"I think screenplays should be written with as much speed as possible -- and with even more deliberation."
--William Goldman, Adventures in the Screen Trade
Because writing is rewriting. Writing is REwriting.
A former student, Cindy Boucher, puts it perfectly: "I don't write well, but I'm getting better at rewriting all the time."
WRITING IS RE-WRITING. (See Cyber Film School column.)
This is true in all forms of writing, I believe, but it is especially true in such a collaborative form of writing as screenwriting. Consider this:
Let me elaborate. You write the draft of your screenplay. You rewrite it. Twice, four, five times. Finally it's ready to market.
You find a producer who wants to buy an option, who wants to put the script "into development." You have a meeting. And in the meeting you find out the changes that the producer wants you to make - which is to say, the rewriting isn't over, it's only begun but with two changes: the first, now you are getting paid to rewrite; and second, now you have a particular sensibility to satisfy. Now what the producer thinks about the script is more important than what you think about the script.
Let me share a personal experience to reinforce the point. Summer, 1998, I received a phone call from my agent telling me that an independent producer wanted to option my script, Between Heaven and Hell. The good news was that the producer had a track record; the bad news was that in a buyer's market, little upfront money was being offered. The agent suggested I sign the contract that was offered, and I did.
Between Heaven and Hell was a thriller about a 50-year-old English professor and William Blake scholar who gets a night with a call girl as a birthday present. He becomes obsessed with her, and she sets him up to take the fall for a scam she is involved in. However, he's a quick learner about the seamier side of life and reverses the tables on her in the end.
The first thing the producer wanted to do was to lower the age of the protagonist to 30s or even 20s. Well. By my way of thinking, this would change everything in very major ways. I couldn't imagine a younger protagonist portraying the naive, shy, aging scholar around which the whole story turned.
But that's what the producer wanted, and so I started a major rewrite. He also disliked the title. I changed it to Earthly Desires, which he loved.
I liked the new version of the script. The female antagonist, whom the producer did like, remained and so did the scam. But now the younger protagonist and antagonist ended up together - a dark love story embraced the thriller. I sent off the new script with high hopes.
The producer read it immediately and phoned me. He was shocked that I had made such major changes. Moreover, he didn't like this version better but worse. We had a long, serious phone chat.
And then a startling thing happened. For the first time, he told me what he really liked about the script and that was its similarity in feel to Pretty Woman. He wanted a love story between a guy and a prostitute! We talked some more, and I followed his lead to suggest that the same characters could be reshaped into a story closer to a romantic drama than to a thriller. Let's try that, he suggested.
So I changed the story again in a major way. No luck. The producer was not enthusiastic about the result. Meanwhile my agent, hearing of all these changes, asked to see the latest version. She hated it and told me so. Moreover, she called the producer and argued that our protagonist had to be fifty or the story wouldn't work. We won this argument when the producer's wife read the script and agreed with us.
Back to the drawing boards, but now with my original older, shy protagonist. We still needed a new ending. To make a long story short, several drafts later I ended up with a version retaining the protagonist - and also adding the romantic element, in that he still ends up with the young woman - and finally I had a draft that everybody liked, myself and the producer and my agent. I was close to the original concept, but with a better hook, a more driving narrative, and a new ending.
(Note: both complete scripts are included here -- access here.)
This is how convoluted and fascinating the process of rewriting a screenplay can become. It also can be quite frustrating. At times, the writer feels powerless because the screenwriter no longer has final say over his or her own material. That's why I say that screenwriting is not a pure "writer's form" but rather a collaborative story-telling form. If you need total artistic control over your material, the closest you can come is to become a filmmaker and even producer yourself, not just a screenwriter. Screenwriters in Hollywood have little power. (Reminds me of a joke.)
Don't take my word for it. Read two classic books in which screenwriters share their experience in this process, Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman [REF] and Monster by John Gregory Dunne [REF].
But we're ahead of the game. You haven't sold your script yet. You are still trying to write it. And this is the only time you're going to have a chance to get your screenplay the way you want it! Nurture this moment and enjoy the hell out of the rewriting process because, if you are lucky, everything is going to change down the road, and you won't be calling the shots any more.
(Well, there's an exception: if you plan to shoot your own movie. But even then, unless you also are the producer, which is to say you are putting up the money, you will have other sensibilities to cater to.)
Listen to what two successful screenwriters have to say about it.
