Writing with Emoti(c)on

Emotions are at the heart of every screenplay. And every writer strives to take the audience on an emotional roller-coaster. But what about the writing process itself? As writers we agonize over creating unique characters, interesting plots and populating the script with some incredible moments. Does the scene hit the right beats? Is the dialogue good, bad or indifferent? Is this the right moment for the twist? Or should I stretch it out some more? For writers – as much as for their protagonists – it’s an emotional roller coaster.

When you’re writing with a partner – and specially one whose instincts you trust – the writing process is not as lonely or as fraught with doubt. It’s also great fun to have another person to share your excitement with.
For Caz and I, as the brainstorming takes place over Skype chats, we have discovered that the Skype emoticons are like friends who save us typing time and effort. We can effortlessly communicate our “emotions” by hitting the right emoticon.

When in doubt, hit the thinking button. When in agreement, go for the thumbs-up emotion. When we think it’s a hilarious moment, we are rolling-on-the-floor-laughing. And when it’s a scene well done, or when we have reached our target number of pages for ScriptFrenzy we celebrate with cocktails or by doing a ‘dance’. Even though secretly, being Indian, I do feel that another dance-emoticon needs to be added. One with a Bollywood-like flourish to it! The emoticons are also great to inspire each other and remind us of our goal… the clapper board, star and yes, how can we forget the $$$$$$ ?

We prefer to type on chat for our brainstorm sessions. Then afterwards, it’s so easy to just copy-paste the discussion for future reference. But of course, the video-chats are for times when we have completely worn out our fingers typing. But Skype, come on, we’re screenwriters, where is the emoticon?