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Progress happens step-by-step.

I’ve written a few songs. While some people may compose an entire song all at once, I tend to latch on to small fragments of the song, one at a time. For me, a song is built up one measure after another. The same is true of scripts.

I’ve heard the story that John Hughes wrote The Breakfast Club in just two days. Unbelievable!

While I find it inspiring that some writers can pump out a screenplay much faster than others, I’m a slow writer. I come up with one scene at a time. And it takes even longer for me to realize if those scenes actually belong in the movie.

Today, I’m happy to report that I think I’ve figured out the new B-Story for Bachata Becomes Her. It’s a love story. While it’s not your traditional love story, it seems to fit in well with the rest of the script.

Although I still need to flesh out the details, I’m very excited to see where this goes.

Step-by-step, we’re getting closer to making this movie happen!

While reviewing the initial draft of the screenplay, I realized that the existing B-Story did not fit in well with the rest of the movie.

I pulled out those scenes. When I read them together, it became obvious that they didn’t actually form a complete story. So, that was a second reason to remove them!

Sometimes, a movie gets better by removing scenes that don’t work. This is especially true during the writing phase. It remains true during the production and editing phases.

There is a quote by Howard Hawks that puts this into perspective. He says, “A good movie is three good scenes and no bad scenes.” I’m happy to get rid of bad scenes when I realize why they’re not working.

We still have more work to do on the script. As many people have noted, “Writing is rewriting.”

After several rounds of improvement, I look forward to having a table read, which should provide more feedback to make even more improvements.

So it goes!

Movie projects typically begin with one or more ideas.

Back in 2019, not long after discovering bachata, I wrote a short script (roughly 40 pages long) called Small Town Bachata. It wasn’t very good.

A lot has happened since then. We survived the Covid-19 pandemic, we worked on other movie projects, we learned a lot, and we had some great experiences.

Having said this, I never forgot about the Colorado bachata story I wanted to tell.

Because I grew up in a small town in Eastern Colorado, I wanted to keep that idea in the story. When I was a kid, I dreamed of moving away and making big things happen. When I started learning bachata, I was impressed by the freedom I felt while dancing and the strength of the bachata community in Colorado.

To build on these ideas, I decided to expand the script into a full-length screenplay called Bachata Becomes Her.

Today, I completed the first draft.

Soon, other pre-production activities can ramp up.

This project is going to be quite the adventure!