The screenwriter's use of time


A common mistake of beginning screenwriters, especially those coming to the form from fiction, is an incorrect use of and management of time.

For example, consider the following scene:

INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT

Jane comes in and draws a bath. She steps into the tub. She gets 
comfortable, closes her eyes and enjoys a long soak.

The rhetoric of this scene is perfectly acceptable in fiction but completely unacceptable in screenwriting. This is because in a screenplay we are describing what happens on the screen. If we take the scene above literally, here is what happens:

Here is how a screenwriter would write this scene.

INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT

Jane comes into the bathroom. She turns on the water to fill the tub.

INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT - LATER

Jane is stretched out in the tub, her eyes closed.

See the difference? Fiction rhetoric is never appropriate in screenwriting. I've had students write "an hour later" in the middle of a scene, not realizing that they are telling the audience to sit watching for an hour!


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