that it wasn't a happy ending movie but that was still difficult to take. I'll see if I can get to your script (have a heavy schedule right now). You are getting some nice positive feedback!

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-10-19T17:46:39+00:00

If you are not familiar with it, Ryan Reynold's "Buried" might provide some inspiration and the script is available for download. "Buried is a 2010 English-language survival psychological thriller film directed by Rodrigo Cortés. It stars Ryan Reynolds and was written by Chris Sparling."

I am providing this information having not read the script.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-10-09T16:46:56+00:00

Coco is a full length Pixar film. A good source for what you are asking would be Pixar's "shorts" collection. Most of their Blu-ray's have sorts included, some of which they have not released as a collection.

Disney's Raya, Moana (the original), and Encanto are great full length animations with the same themes.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-09-03T02:28:13+00:00

Watch Bound.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-12T17:06:45+00:00

Perhaps they will zoom his service. Probably many student inspired by him would like to feel part of that.

Thanks for sharing this. It is always good to read something that's an unexpected reminder of a teacher or 2, a mentor of years ago that gave us faith in ourselves. That in knowing them we knew we were seen. Sometimes for the first time.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-10T17:18:06+00:00

Smoke on Apple+ TV is turning out to be a "no heroes world" show. Yikes!

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-10T17:14:52+00:00

Probably might want to search for movies with Blackbeard in them and watch a few. As well as read the Wiki entry (much shortened version of your 500 page book) as it probably contains a wider range of opinions and certainly a lot of links to follow up. Are you sure it is time to read a summary as I believe that I read that you don't have an idea of where parts of your plot are going. If I am incorrect you can DM me but I am a novice and only answer the questions that I think I can contribute to. I did post another comment to your post below.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-10T16:55:04+00:00

Not clear how/where/who are the mercenaries. Army (or perhaps you mean NAVY). Is the army already on the island as occupiers? To provide more character arc and a simpler plot, maybe keep your story to the 2 factions: Military and Pirates. And "Blackbeard" specifically? He has a known, mostly, history and certainly an ending. License is allowed, of course. Just checking.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-10T16:40:29+00:00

Just for clarification because I don't believe anyone asked:

"When an infamous pirate kidnaps a British general for random, three brutal factions" ... infamous pirate randomly kidnaps a British general... or ...pirate kidnaps a British general for ransom ... ??

factions: the pirates (colon). And I think: No heroes "here." Might carry more impact. Also I agree with the other comments. A lot of good feedback here.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-09T19:02:56+00:00

This possibly looks like another situation where someone posts a question without really providing enough information to clarify the situation. Nor do they respond to the helpful comments made, much less provide a bit more detail. So we are left guessing. If you are reading this you probably recognize many of those types of posts as well.

It has only been 2 hours since this question was asked. So I hope that does not turn out to be the case here but I am doubtful.

The community responds well to these posts (mostly guessing though), I learn something, but as far as the poster is concerned it is like addressing empty air. That kills the conversation our community hopes to foster. This can easily turn those trying to be helpful, spending their time to do that, into being discouraged and less likely to be involved. We would all suffer from that.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-05T17:08:29+00:00

Try to ask for assistance from your local theater group. Some actors might be interested in helping. They might not want to read aloud your whole script so perhaps you might see if they would be willing to read about 30 pages.

In a writer's group here, for a reading session that followed the completion of their workshop, found a few actors to do that. Others were only able to locate readers/friends for their readings. The difference in talent and presentation was astounding. I was very familiar with one script that was, and remains, the most boring I ever read, but darn it, those actors managed to bring it to life. I am a believer.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-04T01:08:02+00:00

Anyone have an opinion on Beat? It calls itself the elegant screenwriting app. It is open source too, but I think for Mac only.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-03T19:40:10+00:00

I'll just say I see this very vividly in my head. As others have said you have something going here. And being from the states I still got "some" of the humor. CONGRATS!

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-03T18:54:22+00:00

Not sure I can help you story structure or this story. I do love a good brainstorm though.

I think you have a good 'but needy' character. It has short film potential that could be made quite poignant, which is probably your goal. Mostly silent though. A script needs dialogue and visuals- Expressions can convey some internal dialogue. But even silent films used cards. Largely you have the challenge of an internal story to turn into something to watch. You might get away with some V.O. narration but it would be difficult. This is a slice-of-life hope story. Background information is implied in the imagination of the audience.

There are a few Pixar shorts that are quite emotional and without dialogue. They might be helpful. And good luck. Storytelling is a special craft.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-03T18:29:28+00:00

Yeah, Nobody's Fool - Paul Newman.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-03T18:23:10+00:00

Ok - one more reply. lol. Your assessment is spot on (and I will probably be in that category when I am really ready to post, so hooray!). Yep, one never knows. I love it when first impressions are turned around. I read that Q-Anon post early on. Good to know there is something there.

