Desire

I tried to write a screenplay tonight.  As happens to me sometimes, I was listening to some music and a scene popped in my head.

It was an odd scene.  A concert pianist intercutting with a breakup.  This girl was breaking up with the pianist, yet he was oddly detached.  The whole conversation was driven by her need to be honest and open that she was seeing someone else.  Meanwhile, he's staring at a similar conversation happening across the restaurant.  He was so detached.  So... empty.  (Even though I'm sure he was thinking quite a bit...)

As I kept writing, I just realized that this scene wasn't really going anywhere.  He was sitting there, angsty and pensive.  She was talking and about to make an excuse to go.  Really, even though he was the "main character" of this little scene, she was the most active one.  She had a desire: break up with this guy and get out of here.  What did he want?

A couple of thoughts arose from all this.

1. Wow.  This is angsty.  I kept wanting to follow the scene, but I realized that this pretty much falls into the "20something accidentally writing their own directionlessness into a script".  It's a proud tradition.  I'm lucky he wasn't a screenwriter.  

2. Man, is it important for characters to have desires.  This guy is getting tossed around by the scene.  When I stopped writing, the girl across the room had just bought him a drink so they could commiserate together.  So he goes from one woman's desire pushing him forward to another woman's desire pushing him forward.  How much more interesting could the scene be if he actually wanted something?  
Maybe he wanted his girl to leave him.  Maybe he saw it coming and is using apathy to try to hurt her.  

Maybe he just studies people.  The relationship and the breakup are all part of this detached, observer-artist personality he has.  This other girl buying him a drink is just a chance to observe another type of human.

Maybe he just wanted a chance to work in peace tonight.  The breakup will hit his semi-autistic, hyperfocused brain later.  Right now, he just wants her to be done breaking up with him so he can sit in the restaurant and be creative.  

3. Man, it's important to have desires in life.  Every time I start working on a character, I am reminded that I want to be my best character.  I want to want things badly enough to risk for them.  I want to pursue my dreams, whether they be every day (I'm going to fix this problem on Avid for this student.) or bigger (I want to be a professor of new media.).

It's only when we want something badly enough to risk for it that we stop being tossed around our life's story.

I think I might go at this little scene again tomorrow.  I kind of like writing this super detached artsy guy whose desires transcend what a normal person would respond to in a situation.  But one thing's for sure.  I'm not going to let him drift through, desireless.