Hi, I've been advised by a well-known writer/producer and coach, to trim my word count by a few thousand words. This is a hell of a challenge, especially because it is an adaptation of my book.
I have spent many hours over the last two weeks and I've only managed to trim my script down to 117 pages from 119 pages.
I also want to delete the script on here and download my latest work, but I'm blowed if I can find how to do this, so a helping hand please.
I hope everyone is keeping safe in these bad days of the plague.
Best,
Chris.
3 people like this
Hey Chris! Great to have you in the community. I am the Director of Script Services for Stage 32. You're always welcome to reach out to me at j.mirch@stage32.com to let me know where you're at in the process of your rewrite. We also have a number of industry professionals on our roster who work one-on-one with writers to hone their projects. You are always welcome to get their thoughts on how to trim. Drop me and email with the logline for the project and I will recommend some folks who can help.
2 people like this
Hi Christopher. Would you be interested in getting edit suggestions from a reader? I have experience reading for contests, providing suggestions to improve flow and tighten the narrative without changing the story. Reach out at patriciasemler@gmail.com
3 people like this
Hey, Christopher Chance. You can delete a script in the logline section of your page. Click the edit button, then go toward the bottom of the page. If you put your mouse over the pdf button, a trash can symbol will appear. You can upload new versions of your script.
4 people like this
Christopher Chance yes I feel your pain;
I spent a similar chunk of time cutting a script of mine down from about 140 to 130 and wanted to get it to 110 (also an adaptation of my novel),
my sense is that, depending on the material, sometimes polishing and grinding will only get us so far;
so I went ahead and selected an entire 15-page sequence to cut and just chopped those pages out, kind of leaves a lurching gap that obviously needed to be smoothed over but perhaps you might be able to identify a sequence somewhere in Act II that can be deleted and even makes the pace of the read faster;
at that point obviously you can save that material and talk about it with interested parties later on if you think it needs to be added back in?
just kind of a temporary fix but it did give me some new insight into story structure and also a good experiment in making tough editorial choices.
1 person likes this
Hi, Christopher.
I'm sure you're going to hear this several times, but odds are you're not making much progress in the editing because you don't want to kill your babies. There are scenes, phrases, action lines, even people that you are so attached to (because they're so good) that you find it hard to cut them. Well, you're gonna have to. Anything that does not have a direct connection to the spine of your story has to go.
It's hard. I know. We all hate it. But I'll tell you a few tricks that will help you work up to it.
1) Get rid of all your orphan lines. Those are the ones that have only one word (maybe two short ones) occupying an entire line. I guarantee you, there's a way to rephrase that particular sentence that gets rid of that extra line. If you can get rid of four orphan lines per page for 10 pages, you just reduced your page count by one. Do it 10 times... you can do the math.
(Of course, this also works on lines where you could just be more economical in phrasing.)
2) Go over every exchange of dialogue. Edit out (most) greetings and repetitions. Overt expressions of feelings can be 'shown' by character action - which takes up less space.
This has forced you to look at your script with fresh eyes, and kept your mind busy while it starts to recognize those little darlings you're about to kill.
3) Go ahead. Do it. Kill them.
Yes, you love them. They are proof of how good a writer you are. An audience would love them too...
But not in this story. They gotta go.
And if you're like most good writers, this is a minimum of three pages - excellently written, fantastically vivid - that you can and have to take out. Try not to be too sad. Mourn them, and then go make more great babies. But kill these.
4) If all else fails to get you down to that sweet spot page count for your genre, then use the last resort cheat (and I do mean last; no fair doing this first). Go to your page layout menu in your screenwriting software and click 'tight' formatting. If you write with a good amount of white space, going from 'normal' to 'tight' will reduce your page count by 4 pages or so. But again, it's a cheat. And it's not going to fool anyone if the script reads like you didn't put in the work everywhere else.
Hope this helps. Good luck.
1 person likes this
I am ever so grateful to Jason; Pat, Maurice, Daniel and Sheila for helping me and I will endeavor to implement your advice but I am going to take a few days away from Assassins Code One and return with fresh eyes. Thank you all so much. BTW, I have downloaded the complete script for anyone who is interested.
2 people like this
Stepping away and coming back with fresh eyes can help, Christopher Chance.