As you know, I am working on a six-month screenwriting course online, with short (24-hour) inexorable deadlines. It seems to have taken over my life and my time and I have missed my daily blog frequently because I have been too caught up in thinking and writing - not a bad thing but I'm behind in my general thinking and response to my life.

But an assignment this week caused me more than my usual angst and mediation. Are you ready? Brace yourself. In order to put more character into my dialogue I had to consider - nay, define - the following distinguishing characteristics in my (fictional) cast:

World View

Life Metaphor(s?)

Rules and Strategies

Justifications

Consideration of these areas will enable - empower - me to write more profound dialogue. Hell, I had to consider my own World View first, and deal with my Life Metaphor. I had a lot to think about when I swam. It shook me. Not only did I confront my own World View and LIfe Metaphor, I analyzed my (late) husband's and learned more about him than I knew. Well, I knew it, but I hadn't recognized it as such. I also went on to consider the legacy he passed on to our elder son. I have some more work to do there. Writing, I mean (not for the course, but for me and my son).

In the meantime, I had this new scene to write. I didn't write it. Instead, I rewrote an existing scene, one I had already written, with, obviously, inadequate thinking on my part.

This is turning out to be psychoanalysis.