The Writing Week (Vol. 5) part 238 - Reducing Page Count and Tentpole Scene Placement

Two weeks ago, our 30 Day Screenplay Challenge ended. I decided to work on my demon thriller for the month in question, despite the fact that I went into it with an incompletely revised outline. The end result, though, was a full draft of a script I probably would have still been putting off otherwise, so who can complain with that?


One of the very first things I do after I finish writing a draft is I reread the script from start to finish. Well... first I take a few days to a week off and enjoy being done. Then I print and read through the script. My finished scripts tend to come in somewhere between 95 and 105 pages. Drafts, much like this one did, come in about 10 pages more than that on average. When the Challenge was over, I had a 114 page draft to contend with. The page count didn't matter to me quite as much as the placement of key scenes did. 


For example, of 114 pages, my midpoint came in at 65. Frankly, that's 7 pages too late. A midpoint is often not one specific instant or line in a script, but rather a scene or even sequence that can be drawn out over 5 or more pages. I came to terms with the fact that my "midpoint" would not be an altercation between the antagonist and protagonist, but rather the event that immediately preceded and led to their fight. The fight concluded on page 69; the earlier event on 65. There was no way I could have 65 pages before the midpoint and only 49 after it. That would just be way too unbalanced. Also, the moment of despair (which Blake Snyder likes to say should come around page 75, and I now agree with him) - the low moment when everything that didn't crumble at the midpoint just comes crashing down, leaving the protagonist with little to nothing - hit on 80. My Act Two turn into Act Three was about on target at 92, but considering the fact that the inciting incident was not a traditional one and ran onto page 12, I knew that I needed to get those big beats in place. Standard format dictates the inciting incident should come on 10, Act One should end on 25 or 30, the midpoint should be on 60, the moment of despair is on 75, and the turn into Act Three falls on 90. I had to achieve that, yet I didn't have a lot of wiggle room that I saw in the first half - there weren't many gratuitous scenes at all.


So how to go about shrinking the script and getting the beats to land where I wanted them? First, I went through and took a fine look at the dialogue. I often over write lines, reiterating things to make sure that the point comes across, saying in three lines what I really only need one or two to do. Step one: excise extraneous dialogue. Next, I went through and looked for any hanging words. Basically, those are words that sit on a line of dialogue or description by themselves, especially short words. If I see a "one" or "car" or "her" or "did" or anything of the sort taking up its own line in the script, I do back and find a way to trim a few characters out of the lines above in order to consolidate. There's no reason those should hang alone. And it's pretty amazing what cutting a few of those will do.


I use Movie Magic 2000 when I write, which affords a maximum of 57 lines per page. Depending what comes next after a page break, stripping one line of text from a page can bump up nearly a tenth of a page. For example, if a new scene begins on page 10, the program might cut page 9 off at line 53 in order to preserve the intro to a scene. The software won't allow a slugg line with no text after it on the bottom of a page. I can't ask page 9 to end with INT. BAR - NIGHT and start page 10 with the scene description. Even if it's only one line of action or description after the slugg line, the program is designed to require something immediately following the slugg line. Scenes that open with a lot of description will necessitate more space at the bottom of a page. That's why, of 57 lines, if 4 are free but I need 5 to accommodate the intro to a new scene, I will go back and look for hanging words. 


All in all, merely by consolidating some dialogue and cutting out most hanging words, I was able to drop the script from 114 pages to 106. More than that, my inciting incident came to a close on 10, the midpoint bumped down to 59, the despair point hit perfectly at 75, and Act Three began on 89. This was huge for me and made me much more comfortable with both the presentation and the structure of the script. Though the beats themselves might need work (I'll get the League's feedback in two weeks), at least I know they're where they should be. And that is always good.

