Yeah, Write: Draft Revisions: Screenwriting Edition
“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”
— Terry Pratchett
There are as many paths to approaching draft revisions as there are writers. The first draft alone has entire books devoted to techniques enabling terrified writers on how to scale this menacing Everest. We all have our weaknesses. Personally, I am most easily stonewalled by my own infatuation with perfectionism. I waste countless productive hours on stupid shit like format and spelling. My natural inclination is to confront all the points that need to be examined in subsequent drafts in the first one. I’ve done this before, bypassing the many steps, and ended up with the equivalent of a fair third or fourth draft…problem is it took months. And when you are getting paid to have the damn thing finished in a quantifiable amount of time, that method is out. So this following method has worked for me, and I hope works for those struggling with whatever personal pitfalls that have you standing in your own way to success.
Creating Draft One (The Crap Draft):
Write fearlessly. Write recklessly. If your very first draft is not shitty, you are doing it wrong. Just go to work.
After I’ve poured my heart into writing the first draft, it is time to read it over and create a revision map. A revision map is just a fancy list of things you need to fix in your story.
While reading, take note of:
- Any plot holes or inconsistencies so later you have a blueprint of where you need to problem solve.
- All time stamps so the timeline isn’t ridiculous.
- What is your story lacking and what information is missing?
- Which characters could be fleshed out more?
Next, I write up a new synopsis that identifies what my story articulates at this stage and who my characters actually are vs. what’s just in my head. This side-by-side comparison of brain to page helps me see what the gaps in my vision are and how I can fill them in. Lastly, I take the time to sort out plot holes. If it means printing out my outline, cutting it up, and mixing around the scenes then I do it. It’s not easy, but it’s going to be a hell of a lot harder in later drafts. Describe the plot hole, talk it out with a friend (when you say it aloud, the problem can sound obvious), figure out what scenes and characters it effects and change them.
Don’t beat yourself up because your plot is jumbled and your characters aren’t fully realised humans yet. Your writing skill will prevail within the revisions. You already did the hard part of expelling this genius idea onto the page and most people are too scared to even do that. Now is when you must go to work.
Pro tip: talk to yourself in the margins. This unfiltered conversation about half-baked lines and irrelevant plot points will help you generate new ideas. The first draft is just there to tell the story to yourself. Now that you know the story, you can edit a better one.
Writing Draft Two
The second draft is all about adding. Fill in your plot holes. Don’t get preoccupied with space and conciseness. Lay that shit out. Now is not the time to be nuanced. Whatever didn’t happen in the fever dream that was draft one, needs to be implemented in draft two. Have fun, homie. Now is the time to be on the nose and nerd out on everything you spent months creating.
Revising Draft Two (Hell Season)
I hate editing draft two. I think I always will because there’s just so much information and I have a tendency to get overwhelmed. Though, a good thing to remember is that we’ve already done the dirty work of plot holes and weird time jumps so now we just have to trim the fat.
This draft is where I figure out all the scenes and dialogue I don’t need.
-Is this conversation moving the plot forward or letting the audience know more about the characters? No? Cut!
- What Easter eggs can I hide in plain sight?
- What needs to be shown vs. what could be summarised vs. what could just be mentioned?
- Instead of saying she was angry, how can I show that?
- How can I express their backstory in a way that isn’t an insane info dump?
After draft two is when I usually send it to my screenwriting friends, because at this point I’m sick of looking it and I need someone else’s eyes on it before I look at it on a micro level. I advise you to wrangle up a writing buddy if you feel the same way.
Draft Three
This edit is all about making it look pretty and that’s the phase that takes me the longest and the phase that makes me feel like I’m losing my mind. Here is where I read the whole thing out loud and listen for what sounds unnatural or just ugly. I check for flow, conciseness, tone, and atmosphere. Then I line edit to find the right words to articulate what I mean while taking out fluff words that don’t add to the image. For example, saying a cloud is “fluffy” does not enhance the image. We know clouds are “fluffy” so you don’t need to say it. Find a more interesting adjective.
I also agonise over if my characters sound “uniquely them” while also keeping in mind that there’s still time to break it down, experiment, and find cool new ways to tell this story.
Draft Four
We’re in the home stretch. It is key to print this draft out no matter how long it is. Read it front to back. It is essential to read your story this way because it is so much easier to point out typos, especially coupled with reading it aloud. When you read it in the way your audience typically would, it is clearer to see which scenes are dragging, if there’s weird tonal shifts, and an unevenness in POV. So take out your red pen of death and just fucking murder it.
Draft Five
Draft five is just adding all of those murderous micro-changes then reading it aloud, front to back, without wanting to change anything. If your face scrunches up at a line or your eyes glaze over at one point because the scene is terribly boring (granted, if it’s that boring, then it shouldn’t even be there) then you’re not done. Revise until you are obsessed with this piece of material. Don’t stop until you are in love with it and wouldn’t change a single thing.
