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John Sayles wrote a book at least 10 years ago called "Talking In Pictures." He talks about an approach to writing in which he breaks down his screenplays in short scenes to see how it tracks. For example, he'll look at pages 1-3, then 4-6, then 7-10...you get the idea. It's a great way to see if your completed draft makes, well, sense.
A trick I've learned with regard to comedy writing is to apply the same technique. Skits and sketches tend to be 3-5 pages. If you're writing sketches you can rewrite them a dozen times--two dozen times-- without going nuts because they're so short.
But to do endless rewrites of a full length screenplay is, to say the least, a bit more daunting. But what you can do is apply John Sayles approach. Look at each scene as if it's a comedy sketch for Saturday Night Life. It's easier to rewrite a 3 page scene then a 110 page screenplay. The logic is to do all these rewrites of all these little scenes and at the end of the day you've managed to rewrite your entire script.
It works. Try it. Pschologically, it's less intimidating. |
