How to Write a Script (Moksha is Raichu)
Do you want to know how to get better at writing scripts?
(1) Be very bad (2) Ask for help (3) Try a different tactic (4) Repeat steps 1-3 forever.
I learned to write by first writing MANY bad things, and then making people read them ALL THE TIME. In classes, in table reads I organized… And hearing your stuff out loud is HARD: people don’t laugh. You see you have too much stage direction. You realize your protagonist is a diluted version of you who never makes choices.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot with my movie. This was my first feature! And when I wrote the first draft, it had a lot of sketch comedy-type jokes, because in my mind, I wrote it for myself to act in and that cartoony vibe is my voice. But after taking it through multiple reads and hearing very few laughs, it was obvious that my voice needed to evolve.
And that was SCARY. I thought: “Does my voice not work for movies? This voice is the voice I’ve written in forever, it’s how I know how to write for myself. How do I change it, and if I do, would the script still be me?”
But I also thought: “Just save multiple versions of the script — because I can always fail and delete and redo.”
So I tried it. I tried making the script more serious (EEK), making the characters more grounded (EW), digging DEEP about my cultural cognitive dissonance (AH!)… And when I did, I think I unlocked the next evolution of my voice. My Raichu voice.
While I was afraid to take out the cartoony, sketch comedy jokes, my Raichu voice definitely made the script better. It still makes me laugh, but ALSO is about grief, finding Hinduism CONFUSING, ofc Thatha (<3), how hard it is to make dosa, being bad at Tamil, and creating your own traditions. It’s an ode to my upbringing and my food and my culture. My Raichu voice is my voice breaking out of its own repetitive cycle and reaching moksha?! (Please don’t correct me on this, I need it.) And that is a rad feeling.
Have YOU had to switch gears on a project? Was it TERRIFYING?
More soon B-)
Rekha
*I had to initially name my Indian protagonist Tracy so that I didn’t accidentally make her a diluted version of me who doesn’t make choices, which I would have done if I had first given her an Indian name. That’s called “technique” babes!