The Writing Week (Vol. 5) part 248 - Concerns About Page Count

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the term "page count" became a part of my - and the other Leaguers' - lexicon. Much like the tools and knowledge that any craftsman wields in his labor, so is assessing the length of a script a key skill for a screenwriter. (I'm sure there are people who will disagree with me on this, but the fact of it is, people will always read the shorter script first when given material that they feel equally curious about. I know this, because that's what I did when I was a reader, it's what all readers I talk to do, and it's what my manager and producers have confirmed.)

These days, when I begin writing a screenplay, I usually have a pretty solid idea of my target page count. "This shouldn't be any more than 105, tops," I'll tell the League. And, more often than not, the finished drat will clock in at 105 on the dot - maybe a page or two shy of that, but rarely longer. Keeping track of the length of the script is closely related (in my mind) to paying attention to your outline as you write. With the outline, you know what's coming in the next scene, you know how you got there, and you know where you and your characters and story have to end up. Page count is an excellent barometer for all of this. If you look at your outline - as I did for my sci-fi thriller - and you think to yourself that a particular section seems undeniably longer than all the other parts, then there's a damn good chance that the pages will vindicate you. 

For example, in my 16 page outline, the first half of Act Two wound up coming in at about 6 full pages. That's nearly a third of the outline. Granted, some beats are overwritten in there, and many in other sections were underwritten, but my gut was telling me it was going to be a very heavily weighted section. Forget about how many outline pages it consumed for a moment; I counted the number of beats, and that quarter of the script contained far more than the other acts (or half act). With much trepidation, I set out writing the pages. Sure enough, I saw that my hunch was right before I had gotten very far. This morning, I completed my 29th page in Act Two; the script is currently 64 pages long, and the "midpoint" is at least a good 5 to 7 pages away. The next quarters of the script are a bit thinner, but I know I'm coming in at way over target. (A 35 page first act is partially responsible for that, too).

Now, if you're balking at what I'm saying, I'll give you a free shot. You're totally right in thinking a) it's only a first draft and b) scripts can be longer than 120 pages and c) who really cares? The fact is, a lot of readers still turn to pages 30, 60, and 90 to make sure you have a solid grasp of structure, so I want to make sure that I at least nail the end of act one, page 30 beat. The rest will fluctuate depending on ultimate page count. My charge now is to write the draft and then worry about how long the script is, but I don't quite want to show such a long piece to the director I'm working with on it - even if he knows it's going to be a length fist showing. 

This makes me sound like an even bigger dork than I am, if that's even possible, but I actually love line editing my scripts for page count. If I see a single word or even a couple short words hanging by themselves, taking up a whole line in the script, I will try to figure out how to say what I want more concisely. This generally results in cutting the words "just" or "seemingly" - two words I use a lot that probably shouldn't be there to begin with. So, that's a great editing and skill builder. Also, with Movie Magic, I know that I get 57 lines to a page. The software will enter a page break starting on line 53 if the next scene opens with a long descriptor paragraph or if there aren't any convenient breaks in a length bit of dialogue. Part of my editing process involves finding these reduced pages and figuring out how I can make use of those additional few lines by editing above and bumping the material that begins on the next page to the bottom of the one preceding it. I can often slice off 6 pages or more just by doing those trims - and they are almost always cosmetic only, a few words removed here or there, but no elimination of scenes or dialogue. And lastly, there are the bigger edits. This scene doesn't work, or this dialogue could be summed up or cut entirely, or that is redundant or unnecessary. 

All in all, I hope to cut about 10 pages from what i have so far. I'm not sure that will all happen before I send it to my collaborator, but that's the target when all is said and done. In the meantime, I'll keep writing with an eye on my page count. 

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 86 – Does Page Count Really Matter?

If you go back and read the archival Writing Weeks and some of our other more writing-centric posts, you’ll probably see a lot of talk about page count. We also talk about it a lot amongst ourselves in the League; “what page are you on?” “Do you think 85 pages is too short?” and that sort of thing. Sometimes, the discussion seems to lean so heavily toward page count and position that I wonder if we’re proving ourselves to be amateurishly focused on the wrong thing.

When we Leaguers were in school, we were taught basic three-act structure. A script is (supposed to be) 120 pages long. Act One is 30 pages long; Act Two is the next 60, and Act Three is the final 30 pages. Even while we were in school, I remember noticing a collective shift away from a 30 page third act. If a script came in at 105 pages, chances are Acts One and Two were pretty true to form, but Act Three was shortened. I actually don’t know if I’ve written a 30 page Third Act in years. Probably haven’t. And of course, depending on the genre, a script might be as short as 90 pages. I personally still aim for a 25/50/25 percent act balance when writing, no matter the page length. (Disclaimer before I go on, I know a lot of people have abandoned act structure for the sequencing method; I haven’t yet, so apologies to anyone who isn’t a fan of Three Act Structure.)

Last night, after working with notes from my producer and manager on the post-Apocalyptic spec, my perfectly nailed 30 page first act dropped to 25. I got to thinking, does that really matter? The five pages of cuts I made speed the story up, eliminate some of the darker and more macabre elements that were making this a tough sale earlier, and get to the heart of the plot much faster. Bottom line, they’re hard to disagree with. Yet, my first act is under what I normally consider to be a full Act One.

Ultimately, I think that the answer is: page count (in situations like this) doesn’t really matter as long as the script is strong. Act One is generally thought to be between 25 and 30 pages, with those being the respective lower and higher markers. The reason I bring it up, though, is that as a reader, I remember looking specifically for that big plot point right on 30. A bit before? Ok. Too much before; well, we might have to talk about this. Similarly with screenwriting competitions; I’ve entered at least one competition where part of the grading criteria listed on the website specifically mentions Act One ending on page 30.

As writers, page count shouldn’t seem like the end all and be all, but there’s enough out there to support my theory that within at least certain parts of the industry, the 30 page first act is still sacred, and to violate that could mean a step closer to disheartening rejection. My advice – know what the industry standard is (not only for page count, but for formatting and any technical part of the craft) and where you can and can’t bend that.
As a new writer, i.e. an unproduced one, I’m already enough of a risk. If I break all the rules in my first industry spec, and especially if I fail when trying to break new ground by abandoning the standards, then I’m not doing myself any favors. Page count does matter, and while it’s not the first thing worth focusing on, it is very much a part of League discussions because it’s something we have to be aware of and is elemental to further displaying our knowledge of the craft.