It's done, and it's sitting their like a bloated dog that just ate your whole Thanksgiving dinner. It's your latest screenplay and you suspect it's a wee bit (how do we say this politely?) fat.

If you read the first article in this series on the importance of screenplay length, you know why a screenwriter who's never made money off his work should keep scripts to under 105 pages. If your script is too long, you probably want to know how to get your behemoth down to fighting weight.

Have no fear, the knife is here!

In this article, you'll learn three exercises for cutting excess pages off your script: eliminating unnecessary character behavior, hunting for adverbs, and evaluating parentheticals. You'll also find out the importance subtext and uncertainty play in creating a page-turning screenplay.

Even if your script is already under 105 pages, these exercises will help you tighten your screenplay's pacing and strengthen its story by eliminating unecessary writing.

So do a few stretches, loosen up, and get ready to heft your editor's knife!

Eliminating almost every reference to face and hand gestures -- such as smiling, pointing, winking, grimacing, scowling, etc. -- will trim the script of unnecessary words and/or sentences, making the writing leaner and stronger, making the story move faster.

There are a number of reasons to trim these gestures, but first I'd like to show an example to illustrate my point. The following scene involves Marsha and Bob, two teenagers.

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Bob steers the van around a sharp bend.

Marsha gives Bob a mischievous grin. Pulls up her tee-shirt. Reaches inside her bra. Produces a joint. Offers it to Bob.

<<

There's a bit that can be trimmed there, but my focus is the gesture ‘mischievous grin'.

With every word you put on the page, with ever sentence, you should ask yourself the following questions: Is it needed? Would the story lack without it? Am I providing new and/or crucial information?

For almost every facial or hand gesture, the answer to these questions is no, no, no. So cut them.

Here's one reason why they aren't needed: they provide information that is best left to the actor and his/her director. In other words, it is up to Angelina Jolie to decide if she wants to be casual or mischievous or silly about the way she looks prior to pulling the joint out. And it is up to the director to decide if he even wants to show her face prior to her pulling the joint out; after all, if she's the only woman there, the audience will know who is wearing a bra without having to see her face.

A common reason a writer includes face and hand gestures is so he can direct the movie in the reader's mind. The writer sees ‘his movie' a certain way in his mind and believes he must transmit it, shot by shot, into the reader's mind. And so he directs the film by including information in best left to actors and directors.

Problem is, the writer is NOT directing a film - he's telling a story.

That story can be told without directing actors. How? Through more direct and powerful action. Through the subtext created by various forms of juxtaposition. All without resorting to micro-managing the mind's eye of the reader. A reader's imagination can do a far better job of conjuring up images than any writer ever can.

Let's revisit the example:

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Bob steers the van around a sharp bend.

Marsha gives Bob a mischievous grin. Pulls up her tee-shirt. Reaches inside her bra. Produces a joint. Offers it to Bob.

<<

Is anything lost when it becomes:

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Bob steers the van around a sharp bend. Marsha pulls a joint out of her bra. Offers it to Bob.

<<

No. Nothing is lost.

Why is nothing lost? Because banal body expressions, such as smiling, grimacing, pointing, often duplicate emotional content that can be assumed by the reader because of other actions within the script -- actions that are more visual, powerful and interesting than the gestures.

In this example, one can assume that Marsha is mischievous because of a far more powerful action than a smile: she's in possession of a joint, and is offering said joint to the operator of heavy machinery.

Not once do we need to know with absolute certainty that she is mischievous about the whole thing, so including information about her mischievous smile is unnecessary and slows the reader down.

Slowing the reader down even one word or one sentence is a most egregious error. Those words and sentences and seconds add up over the course of a script, becoming weeds that choke the flowers of momentum.

And if you do that, Chuck Norris will find you (watch the video)!

There's more to exercise #1 than meets the eye. Examining the necessity of gestures and other body movements forces the writer to evaluate the strength of the scene's subtext.

You might ask, "What is subtext?"

Subtext arises when you juxtapose one piece of action or dialogue against another piece of action or dialogue and in the process create a meaning deeper than that contained in the individual actions or dialogues.

For example:

independent dialogue or action #1= a mother saying "I love you"

independent dialogue or action #2 = a mother beating her child

Now, combine the two: a mother beats her child while saying "I love you". Isn't your imagination spurred to wonder, "What the heck is going on here?"

That's subtext doing its job.

Often, the subtext of the situation reveals the emotional content you are trying to convey with hand and face gestures. If you can eliminate gestures, yet the emotional content remains, than subtext exists within your scene.

If upon eliminating gestures you find that is not the case, you should figure out how to enhance the scene's subtext, rather than re-adding the eliminated gestures and expressions.

Why? Subtext is almost always stronger that gestures.

Subtext uses real actions of consequence and/or real dialogue with weight, whereas gestures usually try to take a short cut to the emotion. The richer and deeper you make the subtext, the richer and deeper your story and characters will be.

Subtext is also where one of the most important elements of storytelling lies, and that is the element of uncertainty.