The Writing Week (Vol. 4) part 186 - Reading Through a Draft You Just Finished

At long last, I finally finished the second draft of my Medieval spec yesterday. It was a hellacious, laborious process, especially the "midpoint." (I put that in quotation marks, because what I had considered the midpoint actually falls around page 64 of 89 - far, far too late for that tentpole scene.) All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by the read. In my experience, that generally means the script is rife with problems. 


Normally, when I do a read through of a script, I get right to the nitty-gritty, looking for grammatical and typological errors, lines that can be cut, and places where extra dialogue or beats are necessary. Today, though, I decided to try something new, something that I probably should have been doing from the get-go. Rather than pay attention to the small details, I read the script in one sitting looking purely at the story. Does it flow? Are there gaps? Are there character arcs and transformations?


On the whole, I found a lot of my concerns pre-reading to be unfounded. Though short, the script flowed pretty well. I didn't get a sense that there was a lot missing, especially from the first act. The characters had genuinely distinct voices and underwent shifts throughout the story; they had backstory and felt like real people. There were sufficient amounts of action and more even-tempered beats in between.


The main concern is still the page count. Though that strikes even me as a semi-absurd source of anxiety, I've actually experienced it in my minimal writing career to date. At one point, I submitted a solid draft of my post-Apocalyptic spec to my producer. Though we both liked it a lot, it came in at just about 90 pages - maybe a bit less. The very first thing she said, without even having read it, was that the page count might be too small. It would depend on the notes and the read, but I might have to beef it up by five or so.


The industry is very specific about what it wants, especially from new writers. Not conforming to act structure and not submitting an industry standard page-length script are both warning signs of an inexperienced writer. Yes, great scripts can miss both expectations by a mile. However, when you're breaking in, those are some of the top points on the checklist; not being able to mark them can be the difference between getting your material read and not. 


Right now, the Medieval spec is 89 pages. I know I want at least 5 more. Act One is 30 pages on the dot. That means that 66% of the script is Acts Two and Three. As I was reading, I came to realize that there's another "midpoint" beat on page 54 - sometimes, I have to convince myself of the technicalities in order to be more at ease with what I have. Act Two ends on page 80, so it's 50 pages. That's quite fine. It's the 9 page third act that really worries me. I often do a 15 page resolution, but 9 seems too short. I've identified a couple places where I can fit in another beat, but it will be hard to write them so they don't feel tacked on. I have an idea for the first beat, but the longer page-generating sequence eludes me, which is a good indicator that it doesn't belong in the script.


What are your two cents on the matter? If you had a script that your gut told you was both a little too short but also contained pretty much everything it needs, what would you do?

The Writing Week (Vol. 4) part 177 - How Closely do you have to Adhere to Three-Act Structure?

I nearly finished the first draft of Act Two last night. At this point, the script is 77 pages long. Technically, according to basic structure 101, I am 13 pages short of where I should be. 

If you look at introductory guides to screenwriting, the standard structure is as follows: Act One - 30 pages, Act Two - 60 pages (pages 30-90), Act Three - 30 pages (pages 90-120). Of course, this only follows if you're writing a 120 page script. Though 120 is "standard," the trend I've seen is to cut that down closer to 105. For action and horror, that's about what many writers target; anywhere from 90 to 105 is decent length for those genres. Romantic comedies and dramas can be a bit longer. It has been a long time since I've written a 120 page script, and even longer since I set out to do so.

So how do you readjust? An easy way is simply to do it proportionately. For example, if you know you're going to write roughly a 100 pages script, or are targeting that as a final page count, just reduce everything page-wise, keeping the ratio the same. Acts one and three are 25% of the script; act two is 50%. Therefore, you wind up with 25 page acts one and three and a 50 page act two. By this math, assuming I'm targeting 100 pages, I am two pages over where I should be. In the grand scheme of things, that's not bad, especially for a first draft. In reality, I'm actually aiming for a 95 page script - maybe even 90. So, the other solution to maintaining act structure for a shorter script is one I employ a lot: use the structure, until it begins to use you. 

