Screenwriting : Today's Wish and Creative Tip by Laurie Ashbourne

Trash Stories As a rule of thumb, I stay out of peoples’ business. In fact, I love to point out when someone is being a ‘Gladys Kravitz.’ But (yes, there’s a but) – as I walk my dog every night I can’t help but notice what my neighbors put on the curb for the trash man. You can tell what kind of weekend someone had by what’s in the trash on Sunday night. New television boxes, empty cases of beer, broken fish tanks, barbecue grills melted beyond usability, paint cans, shoe boxes, cribs (old and new). My son and I have come up with the Leilani Heights soap opera simply based on things we see as the dog piddles. Do that for your characters. What’s in their trash at the beginning of your story compared to what they’ve gotten rid of by the end. Do they compact it all down OCD tight so the lid keeps it all hidden from view, or is it free flowing for everyone’s curious eyes? The more your character goes through the bigger the load come trash day in the third act. (They don’t actually have to take out the trash in your film, but sometimes it works really well across all genres). National Lampoon Christmas Vacation had the trash as a running thread, in a comedy that works great. But in a drama, it may just be one picture, or one torn up shower curtain with red spatters in the case of the horror. Today, throw something out that no longer serves you and makes space for something new.