The writing is all in the re-write… (File under screenwriting - part nine)

FROM OCTOBER 2007...

So you have finished another draft of your screenplay and you have received notes from your collaborators. This is where the real work begins. This is what separates the real writers from the rank amateurs. The re-writing process is grueling. It will takes weeks and sometimes months. You will change one scene which means you will have to change five others. You will agonize over one piece of dialogue, but realize that it doesn’t work because of the proceeding story ‘beat’ not because of the line itself.

In the following few days, I am going to try a new system myself. I am still in the process of formulating it - but sufficed to say this ’system’ is basically a series of key refinements that you might try deploying in 72 hours.

The ‘Second Chance System’ as I’m calling it, is a way to give a flawed script a second chance and hopefully take it from ‘zero to hero’ over a weekend. Simply put - if you start on Friday, by Monday afternoon you will have a new working draft.

The S-C-S is a three step process. You should stick to it closely and the more brutal you are on your text - the better it should work. I say SHOULD - because, as I described earlier, this system is still in its’ beta-test phase. If it works out well, I’m sure that I’ll be basing an entire book on it. Yeah - right. Only joking. Anyway, on to the system itself.

STEP ONE - MAKE SURE THE STRUCTURE IS SOUND
Do your opening scene and end of act turning points work? By this I mean, do your opening scenes set the tone and texture of the movie? Do they make sense? Do they fit? Do we know what kind of movie this is. Sounds silly, I know - but if this is a comedy - make sure that the opening is funny. If it’s a thriller - have us be thrilled as we read. Have us hanging on the edge of our seats.

To fix the opening scenes(if they’re not working) I suggest that you simplify. Take the beat, the style, the flavor and CUT IT DOWN. You probably have a great, smart ‘bit of business’ in there and the way to fix or find it is to REMOVE all extraneous stuff. Don’t have cluttered prose. Have simplicity. Have white space.

The same is true for your end of act turning points and your ride to the climax. Think of these beats on an emotional level. Do they make people feel? That’s the question to ask. Are we feeling the difficulty that the characters are in? Are we rooting for them? Do these beats have any emotional resonance? Again to find that resonance WE MUST SIMPLIFY. What is an image or a ‘bit of business’ that will end the act most powerfully and have us desperate to find out what happens next. Well, you probably have it. It’s probably there - just obscured by too much dialogue or description. Find the power of those turning points and present them as simply and viscerally as you can. Be genuine and honest - and at that point when you connect with the text emotionally - it’s fixed. It’s working. So, move onto step two…

STEP TWO - LOSE BEATS THAT DON’T WORK (AND COMBINE OTHERS THAT ARE TOO LONG)…
When you have spent a day on fixing your structure you are ready to spend a day on the beats of your story. This part is where you have to be perhaps most brutal. In your script, there will be fun beats that don’t quite work. Usually these beats don’t work because they’re meandering or not making the story progress. Don’t try to fix these extraneous beats - simply remove them. Yes. Hit delete. Make them go away. The same is true of beats that take three scenes. Can you combine these three scenes to communicate one beat - Yes! Of course you can. So put the three scenes into one scene in the most economic way you can. As you begin to remove beats and streamline others - something miraculous will happen. The story will take on underlying resonance that you didn’t see before. The cluttered scenes now fly by. It reads much faster. Much punchier. When you have removed ALL extraneous beats that slow the flow (or make it harder to read) - move onto step three… You’ll know this point. It’ll be late at night on day two. You’ll scroll through a much shorter, tighter script and you’ll start see where dialogue cues don’t work.

STEP THREE - MAKE YOUR DIALOGUE SPARKLE…
All well written scripts look rather similar. There are short descriptive passages that separate fast, percussive dialogue. There’s lots of white space, so your eye is drawn to the middle of the page and the dialogue. This is what you want to do on day three. It has two purposes. The first is fairly obvious and it’s in the title of this step. ‘Make your dialogue sparkle.’ How do we do that? We refine and we simplify - yes - but we work it like it’s Jazz. What I mean by this, is we make the dialogue a riff on the action and the beats. The dialogue is your off-beat. It’s purposes is to inform the action - NOT TO DESCRIBE IT. To fix dialogue in a scene, I suggest that you remove the first two lines and the last two lines. What does that mean? Well, you start after the characters have entered the room and you finish before they leave. It makes a dialogue scene seem more immediate and in some cases more jarring. That’s jarring in a good way. By removing openings and endings you shorten scenes, make them play faster AND GET TO THE HEART OF THE MATTER. In the end, dialogue is all about heart and emotion. It can be as simple as the phrase: ‘Oh my God’ when a character sees something marvelous or something horrific. It can be as complex as Hamlet’s soliloquy. But regardless of which - NEVER use THREE lines when ONE will do. Brevity and economy should be your watchwords here. Now polish that dialogue. Make it crisp. Make it shine. And make it look clean.

Yes - looking clean is the last part of the S-C-S. How the script looks is almost as important as how it reads. Go for white space where-ever you can. Remove all the ‘continueds’ and ‘cut tos’ unless they are absolutely necessary. Now proof read and spell check. And in 72 hours - you should have a new workable draft. Work fast. Respond emotionally. And if you get stuck, just make a note and come back to that sticking point when you have reached the end of that particular pass. In this process momentum and honesty is everything.