One of the readings for week 2, Slogans for the Screenwriter’s Wall, I found a few very interesting and effective points to discuss:

“Movies SHOW…and then TELL. A true movie is likely to be 60 to 80% comprehensible if the dialogue is in a foreign language.”

This slogan, the first in the collection, stood out to me a lot because it reminded me of those times when, as a child, I would watch along with my parents’ Vietnamese or Filipino language films. I wouldn’t be able to understand a single word that was being said, but I’d still become engrossed in the film and be constantly wanting to find out what happened next. I guess that’s a key to take from screenwriting: audiences are more interested in what HAPPENS, than what is SAID.

“If you’ve got a Beginning, but you don’t yet have an end, then you’re mistaken. You don’t have the right Beginning.”

A powerful point, as it explains one of the reasons I struggle with finishing scripts. Sometimes I’ll be so proud of my beginning, so sure it’s the right one, that I’ll do everything I can to avoid altering it. Then, later, I’ll wonder why I can’t find an ending with which I’m happy, and because I’m so reluctant to touch the beginning, the writing of the story just grinds to a halt, and it’s never finished. I’m reminded that nothing in writing is untouchable, no matter how perfect you think it is. Which brings me to the next statement…

“Screenplays are not written, they are REWRITTEN and REWRITTEN and REWRITTEN.”

If I want to start writing properly, I do need to get accustomed to the concept of cutting. Getting to attached to parts of a script can bog everything down, since a story with less does more. Hoarding all the ‘good’ ideas and protecting them can end up to the whole thing sinking from being to cluttered and crowded, and even if one part is extremely, amazingly well-written, if its removal leads to the strengthening of the rest of the story, then it should be cut.