90% There

Wednesday, May 21, 2008 | 10:59 PM

Stu here, and it's been a little more of Steve on the blog lately because I've been writing pretty much non-stop for the past week.

There's been a lot of notes coming down the pipe, and last week, as Steve mentioned, we had a large conference call. IFC let us know they wanted to bring on a writing resource because I was handling all seven episodes, and all of these notes, in a very short period of time.

Now, as a writer, hearing that someone wants to bring on a writing consultant usually doesn't go over so well. You wonder if your story is coming out wrong, or if someone is trying to change it by bringing another cook into the kitchen. Luckily, in this case, neither was true.

Ron Geiger came on, and he was a fantastic resource right from the start. He really got us to open up the idea of the series, not by impressing his own ideas, but by asking questions about what we wanted. Through those questions, he got me thinking about characters in new ways, and he suggested that we create specific moments at the start of each episode to help us get closer to who these people are. When you're writing a web series just a few minutes long, that's really important, and it was a great suggestion.

After brainstorming and throwing around more ideas with Ron, I spent the entire weekend revising the first half of the series and finishing off the second half. I shared the scripts with Ron and Steve (both were quite happy with them) and addressed a few of their notes...and then we turned them in to IFC.

This is when the writer gets nervous. You've received your first round of feedback, you've taken in some suggestions...but in the end, the execution is entirely on your shoulders.

Yesterday, the verdict arrived.

We had another call with the top brass from IFC at the end of the day. I was prepared - I had my notebook out, laptop and scripts open, and an open mind prepared for a lot of notes. Instead, we heard nothing but great things. Everyone was really happy with what had been accomplished over the weekend, and felt the scripts were 90% there. A couple last notes and thoughts came out, but it was a really good call. Now...I can see the finish line.

10% left. Time to bring this thing home.