"Allen Bridge" blog #06...

Now underway is the re-drafting of Act I - the key aim of which is to trim 14 pages from the 44 that constituted the draft 1.1 version of the first act.

I am now sitting back on page 13, having managed to trim, chop, and re-write 2.5 pages out of the way - so clearly there is still plenty left to do, but there's also plenty of pages left in which to achieve that aforementioned goal.

I find re-drafting much more enjoyable and far more of a free experience than writing that very first draft. You get to re-write what you've written in a more efficient and focused manner, and you get to hear your own dialogue back at you - if that makes sense - so you can remove any clunkiness and any extraneous 'chuffa' (as Bruce Willis might say).

Being that this script is a mystery drama - the mystery part being the key descriptor - taking this time to re-draft the current first act allows me to splice in tidbits of information here and there, stuff that might prove pertinent later on, or inversely be a total red herring. Mysteries are intricate things, and so they must be built upon, examined, and defined with a sharp focus on detail as well as plotting, pacing, and story ... particularly story in some cases, being that story takes place beyond the boundaries of page 1 and page 120 (for example).

So I'm feeling good about the script so far - a further benefit of re-drafting is that you get to revisit what you've written once and zoomed away from immediately, and discover - contrary to that paranoid, nagging voice in your creative mind - that what you've written does make sense, that it is interesting, and that you've not lost any skills that you have nurtured and developed on previous screenplays you had written.

In a strange way, re-drafting is when the real writing gets done.