So our last MIAW went pretty poorly.  It went poorly because we pulled a genre that we weren’t interested in, that we didn’t know well, and that we didn’t like.  We fulfilled the terms of the experiment and wrote the damn thing, because we’re obstinate, but it wasn’t fun — and the script suffered for it.

After that whole fiasco, we decided we’d better vet the other genres more thoroughly, to make sure it didn’t happen again.  What we found were several that we really had no desire to write.  For instance, “psychological thriller” — it’s not a genre we like, and it’s not something we’re naturally drawn toward.  So what, basically, is the point of keeping it in the hat (cup)?   There wasn’t much of one, we concluded.  So that got taken out.

We ended up removing almost half of the original 15 genres, and replacing them with ones we liked and/or knew better — for instance, “psychological thriller” is out, “swashbuckler” is in(!!). It’s technically changing the terms of our initial experiment, but I think it’s a wise change — and we’re still committed to writing 12 movies in 12 months, with no preplanning or forethought.

Here’s our new and improved genre list:

1. Romantic Comedy
2. Middle-aged Romance
3. Period Romance
4. Teen Fantasy/Sci-fi
5. Action Comedy
6. Heist
7. Swashbuckler
8. One (Wo)Man Action
9. Buddy Comedy
10. Sci-fi
11. Creature Feature
12. Coming of Age
13. Adventure
14. Adaptation