“When should I enter / exit the scene?”
Here’s another screenwriting mantra: “Enter the scene as late into the action as possible, and leave the scene as soon as you can.” If you don’t believe me, how about the dean of contemporary screenwriters William Goldman:
“You always attack a movie scene as late as you possibly can. You always come into the scene at the last possible moment. Get on. The camera is relentless. Makes you keep running.”
Professional screenwriters are intensely aware of this pressure. In a script, every word counts. Every line counts. Time is of the essence and your words can bog down the plot or propel the story forward.
Think about this: A screenplay is written in the present tense. Novels and short stories are almost always written in the past tense. By being in the present tense, a screenplay has a more immediate sense of time — these events, these actions are happening now! They unfold in a hurry, they move, move, move!
Now think about this: It’s 11:43, Sunday night. A cramped apartment in Santa Monica. Scripts piled everywhere, but the pile you care about most is that stack over there next to a chair. And in that chair is a Story Analyst. The stack is comprised of scripts the poor analyst had to read and cover over the weekend. The analyst rubs their bloodshot eyes, fighting off sleep, then reaches down to pick up one last script to read — your script.
The next time you write a scene, put that image into your mind. See if that causes you to writer sharper, leaner, tighter, and with more brevity. Because if you write long, if you include extraneous material in scenes that slows down the story, if you don’t enter late and exit early, you’re not likely to win over the story analyst.
There’s a term in Hollywood — a “good read”. And that refers to a script that not only has a great story, but is also written in a way that makes it engaging for the reader to read it. Writing scenes where you enter late and exit early is one way to help make your script a good read.
So how do you determine when to enter and exit a scene? Start by asking this question:
What is critical to include in the scene?
Notice that word — critical. I didn’t say ‘necessary’ or ‘important’, I used the stronger word to provoke your thinking: If this bit of business or that doesn’t feel critical to a scene, then it’s likely you can start the scene after or before that bit of business plays out. And how do you determine if it’s critical or not:
- Does the bit of business impact the plot?
- Does it add invaluable insight into a character’s motivation?
- Does it make the scene more memorable?
- Is it a payoff to an earlier scene or set-up for a future one?
- Does the scene simply not work without it?
In this regard, it might be helpful for you to imagine the movie within your story universe. The story universe itself is organic, like our own, and continues on with its own activity. The movie is what you carve out of that daily continuous stream of action in your story universe. In some ways, it’s as important what you omit from a scene as what you choose to keep.
So when you are writing each scene, be sure to ask:
When should I enter / exit the scene?
I encourage you to head to comments to discuss today’s questions. And for a related discussion on The Black Board, check out these topics:
The Quest” has entered Week 19! And so did Go On Your Own Quest, an opportunity for anyone to follow the structure of “The Quest” to dig into screenwriting theory [Core — 8 weeks], figure out your story [Prep — 6 weeks], and write a first draft [Pages — 10 weeks]. It’s a 24-week immersion in the screenwriting process and you can do it here — for free!
Today and every Monday through Friday for 10 weeks, I’ll use this slot to post something inspirational as GOYOQ participants pound out their first drafts.
Why not use the structure of this 24-week workshop to Go On Your Own Quest? That was an idea that gathered energy among many members of the GITS community which I described here.
For more information on Go On Your Own Quest, go here.
Plus you can join The Black Board, the Official Online Writing Community of the Black List and Go Into The Story, another free resource to help keep you inspired and on target at you Go On Your Own Quest from FADE IN to FADE OUT on the first draft of your original screenplay.
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