A book I read some time ago, “A Killer Life,” by film-maker Christine Vachon, contained some interesting observations about writing that I thought I’d pass along today. The first is about writing and rewriting—and it’s a good one to jot on an index card and keep nearby if you tend to panic when your first and second drafts aren’t as good as you’d like them to be:
“I think it usually takes three drafts for a script to get there. The first draft of a screenplay has energy. The second draft, by trying to fix all the problems of the first draft, tends to be a muddle. The third draft corrects the overcorrection and hopefully improves what works in the first place."
Her second point is about how long a script (or a book) is. She writes: “We have a saying at Killer [Films]: it’s not the length that’s the problem, it’s the perception of length. A short film can feel long when motivations aren’t clear, transitions don’t match, or the proportions of the story are off. It doesn’t matter if your movie is ninety minutes. If people feel like it’s two hours, then you’ve got to fix something.”
Her book, by the way, never feels too long--it's a zippy and entertaining read about the ups and downs of independent film-making that I think you might enjoy.
