Cutting out 40 pages...Has this happened to you?

T

TimAkers

Member
Ever wrote a manuscript, got halfway into it, at 201 pages written, and all of a sudden, starting going in a direction you yourself didn't expect to go? Me too. Now, I have to cut out the last four chapters, a little over forty pages.

I tried rushing the story and pushed it too fast where it didn't make sense. It's hard moving forward when the details I have to put in require so much space. I am also writing it and layering it at the same time. The last forty pages did me no justice, nor layered correctly. It's okay, just puts me back a few days. It's hard, because the book I'm writing is a semi-piece-period during the Victorian era.



Has this happened to you? Ever written something, got into it, then realized it completely swayed from the original premise? I can't change the premise, that would change the whole story completely.

Feel free to explain any experience that may have helped, or hindered you while writing, whether manuscript, screenplay, novel or book, it doesn't matter; feel free to share anyway. :)
 
Well, no, but I once told a guy to cut the first 60 pages of his script. Most newbie scripts don't get started for a long time, and most are abysmally bad such that you can't get past 5 pages.
 
Generally if this is one of your first couple scripts it would be easy for a seasoned screenwriter to hack this down. My first screenplay ended up being 160 pages. I then went back and rewrote it when I got more experienced and knocked it down to 110 without really losing anything from the story. New screenwriters tend to use too many words and single use scenes. Merge scenes and tighten your writing and you'll probably knock down 40 pages.
 
This is entirely normal, although better outlining may save you some effort. A good story of any type is not written, it is rewritten.

Paul Schrader taught me a brilliant outline form. He would start by just describing the crux of a story verbally, and when he could see he was losing his listener's attention he would move on to the next beat within the story. He soon learned what was and wasn't working in the concept. The he took a yellow legal pad and wrote out a sentence fragment to describe each scene, like "Travis takes Betty on date." He'd stick a number in front for how many minutes/pages it would likely last. He put these in order and then start jumbling them around as needed. It was a quick way to notice that a character had disappeared for a long time or that a section of story was taking too long or going off in an unnecessary direction. When he built up what looked like a good 100-140 pages or so he felt he could actually start writing out the script.

Hemmingway used to write thousands and thousands of words that he would later discard. He needed to get them out there so that he could then distill down to the essence of what he really wanted to say. A friend wrote a novel that included a character who owned an antique handmade chess set, with a story behind the creation of each chess piece. As an exercise he wrote out the entire story behind each of the little pieces, and some were wonderful, fanciful little parables. Some were exotic adventures and others quite funny. None of those stories ever saw the light of day but they deeply informed the work he did on the novel that was published.

Everyone has a process.
 
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