Left Turn at Albuquerque

So I finish reading my first draft. I was expecting to find excessive bloat. I imagined an excruciating read rife with boring scenes and wasted opportunities. I thought its faults would be glaring at me like a clown at a wake*. Fortunately or unfortunately (depending how you look at it) the story flowed well. There were a lot of spots where I was proud and the bloat that I thought would be obvious was not easily detectable. I’m left with a 165 page script that I need to cut 45 pages from (at a minimum).

Now I’ve got to put my script in a press and take the welding torch to it. I have way more questions than answers, because I’m not exactly sure how it’s all going to happen. What if my story is, in its heart of hearts, a 140 page script? Unlikely, but possible. What if getting it under 120 means cutting it to the point where my original story no longer makes sense, so I have to blow it up and start anew? That frightens me, but I have to take solace in the fact that, in the end, the story will tell what it wants to be. I just have to listen.

For now, I’m going to write an outline from my existing draft. For each scene sequence, I’m going to write down how it affects the main plot and any relevant subplots. I’m going to write down all the characters involved and what their want is for that scene. Then I’ve got to answer the most important question: why? Why does this scene need to exist. On a separate file, I’m keeping track of all the subplots and how many scenes are involved in each. I’m hoping that I will be able to look back on it and glean some information that will help me wrangle this monster in.

Condense. Compress. Combine.

I think that will be my motto for the foreseeable future.


*What? I thought it would lighten the mood.