Structure should be malleable. Yes, there is a definite, agreed upon industry standard format out there. Know it. Even if you don't use it. But that format is more a guideline and an unbreakable set of rules. If your second act is five pages short, so be it. Any reader, producer, or agent worth their salt will be able to tell when something is stretched or gratuitous. And you know what? That will be the first thing to wind up on the cutting room floor. So screw it. You don't need it, and it doesn't need you. 

I also don't follow the structure exactly. I'll aim for the "appropriate" 25 or 30 page first act depending on the final page count, but my third act rarely tops 20 pages these days. It's often closer to 15. I believe that if the first two acts have been successfully written, the ending will come quickly and practically write itself in the process. By the time I'm hitting the climactic final sequences, everything is coming to a head and simply can't sustain much more. There's no room for extra dialogue or exposition or action at that point - it's all been set up, and the proverbial volcano is erupting. No keeping it from overflowing any more.

Granted, I am focusing on action movies now. If you watch some, you'll probably notice that the last 15 or 20 minutes comprise the final showdown. Everything else has been taken care of or lost by then. That's how I like to structure my scripts, too. Dramas and comedies might be slightly different. 

The bottom line: act structure is a great guide, but it's one that is best tailored to the needs of your script.

The Writing Week (Vol. 2) part 58 - Writing An Epic?

Normally, I am a huge supporter of the 100-105 page script. Especially for an action spec, 105 is an ideal length. Anything done in that amount of pages (or fewer) that has a strong plot and characters is nearly untouchable, if you ask me. Nowadays, the industry seems to be looking for shorter and shorter scripts, too. In a time when money is on everyone's mind, productions slates are being cut by close to 20% sometimes, and everyone is looking on how/where to save in a budget, the 105 page trumps the 120 almost any day of the week. (OK, before you run off trying to find Variety articles on this, I'll clarify that it's my own opinion. But at least humor me and think about it.)

The past two things I've done, my comic book spec and the post-Apocalyptic one, rang in at 100 and 105 pages, respectively. Despite the shorter page counts, I still follow the conventional, 120-page, three act structure pretty closely. I don't know why, really, but I'm hard pressed to write a first act that doesn't end right around 30. The midpoint of two is negotiable, coming in somewhere between 55 and 60. Act three is where I tend to shave most of the time off, often bringing it in under 20 pages. I know it might seem a bit rudimentary to talk so much about page numbers and act structure, especially since the sequencing method has recently taken the writing industry by storm (from what I read). Nonetheless, act structure and adherence to page count "guidelines" is a big part of how I write, so it'd be foolish not to include it here. It is a safe way for me to write, a method that I understand and feel I can work pretty comfortably in.

However, something happened this week. My Roman army spec (which I'm more excited to be writing than I have ever been when writing from an outline) is coming out a bit longer than I had anticipated. At first, I was worried that my first act was going to be too short, and that my targeted 105 page count would be a stretch, at best. That's not looking like the case. I'm coming up on that beautiful, yet terrifying midpoint right now - terrifying because I find that pages 60-70 are THE WORST PAGES EVER to have to write - and I'm still not quite ready to deliver that big, midpoint jolt yet. I'm dealing with a lot in this script, so I'm not worried, but it begs the question: am I writing an epic?

Epics are interesting to me. I haven't studied them nearly enough as I should have, perhaps because I never planned on writing one. Even epic action movies (Dark Knight, Batman Begins, and pretty much anything else that came in over 2hours and 15 minutes in my opinion) are a category unto themselves. Movies like Gladiator, Braveheart, and even Last Samurai (that one was for you, Onyx) fly by because they're done so well. And they fit a certain structure. But what exactly is it? Are acts one and three still only half an hour, while act two fills up the bulk of the screen time? Or is everything proportionate to the higher page count? Guess I'll have to do a lot of script-reading and movie-watching to find out. In the meantime, does anyone think they know?