For example, once we've eliminated Marsha's mischievous grin, the reader must make an assumption about her based on her actions alone. Perhaps the reader assumes Marsha is a typical teenager who experiments with drugs. Or, if the reader considers the action of Marsha offering Bob a joint -- juxtaposed againt the fact that Bob drives the van -- the reader might think Marsha is mischievous or reckless or perhaps even a bit stupid. Or all three.

Without that 'mischievous grin', we also leave open other possibilities, which we can develop further as the story progresses. On a whole other level, one reader might think, "Is this girl crazy? The dude is driving!", while another reader might think, "She's totally setting him up to get busted by the cops." Another reader might think both of these, plus, "Maybe she's just a real party girl. Bob's gonna have a good time!"

The thing is, the reader will not be certain which, if any, of these are true. The reader is, after all, reading a story -- and beyond that, a story written for film -- so anything might happen. And that uncertainty about Marsha makes the reader want to read more and find out.

As the writer, you dole out the info and string the reader along, keeping the reader at a level of uncertainty that keeps the pages turning.

The reader should exist, at all times, in a state of uncertainty. Not confusion, mind you - uncertainty. This is what makes reading a story enjoyable - expecting twists and reversals, but never knowing where they might show up.

As a writer, the more uncertainty you create, the better your story will read and the more the reader will want to know what happens next. The more he will turn the pages.

Give the reader just enough information to hook them in and get the assumption ball rolling. Just enough info for the story to make sense. NOT too much: don't spoon-feed the reader so that every nuance is crystal clear; don't slow the story down with unneeded info.

Just when the reader thinks he has it all figured out, yank those assumptions right out from under his feet. Let's say the reader assumes Marsha is a normal teen, but in the end turns out to be an undercover cop who was setting Bob up.

On the other hand, many of a reader's assumptions will turn out to be true. In a case like Marsha, maybe nothing happens to challenge the reader's assumption that she's a party-girl. Still, the uncertainty exists.

By cutting out as many gestures and expressions as possible, you will not only reduce page count, but strengthen your story through the use of uncertainty and subtext.

Another way to save words is to cut almost every single adverb from your descriptive paragraphs, though not necessarily your dialogue.

Most adverbs make writing flabby and flaccid because they add no significant information to a sentence. Again, it comes down to measuring the value of each word: Is it needed? Can it be cut without the story unraveling? Is there a better verb I can use so that I can cut the adverb?

As I said before, the more excess words that can be cut, the leaner sentences become, and the quicker they read. It may seem petty to point out how you can save one word, but every word does matter, because compounded over the course of an entire script, wasted words add up and slow the reader down.

Often a writer defends his use of adverbs by saying adverbs make his writing more descriptive, thereby conveying what he sees in his head in exact detail - the same rationale as using gestures and expressions. Or perhaps a writer reasons that there's a difference in degree that should be pointed out so the reader gets what is intended.

The real reason a writer uses adverbs, as well as gestures and expressions, is out of a subconscious fear that the writing is unclear and won't be understood by the reader. The gut reaction is to try and make it more clear by using an adverb.

This leads to doors being ‘closed firmly' to show anger, or skin being ‘touched gently' to show affection. And that leads to flabby, slow, and dull writing.

The Best Way To Cut Adverbs

The best way to cut adverbs is to be precise in your word choice. Choose verbs that best describe the action you described with a verb and an adverb.

Using the examples above, ‘He slams the door' is stronger than ‘He closes the door firmly'; ‘His fingers graze her skin' is more vivid than ‘He touches her skin gently'.

There's something more concrete and visual about choosing the right verb and eliminating the adverb. Sometimes it does not save you any words (as in the second example), but it makes better use of what words you do use by creating a stronger image.

I suggest you use the ‘search', ‘find' or ‘replace' function on your word processor or script writing program to find the letters ‘ly' and consider the need for every adverb they are attached to.

Some people call them parentheticals, other people call them actor's directions or wrylies. And most professional readers and actors hate them.

I'll give you three guess what I think about them. Does the phrase ‘let actors act and readers imagine' ring a bell? Overuse of parenthetical is another case of a writer trying to direct. Stop it!

Same questions as before: If you cut a parenthetical, what is lost? Does the story fall apart? Will the reader no longer understand what is going on?

Try to eliminate any parenthetical, only using them for short actions that serve a specific purpose, such as when something is spoken in a different language or on the phone, or when a person exits or does something brief; don't use them to show reaction or mood.

Remember, each parenthetical equals one whole line. If that line isn't put to good use, why keep a parenthetical?

Eliminate Extra Space Between Scenes

This only applies to writers who put an extra space before a new master scene heading. In contemporary scripts, it is no longer required that the writer separate each scene with an extra space, so you should get rid of them. Your readers are smart enough to figure out you've gone on to another scene.

Conclusion

Try applying some of these techniques when you rewrite your script. You may find yourself shaving numerous pages off your screenplay, perhaps enough to get it under the magic 105 pages, as I discussed in another article.

I once cut ten whole pages off another writer's script by using these techniques. If you have a similar experience, feel free to drop me an email.

If you found this article useful, check out my other articles (see links at the top)...and watch this video!