Rewriting

The first draft is for you

Write the first draft fast and do not look back. Its only job is to exist. In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott makes the case that nearly all good writing starts as a bad first draft, and that the bad draft is how you reach the good one.

Then put it away for a few days. You need to come back as a reader, not as the person who remembers what each line was meant to do.

The table read

Gather a few friends, give each a part, and ask one person to read the action lines. You only listen. Do not act, explain or defend.

Mark where people laugh, where they lose their place and where the room goes flat. The script in your head and the script on the table are different, and the read shows you the second one.

Taking notes

When someone gives you a note, write it down and say thank you. Do not argue. You can decide later what to use.

Listen for the problem more than the solution. If three people stumble at the same scene, something is wrong there, even if each of them suggests a different fix. Linda Seger's Making a Good Script Great is a whole book on finding and repairing what is wrong in a draft.

Pass by pass

Do not try to fix everything at once. Make one pass for story: check that the want is clear, the middle rises and the ending answers the opening.

Make a second pass for scenes. Check that each one has a job, starts late, ends early and changes something. Cut or join the ones that do not.

Make a last pass for lines. Trim speeches, remove words the actors will not need, and tighten the action to what can be seen and heard.

Cutting

Cutting hurts, and it almost always helps. If a scene you love does not serve the story, save it in another file and take it out. A short film with no slack feels sure of itself.