“Every five-page scene I write I try to cut to four, every fourpage scene to three, every three to two… tighter is better always.
A screenplay functions as a blueprint, engineering report, and rendering all at the same time. It must work for the director, the producer, the actors AND the financier.
That’s the challenge.
– Ron Shelton, in Riding the Alligator by Pen Densham
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“It would be a writing course. Every assignment would be delivered in five versions: A three page version, a one page version, a three paragraph version, a one paragraph version, and a one sentence version.
I don’t care about the topic. I care about the editing. I care about the constant refinement and compression. I care about taking three pages and turning it one page. Then from one page into three paragraphs. Then from three paragraphs into one paragraph. And finally, from one paragraph into one perfectly distilled sentence.
Each step requires asking “What’s really important?” That’s the most important question you can ask yourself about anything. The class would really be about answering that very question at each step of the way. Whittling it all down until all that’s left is the point.”
– Jason Fried, The Writing Class I’d Like to Teach
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Killing my darlings.
It’s energising.
I’m showing the universe that I do not need to cling to the past.
I am proving with every edit my confidence to create more in the future.
I do not need to hoard words.
I can go out colllecting more sentences.
If I worry that I’m wasting words by deleting them then I am signalling to myself that what I have written is the best that I can do.
I prefer to think that what I write next will be more interesting.
I edit the past. Make my point, then move on.
Conversations With Quotations 