Learning how to put the chainsaw to one's own work - work that you sweated blood over! - is not easy. But this is truly what will determine whether or not you have what it takes to become a professional screenwriter. You must, you simply must, understand that you are involved in a process and the most important part of that process is rewriting and perfecting your script. And more often than not, this is to move in the direction of greater clarity and greater rhetorical economy - in the direction where you need the chainsaw, not the bucket of glue.
This is not to say that nothing is added during the rewriting process because it is - scenes, details, all can be added to improve the focus and drive of the story. But from a rhetorical point of view, most writers use too many words, not too few, in their first draft.
For example, consider the following scene:
EXT. ATLANTIC OCEAN - NIGHT US Navy frigate in heavy seas with strong winds and copious snow falling. The ship's sails are raised and tightly tied. In the center of the ship is a single stack spewing thick black smoke. SHIP'S DECK SAILORS in heavy winter clothing scurry about tying down various equiptment and securing sail lines. Like clockwork, the massive ocean swells raise the ship high then dip it down to a sickening collision with the next wave. In unison, the sailors brace themselves for the next impact of water that explodes over the bow and washes violently across the deck. The experience of these sailors is clear by the grace of their movement and stone faces. A figure SHOUTING inaudible orders stands out from the rest in his erect, proud posture and casually holding onto a line that leads up to the mid mast. CAPTAIN JACOB MALONE is attentive to the work being done and the safety of his men. Captain Malone cups his mouth with his right hand as he shouts, but his voice can barely be heard. JACOB MALONE BOATSWAIN! Muster your men below, the deck is secure. Unexpectedly, a massive wave forty feet high rushes toward the ship's bow. Captain Malone sees a YOUNG SAILOR picking up his gear and who isn't aware of the oncoming wave.In the first place, this scene uses a format that was fashionable about a decade ago but is not considered correct today. But just as importantly, the prose style here is more verbose than it needs to be to tell the story effectively.
Consider this rewrite:
EXT. ATLANTIC OCEAN - NIGHT US Navy frigate in heavy seas with strong winds and copious snow falling. On deck, SAILORS in heavy winter clothing scurry about tying down various equiptment and securing sail lines. The massive ocean swells raise the ship high, then dip it down to violent collision with the next wave. A figure SHOUTING inaudible orders stands out from the rest. This is CAPTAIN JACOB MALONE. JACOB MALONE BOATSWAIN! Muster your men below, the deck is secure. Unexpectedly, a massive wave forty feet high rushes toward the ship's bow. Captain Malone sees a YOUNG SAILOR picking up his gear, clearly unaware of the oncoming wave.
The rewrite cuts the scene in length by half without losing anything important to the story. This is what I mean by "the economy of the scene."
I have put "the chainsaw is your friend" to memory. I also have written it on a little slip of paper that I've tacked on the wall in my work space. It's the best advice I ever gave myself.
Example: the rewriting of American Beauty.
Tree people have the danger of doing so much planning that the story is too pat. Remember, the urgency to know "what happens next?" must also lead to genuine surprises - and if everything is mapped out too carefully, too logically, the reader/viewer may be right in step with you and not be surprised at all.
So when you look at your script during rewriting, try to see what a forest person can be strong at, in writing scenes that are fresh and spontaneous, and transitions that are surprising and even daring.
The wonderful thing about rewriting is that you now face the story with a security blanket in place - the first draft itself. The process of writing a first draft is so fragile - and for tree people the "real" first draft is the creation of the paradigm chart and step outline - because you are creating something from nothing. You are playing God, creating the clay from which the earth will be formed.
But now the clay exists - and if you get interrupted, it's not going anywhere. So you can be more methodical and experimental now, no longer playing God but her righthand craftsman, the sculptor who is going to give this mound of clay some meaning and shape.
So try to come to the material from different angles.
Don't feel you must make changes just to fit the paradigm! Instead realize that the paradigm is a cultural preference for how stories are told and look for ways to beef up the major plot points in ways that give the story more movement, suspense and surprise.
I usually write wearing both hats in this manner:
You might say that I write as a forest person and rewrite as a tree person.
Reducing the script to a silent movie: this is a very fruitful exercise to do with your own script. Read it "visually," disregarding the dialogue itself and focusing on what you see on the screen of your mind's eye.
A warning: this is not to direct the film! And it is not an exercise resulting in the addition of camera angles to the script!
