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Decades ago my friend Lenny happened to mention that he doesn’t discuss works in progress. The statement sounded impressive to me, very authorly, as I had a work in progress at the time and was pretty much broadcasting it all over town. I wanted to be cool about it, like Lenny.
Yet here I am about to talk about what writers sometimes casually refer to as a WIP. Should I use bullet points? Keep it simple?
~ It’s a novel
~ I have a title (I love my title!) but I’m not saying it.
~ It’s almost finished
~ The story takes place in Los Angeles. It’s contemporary, not in the 1930s like Chinatown, or the 50s like Sunset Boulevard, or the 20s like Babylon, and I probably didn’t need to mention those movies but those are all great directors.
~ To be more specific, it’s set in Hollywood. Btw Adaptation is a wonderful Hollywood movie (I’m dong it again) and so is The Player
~ The protagonist of my novel is a celebrated actor who doesn’t take any crap but isn’t getting any younger and her life is about to become extremely difficult
~ There’s a young script reader prone to anxiety attacks (for many years I supported myself reading screenplays for Universal, Warner Bros., Disney… but “all of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons,” etc ) She’s a fan of the celebrated actor (above) and dreams of writing a script for her
~ A studio executive has a passion project that links the above characters, and her troubles may or may not be exacerbated by a Münch painting that seems to be haunting her office
~ There is a cheating spouse, a crime, and two detectives from the LAPD, one of whom drinks Cheer wine
~ And that’s really all I can say here.
Sunset Boulevard (1950). dir. Billy Wilder