Table Of ContentScreenwriting is Rewriting
Screenplays aren’t written. They are rewritten and rewritten and rewritten.
Alexander Mackendrick, Writer/Director, The Man In The White Suit, The
Ladykillers
The experience of writing Cider House has confirmed what I’ve always
believed as a writer, that the most important and essential element of
writing is rewriting.
John Irving, Screenwriter/Novelist, The World According to Garp, Cider
House Rules
As a kid I was a terrible writer. I was inarticulate and made C’s on my
writing papers, until I transferred schools in the tenth grade and suddenly
starting getting’s A’s. Why? Two reasons. One, because I started reading
fiction with a passion. Two, I learned the value of revision—the rewrite.
Tom Schulman, Screenwriter, Dead Poets Society, Honey I Shrunk The
Kids
I’d write it to the end and go back and write it all over again, go back and
write it all over again, go back and write it all over again. I think I
probably wrote, without exaggeration, about twenty drafts of A Few Good
Men.
Aaron Sorkin, Screenwriter/Playwright, A Few Good Men, West Wing, The
Social Network
For My Family
Cynthia, Liza, and Kerri
Screenwriting is Rewriting
The Art and Craft of Professional
Revision
Jack Epps, Jr.
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc
Contents
Introduction
How To Use This Book
Let’s Talk About Rewriting
The Pass Method—Layer By Layer
Movies You Need To See
Part 1 Foundations and Fundamentals
1 Notes—Receiving and Organizing Notes
2 Interpreting Notes—Reading Tea Leaves
3 The Annotated Draft—A Reference Guide To Your Rewrite
4 Game Plan—Creating the Road Map for the Rewrite
5 Character—Writing from the Inside Out
6 Foundation Pass—Strengthening the Core
7 Character Pass—The Emotional Core
8 The Set-Up—Establish—Complicate—Resolve
9 Story and Theme Pass—The Emotional Underpinning
10 Structure—What Stays In, What Goes Out, and In What Order?
11 Structure Pass—Architecture and Design
12 Plot—How Will This Turn Out?
13 Plot Pass—Cause and Effect
14 Feedback on Your Interim Draft—Checking-In
Part 2 Layering and Details
15 Opposition Characters—Sources of Conflict and Tension
16 Complications, Obstacles, Reveals, and Reversals—Complicate,
Complicate, Complicate
17 Complications, Obstacles, Reveals, and Reversals Pass—Making Life
Much More Difficult
18 Relationships—The Ties that Bind
19 Relationship Pass—Interconnecting
20 Scene Pass—Link and Connect
21 Dialogue Pass—Rhythm and Flow
22 Consistency Pass—Quality Control
23 Polish Pass—Dialogue, Text, and Tightening
24 Sending Out Your Screenplay—Letting Go
25 Working With Directors, Producers, & Executives—Navigating the
Executive Experience
Part 3 Screenwriters on Rewriting
Robert Towne
Frank Pierson
Susannah Grant
Part 4 Examples
Studio Script Notes
Turner & Hooch Notes
Sister Act Game Plan and Studio Notes
Student Annotated Pages
Suicide Girl by Ivy Pruss
Student Notes and Game Plans
Take Your Grandma To Work Day by David Ngo
F@#% The Knot by Romi Barta
Essential Three Act Questions
Acknowledgments
Works Cited
Index
Introduction
Writing is creating something out of nothing. Rewriting is creating
something out of what is there.
Robert Towne, Writer/Director, The Last Detail, Chinatown, Mission
Impossible II
Many writers find rewriting to be a mysterious process and flounder around
aimlessly playing musical words. They have a love-hate relationship with the
task and would rather run barefoot over hot coals than face a rewrite. But it
doesn’t have to be that way. Rewriting, when done right, can be satisfying
and rewarding. It demands a great deal of deconstruction and reconstruction,
reconfiguring and reconceiving. To succeed you need a plan of attack: to
analyze, organize, problem-solve, and execute. There can be no wasted lines
or pointless scenes in a screenplay. It is not about just changing words;
rewriting is about stripping away all the dead and irrelevant parts, and finding
the heart and core of your characters and story. Everything has to contribute
to the whole. There is a famous quote attributed to the renowned sculptor,
Michelangelo: “Every block of stone has a statue inside of it and it is the task
of the sculptor to discover it.” Let’s rewrite the quote for screenwriting:
“Every screenplay has a movie inside of it and it is the task of the
screenwriter to discover it.”
It’s my firm belief that rewriting made my career. While I was an
undergraduate at Michigan State University, I had an intimidating creative
writing instructor, Virgil Scott, who drilled the importance of rewriting into
my head by demanding I rewrite a short story over and over again. Scott was
a published author and someone I didn’t want to disappoint. After initial
resistance (the normal reaction of all writers), much to my surprise the story
got better, and the importance of rewriting was hammered home. When my
remarkable partner, Jim Cash, and I began to work together, we spent over
two years and five major drafts getting our first spec script into shape to send
out to the town. From my experience as a production assistant and a reader, I
realized there was only one way to enter the business, and that’s at the top
with a professional seamless screenplay. No one says “nice try” in
Hollywood.
The screenplay form is very conducive for rewriting. It’s not a novel and
not read as literary material. A screenplay is part stage play and part
blueprint. A screenplay can be broken into many component pieces and is
malleable in a way that novels and plays are not. Individual scenes can be
swapped out with relative ease, and entire characters can disappear and new
ones appear in their place. Unlike a novel, the focus of a screenplay is not on
the writing, but on the characters and their stories, the visual images and the
driving narrative—in other words, storytelling. A screenplay is a guide for
directors, actors, cinematographers, set decorators, production designers,
visual effects artists, and an entire crew of creative people who use it to focus
and coordinate their work. Filmmaking is a collaborative art, and the
screenplay is a statement of the shared vision of what the final film should be.
Rewriting makes everyone a better writer. To rewrite successfully, you must
understand how all the screenwriting elements work together to form a
cohesive script. Rewriting also teaches you what you must know before you
start your next screenplay. Rewriting is always a challenge, but there is a
great deal of satisfaction when you see how far you have taken your
screenplay, and how much closer it is to your original intention. If you are
serious about becoming a professional screenwriter, then you must become a
diligent rewriter. There are no successful screenwriters who are not good at
