An Economical Literature

I've been working towards a Masters in Screenwriting for a little over a year and one of the hardest tasks I've found is how to be as economical as possible with each word, sentence, title, log line, synopsis etc

We started with 1 line log lines. Then a 1 page synopsis which led to a 6 page synopsis. On Monday's session someone whispered the torture of a 25 word synopsis.

That's half the size of the text above this new line. Yikes.

With the exception of one play, everything I've written has been short. Short stories, flash fiction, short plays. But now that I actually have to make something short I'm struggling. I sit staring out of the window desperately trying to condense 110 minutes of action into 25 words of complete and profound meaning.

I'm about 15 words off right now and beating myself up over every single key stroke.

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Tuesday Mornings

The fog had crept across the garden all morning, soaking into the space between tired daisy heads and trampled grass. It had stealthily stroked everything it passed and left a cold trace of moisture clinging to the underside of oak leaves, pampas grass and rhododendron blooms. Up in the sky the sun was battling to break through the thick cloud cover and every tentative shaft of light was being batted away by this endless trail of fog. Two red wellie boots jump from an open doorway into this scene. Determined thuds on the back door step and with a second’s pause to contemplate which direction to run in they are off, racing into the gloom adding a jolt of colour and noise. A second pair of boots join them, more slowly this time and in a gentler colour way of navy blue. The door is closed behind these boots and a voice calls out to slow the red boots down. A warning not to fall in the puddles, be careful of the tree roots, don’t go further than the stile at the en...

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This week I've been concentrating on a TV pilot I've written as part of my Masters. I had a tutorial on Tuesday where I walked aways with 2 pages of scribbled notes and a head full of ideas. I normally leave those meetings in a state of panic, never sure where to start or how to take an axe to a draft of work that has taken me weeks but now needs refinement. I let the panic rage for 2 days but as always it's started to settle and today I'm looking at my pen pot of red biros and highlighters and wondering if I should just start tackling the great reshape. The structure is almost there but the characters need condensing. I need to cull at least 3 peripheral voices and make the survivors more distinct. I need to cut my slug lines down from poetic theatrical essays to 2 lines of action. I need a tagline (I should've had this before I started writing) and a definite genre - not the 3 that I'm interchanging at will....

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Always Freewriting

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