The X Factor draft: this edit could be the most important of all

Your Next Script #11

By Charles Harris

We're almost there. Over the last ten articles we've developed an idea, worked it up as a treatment, written a first draft and revised it to the point when it's almost ready to send out.

But there are two more crucial tasks yet to perform. And the first will often make the most dramatic difference of all.

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What have you been putting off?

This is what I call the X factor. Nothing to do with reality TV, the X factor is both simple yet profound. But only you know what that is. 

It could be something you've been meaning to cut - such as a sequence or character you love but which you know isn't working.

It could be something you know you need to add.

It could be some aspect of the script that you're starting to have doubts about. Perhaps the key turning point doesn't do the job as well as it should. Or the premise doesn't totally make sense. 

It's the thing you've been putting off doing - draft after draft.

The difference between OK and great

Listen to the small inner voice that prompts a rethink or addition. 

Most good writing comes from our unconscious minds. While we need to use our rational editing brain to polish it up, we also have to listen to those deeper instincts.

It's natural to be afraid of the amount of work needed. But that extra work may turn out to be the most important work of all.

If in doubt...

What may seem a trivial change at this stage may even have profound effects. The big difference between a script that's so-so and one that sparkles is often this stage. It's now that the writers who go the extra mile reap their rewards.

Kill your darlings

In this draft you examine everything you are clutching onto in your script.

All too often, at this stage, we find we're still holding onto the very things that we should be letting go.

Be brutally honest with yourself - because if you're not I can guarantee that the industry will be.

You only get one chance with each possible buyer - producer or agent. Once they've rejected your screenplay, they are very unlikely to look at it again.

If in doubt, cut it out

So if you have doubts about anything, cut out the scissors. Cut it out and see what happens. (Remember you can always put it back again... But you almost certainly won't).

If in doubt, put it in

The corollary to cutting what you are thinking of cutting, is to write what you've been avoiding writing.

What about that twist that you keep mulling over and putting off because it would involve some extra research?

Or the character change that you can't put out of your head, but means rethinking the entire second act?

Or maybe there's a seemingly trivial issue that you just can't put out of your mind.

What are you shying away from?

Changes I've made in this final mini-draft have always brought major improvements.

Whether it's writing an emotional crisis that I've been shying away from, because it will be too gruelling (or challenging) to write or rectifying what seems to be a relatively trivial plot hole, I never regret this last run through.

One script of mine came to life in a totally unexpected way, simply because I followed the little voice that told me I had to dramatise a flashback from a character's childhood in Jamaica. 
Even though I thought I was being stupid - we'd never afford the budget for a location shoot in the Caribbean - I wrote the scene. And it worked.

Despite my fears, we shot it, for almost no money, on a gloriously sunny day by turning a gravel pits in Hertfordshire into a totally convincing country road near Kingston, Jamaica, and it gives a very special lift to the whole film.

Listen to your instincts

To sum up: you may think that all the writing is over. But you can be sure that there are a few little loose ends still to be investigated.

Now, for one final time, you will gain enormously from listening to your instincts and making those last few changes that make all the difference to your script.

We're almost done. One more job to do before we can send it out - which we'll look at in the final article of this series.


Charles Harris is an international award-winning writer-director and best-selling author. His new novel - The Breaking of Liam Glass - is to be published by Marble City tomorrow. ​

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