huxley

i 'm having trouble with something i'm trying to write. basicaly. did you ever watch a movie where a boy chases a girl around a tree.then they both stop and they have this cat and mouse game of he goes right but she goes left . then he goes left but she sees it and goes right . then their little game endeds up in a stalemate. (is there a special word for that game?)

how would i write that lean and clean. i 'm having a hard time.

it's for a screenplay.

aliceedelweiss

that sounds hard. But it its for a screen play, you could just say right out, "The boy and girl play cat-and-mouse hiding behind a tree, until it ends in a stalemate."

From what I know of scripts (I've done some reading up on how to write them, I started writing one, and have read several.) Something like that would work. You don't need to be very literal, and you could describe the actions in a simple manner. If it became a movie/play/musical/something the action would then be discussed with the director or who ever would be in charge with that stuff, probably.

But this is my guess.

__________________

FrankBlissett

I agree with Alice.

If for a novel (which yours isn't), let the reader fill in the details of something like that.

For a screenplay, it's even more important that you don't second-guess the director. Don't go into setting up camera angles or micro-managing action unless it's really essential to your "vision" of the work.

-Frank

__________________
"Sheepish Sentimentality" - 40 pages of verse from Michigan's north country

Kimba

Okay, first question is, do you really need to write the scene in that particular way? Generally, I tend to avoid cliches in my screenplays only because they've been done before and, no matter how hard I try, it just looks so ordinary and forced.

I'd like to reinforce what both aliceedelweiss and Frank said. If you absolutely have to write the scene that way, one thing to avoid is writing the action down. That is left up to the actors and director. Most times, the director would decide if that particular action is suitable for the film or not so. They may even omitted it altogether. *shrug*

My tutors have always told me to write a descriptive scene as dynamically as possible. I'd probably write something like "they have a little cat and mouse game around the tree" and leave it at that.

__________________
Kimba
==============================