Here's what it does . . . it keeps your script MOVING. Like it were a motion picture. (Did you see my emphasis on motion? Pretty cool, huh?) All that description . . . save it for your novel . . . or your feelings journal.
Okay, seems obvious, but give me some examples.
Let's take a look at William Monahan's The Departed. His Oscar will do the talking . . . .
First Example.
Here we get in late. No setup. Just slug line and action.
INT. A BOOKIE SHOP. DAY
MISTER FRENCH backhands a guy into a table of betting slips.
MISTER FRENCH
Where's your fucking license? I
don't see no fucking license.
BOOKIE
What license?
I love how there's no description of the Bookie Shop or the Bookie. I mean, what are you going to tell me about the Bookie Shop anyhow? It's dingy, crappy, makeshift, dirty. Yeah, guess what? I was already IMAGINING that. Be better than my own goddamn imagination, screenwriter. Otherwise, leave it out. And what are you going to tell me about the Bookie that I'm not imagining anyhow? Shifty, beady eyed, seedy, blah, blah, blah. I was imagining that, too.
Ask yourself this: Is your description of the Bookie Shop and Bookie MORE ESSENTIAL than keeping the pace rapid and the pages turning?
Second Example.
Watch how Monahan gets out in a hurry in this scene.
BOOKIE
There's no profit if I pay him two
grand a week. I'm in the hole if I
pay him two grand a week.
MISTER FRENCH
Then make more money or go out of
business. This is America. If you
don't make money you're a fucking
douchebag. What are you going to
do?
BOOKIE
Make more money.
MISTER FRENCH
That's the spirit.
EXT. THE STREET OUTSIDE THE BOOKIE SHOP. LATER
No action line at the end. It ends right off the dialogue. I LOVE IT!
Too many writers (including me) would make the mistake of trying to show the reaction of the Bookie. Mistake. What are you going to reveal that isn't already obvious? Any description would just slow up the reader with POINTLESS information.
Getting in late and getting out early may not seem like an essential component in a scene, but add that up over the course of 100+ pages and you've probably added 1 to 3 pages of details that unnecessarily slow the pace down, SEPARATING your script from the great ones.
Granted, there are also times that you need to slow the pace down, give the reader time to think, time to digest something. Layer in your description then. ON PURPOSE. Know exactly when you are affecting the pace of your script.
But if you continually get out late (or in early), you've likely wasted several pages of script by the end that you could have used to purposely slow the pace down . . . when you needed it slowed down. Or it's pages that you could have used to keep in one of your little darlings . . . maybe that nude scene that you wrote just for Jessica Alba or Andy Griffith.
Keep it rolling. Keep the pages turning. Sometimes it's effortless. Other times you have to put the reader on a roller coaster. In both examples above, the reader probably doesn't even realize the writer's technique. He just appreciates the whooosh of the pages turning.
Car chase on Cops. I gotta run.
screenwriting
7 comments:
That's at least the second time in the history of my blog that I've mentioned Andy Griffith in a nude scene.
What? How did your family watch Mayberry?
I was going to title this post: Grabbing the Reader by the Balls or Walls.
With "Walls" being a slick vagina reference.
I mean a slick reference to vagina.
Great post. In fact I love you and wanna have your babies.
Oh no, wait-- doing that with somebody else, so I'll put this article on THE LIST OF WONDER instead.
No harm in writing the full scenes in a first draft, just do the old In and Out cuts on your later drafts (no sexual reference intended)
That's the smartest shit I've read all day.
B2W: All right, input from a pro-reader. I'll have to check out THE LIST OF WONDER! And babies! I don't think there's enough babies IN this world, but my spouse said, wryly, that there is little we can do about.
MQ: most true. I consider that first draft only for the writer. No time to worry about subtext and things of that order.
In fact, is anyone up for doing a piece on scriptments? It seems that that David Anaxagoras once did a post on that.
RH: Long time no see, my friend. Hope all goes well.
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