What do you look out for when editing?

[Death Bean]

I need to whittle down a script from 113 to 60 pages... I thought it was going all right at first, until I got round to actually formatting it (I get it all out before formatting - won't be doing that again) and putting dialogue under names, and that added ten pages...:cry:

I really need some pointers on what the classic signs of overwriting are - types of scenes I should cut out, any classic bits of useless dialogue I may not have realised I need to scrap, newbie errors, that sort of thing. I would have asked someone to go over it with me, maybe repaying them by offering to do the same for them one day, but I have chronic writerparanoia after having one of my short stories plaigiarised... *sigh* Or, as Kathy would say, *Aaaack!*

[ricetalks]

Well, this is a difficult thing to advise without seeing it. Everybody will edit it slightly differently but the basics should be the same. Here is what I look for when I am editing.

Can I delete a scene and not miss is? What is the function of any scene? Is it doing what it is meant to do? Can I boil down a whole scene to something that can be told with just pictures?

I view dialogue in a scene as bricks in a wall. Each line is a brick in the wall. Each brick should tie in and build the wall up. Each line has a subtext to it, and that subtext is its function within the drama. The brick, if you will. Are there sections within a scene where the dialogue doesn't progress the function of the scene forward but, rather than that, seems to "spin the wheels in the same spot".

Almost, without fail, every scene has these the first time you write them. A sure sign of this is when you cut three or four lines in a row and you don't miss them. The scene doesn't suffer.

I don't know exactly how to describe this, but editing your own material is like having a sixth sense. You have to take off your writer's hat and put on your editor's hat. It's like taking out the brain you wrote it with and putting in a different brain.

Re-read your material. Don't fall in love with it. Ask yourself, "Whatis it doing?"

[gophergrrrl]

Basically what I do is try to cut things that aren't vital to the storyline, scene set up, or character establishment. Look for scenes with overly-wordy but not necessary dialogue, or, dialogue that you can do without. Make sure that your scene descriptions aren't too wordy; they get onto me here for that!

Just re-read it a few times. Things that can be cut or condensed will start to stand out on the page once you've become really familiar with what you have written.

[ricetalks]

Also, with your dialogue, cut it down to as few words as possible. Sometimes you can cut a whole line down to one word. Give you brief example.

Are these air holes?

No. Those are waterholes.

Edit to:

Air holes?

Waterholes.

[stuckupmyownera]

I highly recommend Martha Alderson's book 'Blockbusters Plots, pure and simple'. To put it simply, she reckons every scene must have seven elements: Time & place, Character development/revelation, Goal, Action, Conflict, Emotional change and Thematic significance/symbolism. Whenever I rewrite I check my scenes for these seven. If a scene is missing more than one element, chances are it's a pretty weak scene.

Backstory and smalltalk are also hot targets, and it's often surprising how much you can whittle down descriptions - just changing a word or deleting an adjective here and there can lose lines - maybe even pages. Look out for repetition too, e.g. something happening, then a character telling another character what happened. There are all sorts of better ways round scenarios like this.

Good luck :)

[Maryn]

I don't know at what level you write, of course--nice to meetcha!--but the first scripts I see at another site tend to make the same sorts of mistakes which up their page counts.

They've got action lines that can be cut by 75% because they include info that isn't needed for the story to continue.

They've got unnecessary dialogue that doesn't move the story forward.

They've got scenes the writer loves, so he's convinced they move the story forward when they don't.

They include instructions on how to do their jobs to the actor, the hairdresser, the wardrobe people, the camera operators, the lighting guys, the director, and everybody else, except the caterer. Include this detail only when a reasonably bright person could not figure it out, or when it's necessary for the story to progress.

Deconstructing a screenplay is time consuming, but if you've already eliminated the sort of stuff I was talking about, that may be a good next step. Determine what each scene accomplishes, in a Big Picture way. ("Biff discovers the money" or "Annie gives birth to a monster.") Find another way to give the audience the same information.

It's a slow slog, but it can shorten and tighten with good results.

