Thoughts before a second draft

This weekend we celebrated finishing the first draft of another screenplay. Now it’s time to pick our other project up out of the drawer and start working on a second draft. Last screenplay we wrote, the second draft turned out to be confusing and difficult work. This time around we’re determined to be better prepared and more effective.

We’re writing two screenplays this year. Structurally, they’re quite different, and we’ve done that intentionally. The first has a structure based on the old norse sagas, following our protagonist from childhood to old age. The second story has a more conventional three-act structure, with plot points and climaxes placed according to the screenwriter-gurus’ advice. Now both first drafts are done, and we’re ready for the second draft.

The first draft of our current screenplay is around 170 pages long, and is the result of a pretty intense process, with tons of research. We put everything that occured to us, and all the things we wanted to explore into the first draft, so we definitely have a lot of material to work with.

But how are we going to approach this? Here are some thoughts.

1. We start with a read-through. The first draft has been locked away in a drawer for two months, and we will probably make some new discoveries just reading through it.
2. We compare notes and thoughts. What scenes and sequences work? How are the characters? What’s the theme of the story?
3. We try to get an overview of the story by writing scenes on index cards, and placing them in sequences. How is the story paced and balanced? Are any sequences too long or too short? Are there story elements missing?
4. By now we should have a list of things to do, both in terms of writing, cutting and editing. Assign the tasks between us, and get to work.

I think it’s important that we don’t try to do everything at once. We should decide on exactly what we want to do for this second draft, be precise. And we have to set a resonable deadline, of course.

We do our screenwriting in Celtx, and when you’re collaborating, it’s important not to get your wires crossed when working on the same document. Celtx has a checkout-function that’s supposed to make sure nothing is lost when people work simultaneously, but we’re pretty happy with drafting in separate documents and merging them into a shared script.

The first draft was a matter of quantity over quality, just getting work done, without too much hesitation. Now comes the time for rewriting and editing, and that’s when Celtx’s revision mode comes in handy. When you’re editing it’s imperative that you do it non-destructively. That is, never delete something completely, and keep track of what cahnges you are suggesting. Don’t just jump in there and write away. You may regret it later, and chances are you’ll sit there a month later trying to reconstruct something you’ve written earlier, but deleted. So use different colour to mark suggested cuts and changes, and use the note function to keep track of thoughts and discussions as you go along.

Take a closer look at each character, his actions and his dialogue. Celtx also has great functions for this, generating reports of which scenes the character appears in, what he or she says or so on. Is the character interesting? Believable? What’s the character’s function? Does she speak too much subtext?

List up all your settings. Where does action take place? Does the story return to certain places? How would certain scenes change if you moved them to another setting? Are the settings interesting enough? Visual storytelling is imperative here, and good screenplays have to describe places and settings effectively and vividly. You don’t have many sentences at your disposal, so keep it sharp and to the point.

After the second draft is done, hopefully we will have a better grasp of our story. We will have considered different solutions and structures, making us more conscious of why we have chosen our current solutions. So where the first draft can be mess, and almost unreadable for outsiders, the second draft definitely needs competent response. We’re fortunate enough to have friends and contacts to help us out. Sure, it’s daunting letting other people read your work, but that’s the only way to do it. A story doesn’t work if it doesn’t have an audience. The second draft will undoubtedly need a lot of work, but hopefully we’ve taken some steps forward. And who knows, maybe our readers will even see some potential in it.

Second draft, here we come! I think I’m rather excited.