Writing a screenplay goes against everything that we were taught in our high school and middle school English classes. We were taught to describe people and things using every adjective under the sun. We were told to elucidate in a manner that paints a clear picture in the mind of the reader as to what you were saying. “The more words the better!” we were enthusiastically told, because once you get to college, you’re going to need to be even more descriptive. Then I got to film school and my first screenwriting teacher gave me the ultimate less-is-more analogy. And this is what he was really trying to say about screenwriting.

When you write a screenplay, you just need to get to the f-ing point.

“No need to be overly descriptive,” we’re told. “We don’t want to interfere with the director’s vision.”

“No need to have long paragraph’s of prose”, we’re advised. “Executives are too lazy to read it all.”

However, there is a point to all of this. Writing a screenplay is a completely different discipline than writing a novel or a poem or even a stage play. In those other mediums, you can include thoughts, emotions, ideas, and other more ethereal things that can’t necessarily be seen. Even actors in a play on stage can have asides where they speak their thoughts directly to the audience. Shakespeare, and almost every other play write since, have included several asides to the audience in plays. Clearly with novels, especially those told in the first person, give the reader direct access into the heads to the characters.  Screenwriting, however, is different.

If it’s not going to be seen on screen, then it shouldn’t be written on the page.

You shouldn’t write a what a character’s feeling internally because there’s no way to capture that on film. You can write what kind of expression she might have on her face in reaction to something, but writing, “Debbie is sad as she opens the curtain and sees Tom drive away.” A better way to write that would be, “Debbie draws back the curtain and sadly looks out the window as Tom drives away.”

It’s giving direction on how the actor should play the part and shows all of the action directly to the reader, rather than using the character as a conduit.

Writing back story into the prose of a script is another no-no. There’s no point in writing back story in to your script unless its going to be shown in the scene. If you need to get that information into the script, then you need to get it in there in such a way so that it is shown.

There is a reason that screenplays should only be 120 pages or less, and that reason is that you should only be including the minimum amount of information that it takes to get the story across. If you have a bunch of prose cluttering up your script, you are lessening your chances of getting it picked up and increasing your chances of it getting passed on.

Your story must be tight, and your script must be lean.

Do you have a script that is weighed down with too many words? Monument Scripts can help you tighten up your story so that the script is lean enough to fit into that thong. Click on the link below to find out how.