If you’re editing your own work, how do you stop yourself
from over-editing? To me, it seems like there becomes a point where the editing
is noticible in a negative way on the
screenplay.
–Zack Adcock
Editing is a big part of any writing, but it’s uniquely important in screenwriting,
where so few words have to stand for so much. The most important thing to keep
asking as you edit every word, line and scene is, "Do I need this?" or
more to put it more fully, "How important is this to the story I’m telling?" Often
whole scenes and sequences are felled this way, and it’s better (and cheaper)
to do this kind of work before you’ve spent millions of dollars to film it.
Where editing can go too far is in sacrificing tone or flavor (especially
humor) in service of story efficiency. Good writing has bumps and curves, and
not everything should flow in the fastest possible way. Screenwriting is like
any art that way: deciding what is too much and what is too little, in order
to know what is just right.