I’m writing something loosely based on Jared’s review of (500) Days of Summer. I’m thinking that the way into the character is to have him not be willing to give up that piece of himself that one must to make a relationship work.

I don’t remember where I read that, probably something on AVClub — that a meaningful connection to society involves a subtle, healthy death of the individual’s character. So what if you just didn’t? You’d end up in a series of relationships doomed to fail. “Tom” loves his anima, and is on a futile quest for her. He can’t give up the construct, the ideal.

But how do you illustrate a failure of character? He has to come close and miss his chance I suppose. A series of breakups to show his learning process and then a key breakup to show his lack of learning.

I was going to include some foils, some other guys — one that didn’t have an anima-seeking drive and another that just stuck to his dysfunctional relationship because he realizes the futility of throwing away a relationship with history for another with the same problems. I figure that might — might — be confusing the issue. They’re important to fully explore the problem space, but it’s a film not a fucking “for” loop. In any case, they’ll be good for soaking up time — I’ll write it so they can be shot or not depending on how things work out. Last time we got about ten seconds of footage for every team-hour of effort put in.

I’m trying to write more with a view to the whole shooting process. I find I’m a lot more creative with a tight budget. I want to shoot this thing mumblecore, around town, for around $10,000. Writing Hollywood features is difficult — I feel like I should have technical knowledge of explosives or gunfighting or something.

Okay, so there are my parameters — that’s basically my arc for the main dude: Show learning, show the failure thereof. He has to be offered the opportunity to change and then reject it.