Maryn, screenwriting groupie

[Death Bean]

Thanks, everyone :) I sat down and slogged from 10.30pm till 3.30am last night, and I've got it down to... 98 pages! Woohoo! :D

Right now I'm figuring out how to cut through the dross at the beginning, find another way to get across that she went in the kitchen, took the money from her bag and put it in the cigar box, then got the jam out of the cupboard, saw the house pages, picked up the house pages, and left... I am really enjoying this, though, the more I read it the more I fall in love with the story (we had a major falling out and didn't talk for months after I finished the first draft) and want to make it as good and concise as possible :)

[nmstevens]

Thanks, everyone :) I sat down and slogged from 10.30pm till 3.30am last night, and I've got it down to... 98 pages! Woohoo! :D

Right now I'm figuring out how to cut through the dross at the beginning, find another way to get across that she went in the kitchen, took the money from her bag and put it in the cigar box, then got the jam out of the cupboard, saw the house pages, picked up the house pages, and left... I am really enjoying this, though, the more I read it the more I fall in love with the story (we had a major falling out and didn't talk for months after I finished the first draft) and want to make it as good and concise as possible :)


Here's the lowdown. While everything that people have told you is spot on, the fact is, if you need to cut on the scale that you're talking about -- from 113 pages down to 60. Or even from 98 pages down to 60 -- those kinds of strategies are almost certainly not going to be sufficient unless your script was extremely over-written to begin with.

We're talking about virtually cutting the script in half.

Now, I'm not exactly sure why you need a sixty page script, but I'm guessing you must have a good reason.

Whatever that reason is, if you want to get there from 98 pages, you really need to take a step further back -- that is, on some level you have put the cart before the horse.

You've been doing fine polishing work on individual scenes and sequences, when what you really need to be doing is structural work.

To get to the length you need you may very well have to re-think whole aspects of your story -- elliminate significant plot aspects, complications, sub-plots.

That is, in order to make a hundred page story work effectively at sixty pages, you have to tell a rather different story. A simpler story that works effectively and fully at sixty pages, as opposed to a squeezed, chopped down, stripped down story that's been shoe-horned into sixty pages.

So, you have to gird your loins (creatively speaking) and step back and start dealing with your story on a broader scale than you have been up to now. Figuratively, if not literally, at the treatment scale. How can this story -- if you were starting from scratch, be told effectively in just about a little more than half as many scenes?

Because, really -- that's about what you're going to have to do to bring it in at sixty pages. Line cuts and scene trims just won't hack it.

NMS

[Kristy101081]

you have to gird your loins


That's a new one! The mental image that brought to mind is going to give me nightmares. Thanks, so much! LOL.

[dpaterso]

Right now I'm figuring out how to cut through the dross at the beginning ... and want to make it as good and concise as possible
If this is for 60-minute Brit TV drama, try reducing your first and third acts to 5 minutes (quick intro, fast resolution and wrap-up) leaving 50 minutes for the second (build-up and complications). Just as a mental exercise, if nothing else. :)

That's a new one! The mental image that brought to mind is going to give me nightmares. Thanks, so much! LOL.
"gird your loins" is a traditional phrase meaning "prepare for action." Not to be confused with "gild your loins"

-Derek

[Death Bean]

dpaterso's right, it's the 60-min pilot for a Brit drama with 'series potential'. My Red Planet '08 attempt :)

So I need to 'murder my darlings'... darlings being complications & scenes, etc... I can do that. And also, a quick beginning, longer middle, and quick ending is good advice too. I had a shiver of self-loathing when I finished the first draft, looked back and realised that half an hour in, she still hadn't moved into the blimmin' house :P Thank you so much x

[Kristy101081]

"gird your loins" is a traditional phrase meaning "prepare for action." Not to be confused with "gild your loins"


Yes, I know what it means; however, I got stuck on gird. The image of binding one's loins with a belt is what popped into my head from the literal definition of the phrase. "gild your loins" doesn't have the same effect in my imagination as far as literal translations go.