Writing Mantra: “Minimum words, maximum impact”
Some of the mantras I’ve collected over the years relate to the general craft of writing, but this one is directly connected with screenwriting:
“Minimum words, maximum impact.”
This mantra derives from a moment of inspiration from one of my online screenwriting students — and it’s a beautiful saying in a way, conveying its message both through the meaning of the collection of words as well as its brevity.
Why is this mantra so important to the craft of screenwriting? Think about this. What other form of writing has a page count limit? Typically 120 and in certain cases 135 pages, but almost never above that. That means we can write all we want, but at some point, we’re going to slam up against a wall signified by page count.
I can make it sound even more ominous: We have between approximately 50–70 scenes per script. That’s it.
Which means that as screenwriters, we must pay attention to the words we use… and the words we do not use. Whereas a novel’s pages are full of print with margins stretching from side to side, a screenplay is often more white space than black ink. If you’ve been doing this for awhile and have read hundreds of scripts, you can flip through a screenplay and get a feel for it just by glancing at the way the pages look: A lot of black ink means a lot of scene description; a lot of white space means a lot of dialogue — or a writer who is disciplined about how they approach scene description.
There’s also this factor: script readers. These underpaid, overworked folks are Hollywood’s gatekeepers whose job it is to sift through all the reading material that flows through the acquisition process (approximately 25–35,000 stories per year). These people read a lot. And no matter how much they profess to enjoy what they do, some times — and perhaps often — they approach reading yet another script with dread and loathing. So how do you figure they react to a script that is 135+ pages and filled with black ink? They will automatically despise you. On the other hand, how do you think they react to a 110 page script that has gobs of white space and lean, tight scene description? They automatically love you.
But these are the more mundane elements tied to the mantra “Minimum words, maximum impact.” At its core, its about art. The art of saying more with less. An art grounded in a passion for language. It is about loving strong verbs. Relishing visual adjectives. Embracing powerful nouns. And despising adverbs. It is about the power of words.
There is this Hollywood anecdote:
“At times Irving Thalberg [first great Hollywood producer] seemed to hate his very dependence on writers and his frustration that he could not perform their functions. During one heated script session he said almost contemptuously, ‘What’s all this business about being a writer? It’s just putting one word after another.’ Lenore Coffee corrected him: ‘Pardon me, Mr. Thalberg; it’s putting one right word after another.’”
— from “Thalberg: Life and Legend,” by Bob Thomas
According to the 2nd edition of the OED, there are 171,476 words in the English language.
That’s a helluva lot of choices.
What can guide us in knowing what right word to put after another?
Minimum words, maximum impact.
Like this:
The Big Cop flicks out his cuffs, the other cops holding a
bead. They’ve done this a hundred times, they know
they’ve got her, until the Big Cop reaches with the cuffs
and Trinity moves —
It almost doesn’t register, so smooth and fast, inhumanly
fast.
The eye blinks and Trinity’s palm snaps up and his nose
explodes, blood erupting. Her leg kicks with the force of
a wrecking ball and he flies back, a two-hundred-fifty
pound sack of limp meat and bone that slams into the cop
farthest from her.
Trinity moves again, BULLETS RAKING the WALLS, flashlights
sweeping with panic as the remaining cops try to stop a
leather-clad ghost.
A GUN still in the cop’s hand is snatched, twisted and
FIRED. There is a final violent exchange of GUNFIRE and
when it’s over, Trinity is the only one standing.
Or this:
Wally creeps closer for a better look.
The device unfolds.
Wally boxes up again.
A CAPSULE descends from a chute in the stem.
ROBOT ARMS emerge from the device.
Place the capsule on the ground. Press buttons.
The capsule falls away in sections, to reveal…
…a PROBE ROBOT.
It hovers gracefully above the ground.
White. Egg-shaped.
Blue-lit eyes.
Female.
Eve.
Wally is transfixed.
Inches closer.
Watches Eve from behind the device.
Tilts his head.
Time stops.
She’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
Or this:
Bud begins to deal, never taking his eyes off her. Fran
removes her coat, starts picking up her cards and arranging
them. Bud, a look of pure joy on his face, deals — and
deals — and keeps dealing.
And that’s about it. Story-wise.
In screenwriting, we are called on again and again, page after page, line after line to choose the right words that not only tell a story, but tell a story well. And in virtually every case, we stand a far better chance at accomplishing that goal by using the minimum amount of words to make the maximum impact on the reader.