Always room for improvement...

I wrote a horror script a few years back. Well, more than a few. More like seven. In the last few years I’ve optioned this script a number of times. At one point, the script was oh-so-close to selling and going into pre-production. The script was under option with yet another producer until just two months ago. That’s when I decided to give the script a read-through (it’s been a while since I’d read it) and see where I could make some improvements. A tweak here, a tweak there...just clean it up a bit before I start sending it back into the world. Now, you might be asking, “If you’ve been getting such a positive response from the script, why mess with it?” Sure, I’ve had my fair share of producers rave about the script. They love it for its creepy mood and, as with all my scripts, its succinct, page-turning style. But still, there’s always room for a bit of improvement in any script. So I sat down with the script last week, red pen in hand, and got to work. Believe me, a significant amount of time away from a script is a very good thing. I guess I’ve become a better writer in seven years (I’d hope so!) because I found a few things that really made me cringe. When all was said and done, I had laid down a decent amount of red ink. No, I didn’t find anything significant to change. The story worked just fine and the characters were well-defined, but I did find some awkward lines of dialogue and some slightly unwieldy descriptive passages. (If you can cut 27 words down to 22 words, do it.) I also found a story point or two that I could bolster and clarify. By the time I was done with the revision, my script was even better than before. Good thing too, cuz I already have a producer interested in giving it a read.