Thank you for feedback, let's hope more people read and reply.
I hope it's just that I've never written a screenplay.
Well, I've never written one before, either.
I'm planning to send this blog link to two kinds of people: Tolkien fans and screenwriters. It'd be interesting to see what differences there will be in their feedback.
I'm not sure if the lack of stage directions (for lack of a better phrase) in the long, long monologues of characters is intended.
The long monologues are mostly by-the-book and were originally even longer. The opening narration alone was more than twice longer.
If I understand you correctly (just what do you mean by "stage directions"?) some would say I have too much. The general attitude among screenwriters seems to be "leave directing to directors unless it's ABSOLUTELY needed to highlight some bit of information". Here are a few quotes from (for example) Glen Berry:
You are not directing this movie and you cannot direct from your typewriter. Leave that to the actors and the director. They will only be annoyed at your interference in their job and, if they get over that enough to read your script, will ignore your emphasis anyway.
Many times, people throw these lines into the mix because they are trying to give the actors something to do on long, boring tracts of dialogue. Let the director and actors figure out when they look, where they look, what they are doing in the scene.
Leave the acting to the actors. Do not include parentheticals, notations on emotion or any actions that do not directly advance the plot.
Because this is my first draft and I'm more busy working out the logic of the adaptation (what to keep, what to cut, what to expand, etc) I have more "directions" than strictly needed. I'm writing the second chapter now and the part where Bilbo reads the letter (in a voiceover) has a parenthetical that says "quickly, representing a fast reading speed". Any professional screenwriter would probably kill me on the spot for doing that. It's like the ugliest parenthetical ever.
If you've read The Hobbit, I'd be most interested in knowing what you think about the "Gandalf's strategy" part of my reasons. The dwarves really pull a similar trick on both Bilbo and Beorn and it's something I wouldn't want to ignore. If possible, I'd want to end the script for the first film a bit before Beorn just to allow both scripts to start in a similar way with dwarves appearing in a prolonged sequence, highlighting this similarity. I'm not sure if I can time everything right for this to work, though.
Though I'm kind of swamped with things I have to read before university starts, but I'll definitely be able to spend some of my free time on the script, so I'm hoping to finally finish something without letting my ADHD get the better of me. Here's hoping this chapter-by-chapter process gets me motivated.
