Cat HicksSo here's one of the things I'm super interested in that's coming out of our recent pilot research with software teams: there's a big difference between "things that are hard, but we're good at solving them" and "things that are hard, in a way that absolutely kills our motivation."
John Brownlow@grimalkina some screenplays are jenga towers, where if you try to improve one bit -- a plot point or the motivation of a character, say -- it throws out another part. The problem is ridiculously overdetermined and you often can't tell if something will work unless you try it.
This is basically what people mean by 'development hell', where you end up making something different, not better.
@grimalkina A related problem is that once you've been working on something for multiple drafts, even the good parts bore you to tears, so you're tempted to start cutting or changing them, which causes even more problems. And you also become blind to completely obvious problems, like the fact that your protagonist is dislikeable. So you end up not solving problems that aren't the problem.
All of these can end up destroying your will to live!
@thejohnbrownlow ok I appreciate and relate to this a lot as I'm trying to teach myself to write better fiction.... SO true!!!
@grimalkina that's the writer's POV... I'm sure producers and develoment execs have their own versions...
@grimalkina another motivation killer is when you've identified a key problem with a script but the notes you're asked to implement to address it have no chance of fixing the problem AND will make other things worse. Multiply x10 when the thing you know you could do that *would* fix the issue is shot down without discussion.