The purpose of this exercise is to trace the physical, visible action of your storyline and to find ways to strengthen it. Where your story works least as a "silent movie" are areas where you can look for ways to improve the visual communication of what is occurring, not in particular "directorial" ways but in the more general sweep of your story's action.
How can you say things visually that now require dialogue?
Italian director Lina Wertmuller (Swept Away, Seven Beauties) is someone else who does this exercise to good effect. Rick Schmidt describes it this way in his fine book, Feature Filmmaking At Used-Car Prices [REF]
"Italian director Lina Wertmuller ... takes a completed screenplay and rewrites every scene without any dialogue. She replaces her dialogue with visual storytelling, using images instead of words. Then she does a final draft of the script, a conglomerate of the most successful images she invented for the story (that replace dialogue now no longer necessary) and whatever dialogue must remain for the story line. In this way she insures that her films will be first and foremost visual experiences."
Movies are motion pictures - pictures in motion. You are writing a blueprint for a story that is going to be told by pictures in motion. Dialogue should support and reinforce that story and not the other way around.
An exercise before you rewrite.
Because you don't have time, in a 100-120 page script (that, removed of white space, would be reduced to 30-odd pages of prose), to waste a moment. Look particularly at:
You are a kind of poet now. You write with the same "less is more" economy. Only language is not your medium! The visual picture is your medium. Pictures in motion.
As you watch movies, study the incredible economy of the form. Even otherwise bad Hollywood movies often have good screen economy.
The more confidently you can reply yes, the better your script is likely to be.
But don't tell us that your hero has grown: show us. The kids in Jurassic Park, snuggled comfortably in the lap of the hero at the end of the movie, is a picture worth a thousand words.
Which is exactly what you're looking for: pictures worth a thousand words! So let us see that the hero has grown.
MORE.
One way to beef up your rhetoric is to make your prose verb-driven. Verbs are the action words, and in a screenplay adjectives and especially adverbs tend to be fillers. So pick up the thesaurus and find "power verbs" that will say a lot, especially a lot more than the passive motions verbs such as "he goes" and "he enters." If there is emotion in his entrance, write "he bounds into" or "he drags himself into." Let verbs add emotion to your story.
According to director George Huang (quoted in Big Deal):
"You've got to have such colorful prose that the words leap up. A lot of writers write to be entertaining. Other writers say, 'Screw that, I'll concentrate on what makes a movie.' You kind of have to do both. Think about the people who make the decisions. They're taking the script home for the weekend; they won't get to it till Sunday night at midnight. They're going to be sitting in bed, and if this thing doesn't absolutely rock and just jump at them from the page, they're asleep by page thirty....The spec script, especially, isn't so much a blueprint as it is a sales brochure." [REF]
Are there things that confuse you? Are you left hanging and unsatisfied?
How do you yourself feel after watching one of your favorite movies? That's the feeling to shoot for.
Now the particular feeling to leave the audience with depends, of course, on the kind of story you are writing. If the ending is a downer, you want to make sure the ride getting there was an exciting one, which in the end can become the movie's redeeming reward. Other stories will leave the audience with smiles on their faces, tears in their eyes, wonder in their hearts.
Is this a movie you would really like to see? If not, why are you writing it?
For God's sake, don't get sucked into the trap of writing a movie - for bucks, presumably - that you yourself would not want to see!
Try to leave the audience feeling the way you want to leave the theater.
In 2002, I wrote a short script called Blind Date for filmmaker Mariana Arevalo. Here is a discussion of the rewrites for that project. You also can view the completed film on the Internet at http://www.ibiblio.org/cdeemer/Video.htm.
I suggest rewriting section by section, dividing the screenplay into the same four files or modules in which you wrote it. If you need to, review each section of this course before you start rewriting, making sure all the bases are covered. Also, it's never too late to review basic skills.
Set yourself a writing schedule. Since the clay of the script now exists, and you are involved in the more rational act of reshaping something that is already on the page, you ought to be able to move more swiftly through the script than you did the first time through. Take the time it took you to write the script and cut it by half - this is your deadline for the first rewrite.
Start rewriting and stick to your schedule!
And when you're done, set the script aside for a few days, and then pick it up and repeat the rewriting process all over again.
Questions like these are asked of your script in a process called coverage. A studio reader or production company reader fills out a form after reading your script, answering questions like the ones above. They evaluate your script on a scorecard, reducing your creative energy into numbers. You get a final score and sometimes your fate is sealed with it. It's worse than grades.
5/99