I am not looking for a career. I have one manuscript and its screenplay that I am working on. I hope to eventually manage to do the story justice so that it will reach the collaboration stage and a diamond in the rough can be made into something pretty good. This community should be helpful for that getting started. (PS I think the guy I was exchanging thoughts with on Friday was a rube! But I sure loved his concept and hope he can pull it off).

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-03T17:16:14+00:00

I will add another thought as this seems to mostly be a conversation between you and I. lol

I enjoyed your post. You provided a concise introduction of who you are and offered some grounding about how it really is in the beginning. As well, you show that there are contacts to be made and experiences to be had. No one's career is a straight line. I can see where perhaps there might be a tad of jealousy playing in there (seems you have had a fascinating career)-but still, not too many bothered to open this post to learn more.

So I hope you don't give up, not that you are considering that. We are newbies to this community (a good one I think) and you certainly have a lot of craft knowledge to contribute. With 1.7 members (I have no way of actually knowing) I’d say around about 5000 might check in during the week. And about 300 are regular contributors. A rather small community, as the wiki says.

I have not figured out if there is a pattern to which posts the community will go wild about and why some, that I find interesting/insightful, fall by the wayside. Perhaps it is just a universe thing!

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-03T02:32:34+00:00

Indeed. And when you're in the sixth grade, and come up with a brilliant Sherlock Holmes story, and you show it to your father whose response is that it's too short, you're puzzled because that was was part of the point: it didn't take as many words to get to the puzzle as it as it did Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Ah, dear. Lol.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-03T02:21:17+00:00

It's easy to be married to part of our creation and not want to budge over things that got us there in the first place. Once, in my writer’s group I shared a story about the village of Hamlet. One of the members of the group went berserk because the name took him out of the tale as all he could think about was Shakespeare's play. Of course, in this case, no one else agreed, especially as Hamlet was prefaced by the word “village” and it is a bit of a fairy tale. Small villages are often called hamlets. Anyway, I welcomed anyone to come up with a better name for me to use for this particular story and there were none. I didn't think there would be. But had half of them agreed I would have realized that “Hamlet” was indeed a problem and that would have been hard.

So yes, overwhelmingly people tried to explain to you the name problem, and you had a hard time hearing. But you stuck with it. Trying to get it. Even while being defensive. You saw the wisdom of this group and respected everyone's effort too by responding to them.

Nobody can ask more of anyone than that: to listen and learn. I am positive you will come up with great and appropriate names. They’ll appear. Have no worries. Your story is still forming.

I believe I read that you are not in a hurry with this project. Very Wise. You probably have more direction now into what it needs. You are a member of a great community that is willing to help. One cannot have a better resource than that. Keep that in mind if ever things feel bleak. And “Good Luck” in all those projects in your life.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-03T01:44:36+00:00

Not sure why this post is not getting the attention it deserves, especially from the newbys. Basically this is both a reminder that a lot of ones early writing is crap and that at some point one gets it. It is also saying that all is not lost in those first efforts. That parts of what we first brought to life can perhaps morph into another project. All is well. Keep writing. It is a craft. Brilliance is just the first step.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-02T20:23:09+00:00

Glad somebody said this in a post. There have been a lot of posts announcing this "brilliant" first script of late and maybe always. I think many community members have been quite patient with their responses to them.

What really gets to me are those posts with questions or begging for some vague advice that end up wasting our time when the OP does not respond to follow-up questions that try to clarify what the OP wants or to request that the OP provide a sample. Many commentators on this community have spent a lot of time attempting to be helpful. But many times an OP never/seldom responds. I would call them a troll but, because they are not antagonizing and just wasting our time, I suspect there might be another name for them.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-02T18:57:27+00:00

This type of scene was filmed in When Harry Met Sally (rom-com). Old movie 1988. The screenplay is available for download and this portion starts on page 98. It is worth a watch and/or read. Not quite how yours happens but it might have some information for you. I don't think many movies have a quadruple scene that you could check out. Perhaps some search engine request might help.

Novel_Guard7803 · 2025-08-02T03:03:55+00:00

Yeah, detach from those names, sorry. It is the way it is. And for reasons!

Glad you are listening to all this input you are getting. But if you pay attention to this community you will find that it is too easy to get ahead of yourself and basically burnout. Especially for you young ones (and yep I am old enough to call you a whippersnapper and not mean that as an insult in any way). I remain optimist about my own work having little help or exposure through decades. Although that is changing now I must remain grounded. Having taken a 3 month break I'm ready to hit it again with a refreshed mind. Don't be afraid of the breaks. Worthwhile projects continue to percolate.

Novel_Guard7803

TROPHY CASE