Crafting Short Screenplays That Connect, 2nd Edition

14

Lena’s Spaghetti

By Rachel A. Witenstein

Introduction

Rachel Witenstein wrote Lena’s Spaghetti in my screenwriting class in 1994. The B.F.A. Thesis Script Committee (which chose up to five scripts to produce for thesis films every year) voted unanimously to produce Rachel’s screenplay.

I asked Rachel to describe the process of writing the script, and she said:

The “mail relationship” in Lena’s is an invention that came about through the process of trying to come up with an idea for your screenwriting class at F.S.U. My first idea had something to do with a plant shop run by an eccentric lady, I think, and I just kept flip-flopping characters and situations until it felt like something I wanted to write. If something wasn’t inspiring me, I ...