Writing for people who hate to read

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  • #16
    Re: Writing for people who hate to read

    Originally posted by Ven View Post
    Yes, if you can do something shorter (without weakening the story), why wouldn't you do it? Especially if it's equally or more effective?
    Look at it from the reverse angle...if you only have a 107 page story, why would you want to add 8 pages of extraneous crap?

    I always think each story is unique and has its own unique theoretical page count, that if you wrote the perfect screenplay, what would the final total be? It might be 104 pages for Script A, 149 pages for Script B, 112 pages for Script C, 122 for Script D, and so on. I'd worry about aiming for that perfect screenplay that readers can't put down and stop worrying about the rest.
    I'm not worried, sorry if I gave that impression. More of just an observation in writing - and reading - habits. In my case, I didn't think the extra pages were crap or even extraneous - at the time. It took getting a completed, built out draft first to realize that. And the producer was right about some things for sure.

    But I'm glad I didn't edit as much in the beginning, which is my tendency. I find myself thinking shorter, shorter. I think my first post is just a reaction to my own experiences.

    It's not that I don't think Bo Goldman edited "Scent Of A Woman" - it's that he didn't seem to be a slave to it. A big chunk of black exists because he thought it needed to. He probably *could* have said it shorter but he didn't.

    I'd never write that big chunk of black for fear people would tune out. But I do appreciate reading it when it's well done.

    I had a discussion with someone awhile ago, and we were talking about the length of Tarrantino's movies. For some people's tastes, they could be edited tighter. But when I'm in the theater, and my friend shared this sentiment, I'm not in a rush to get out of a Tarrantino film. Could he edit twenty minutes off? Maybe, but he didn't. I'm glad he didn't.

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    • #17
      Re: Writing for people who hate to read

      Send 'em pictures.

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      • #18
        Re: Writing for people who hate to read

        Originally posted by Nat Palazzo View Post
        Send 'em pictures.
        I'm referring more to the brevity of writing because of overworked readers/ fast culture, but I like pics too. I'm handy with photoshop and editing, so I do this quite a bit of concept stuff when pitching. I enjoy it and my reps seem to love it.

        I'm excited to see how Craig and John's new format works out, what the reading experience is like with links to concept pictures.

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        • #19
          Re: Writing for people who hate to read

          Originally posted by madworld View Post
          All good points everyone and good reminders. And it's a given, the content has to be great or people will pass. But it does raise the question, if you can do something shorter, something more efficient, should you?

          Does it inhibit designing the best story? Do you find yourself losing a line here, or a line of dialog even, just to make that page break?

          Sometimes you have to. Per a producer's polish recently - I edited a draft from 115 down to 107.

          I fought for certain things. Others I had to lose. In the end, I didn't miss those words, though at the time I thought I would. Aren't you amazed after a couple months, when you revisit that script you wrote, how many things feel extraneous?

          Seems like all the requirements of novel writers still exist, plus many more requirements you don't have to contend with as a novelist - brevity being one. Producer's passes being another.

          Rambling, sorry. I should have edited this more haha.
          Obviously, there are times you have to make something shorter to fit the requirements of an assignment, whether it's column inches or word count or page count or the number of minutes of a TV episode -- in the end, if the episode is 24 minutes, then it's going to be 24 minutes, whatever the optimal length might be.

          But the issue of "efficiency" from my perspective, seems misguided, unless writing a user's manual or something like that.

          To talk about the most efficiently written work of fiction is like talking about the most efficiently painted painting or the most efficiently cooked meal -- or the most efficient sex act -- what does that mean?

          In some sense, you could say that nothing we do should have any more it needs -- nor any less. But how much is that?

          There are very simply works and very complex ones. Short short stories and novels that are a thousand pages long.

          The only way we can talk about efficiency in script-writing is if we actually know what it is that we want a script to do -- and that's not just to pack the recommended beats of a story and the proper character arcs into the proper number of pages.

          It is to "efficiently" create a memorable, involving, emotional experience for the reader.

          NMS

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          • #20
            Re: Writing for people who hate to read

            Originally posted by nmstevens View Post
            Obviously, there are times you have to make something shorter to fit the requirements of an assignment, whether it's column inches or word count or page count or the number of minutes of a TV episode -- in the end, if the episode is 24 minutes, then it's going to be 24 minutes, whatever the optimal length might be.

            But the issue of "efficiency" from my perspective, seems misguided, unless writing a user's manual or something like that.

            To talk about the most efficiently written work of fiction is like talking about the most efficiently painted painting or the most efficiently cooked meal -- or the most efficient sex act -- what does that mean?

            In some sense, you could say that nothing we do should have any more it needs -- nor any less. But how much is that?

            There are very simply works and very complex ones. Short short stories and novels that are a thousand pages long.

            The only way we can talk about efficiency in script-writing is if we actually know what it is that we want a script to do -- and that's not just to pack the recommended beats of a story and the proper character arcs into the proper number of pages.

            It is to "efficiently" create a memorable, involving, emotional experience for the reader.

            NMS
            Yes, totally. These are the terms I want to think in when writing and reading. Is it involving? Are we connected to it? Not - is it brief enough? What is enough?

            What spawns this thread is that when I crack open scripts to some of my favorite films, they're dense. Lovely and dense. It's clear the connection is there, even with big chunks of paragraphs.

            But living in a culture of content saturation, fast pace, ADHD - we see it less and less. We're always looking to get through something quickly (meaning "we" in general terms.)

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            • #21
              Re: Writing for people who hate to read

              Originally posted by nmstevens View Post
              To talk about the most efficiently written work of fiction is like talking about the most efficiently painted painting or the most efficiently cooked meal -- or the most efficient sex act -- what does that mean?
              I think those are inapposite comparisons. Or at least something seems a bit off about them.

              We don't care if the painter or cook is efficient in his/her creation of a painting/dinner. We care about the finished product. And yes, with certain sorts of paintings, I've heard experts mention 'the efficiency" with which the painter expresses him/herself. I've heard the same about dishes/courses at a restaurant.

              One way to consider the notion of "efficiency" of a thing (versus a process): A creation that accomplishes what was intended, and does so with an absence of waste.

              That might be Descartes', "Cogito ergo sum." That might also be a complete play by Shakespeare.

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              • #22
                Re: Writing for people who hate to read

                On the other hand, when you have a terribili-galumphing amateur chronically down with logorrhea (read: most of us when we were beginning) then killing all adjectives and adverbs and misbegotten metaphors and wordy descriptions of clouds and tables really makes things better.

                As there are more bad writers than good ones, the advice to be concise is right more often than not.

                There.

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