I’m overdue for a blog post by a few days, but there’s good reason for that. I knew I wanted to base my post on the quote seen in my title, but I couldn’t remember exactly what it was. The good people at Reddit helped me track it down though, so here I am.

This quote from Jay from RedLetterMedia is fantastic and I think it absolutely applies to writing as it does to film. Despite being two vastly different mediums, it’s remarkable how similar they are when it comes to story telling. I remember hearing Rich Evans say once that when making a movie, you have to keep trimming the fat until you finally have a concise story. Again, that applies to writing just as it does film.

I recognize there are some differences. Why is film a series of endless compromises? Well mainly because you’re having to balance so many things. Even for an independent project where you have complete creative control, you have to balance your expectations with your budget or time constraints. In making a big studio release, you have to balance between groups of people, the corporate group, the creative group, the technical group, everybody has to compromise something for the end product to finally be finished. So in a sense, you’re riding a constantly changing monster, and while you have some measure of control, it’s going to end up taking you where it takes you.

So how does this apply to writing you may ask? I mean, you do have complete creative control right? There is no budget you have to maintain, it’s all just words on your computer.

Well, yes and no. Something that has stood out to me more and more as I’ve been working lately is how much compromise you’re forced into while writing. An example from my own work, I finished 2/3rds of Penumbra looked at it and realized I was at 120k words (as referenced in my last post). That was way too long and I knew that I had another 40k words to at at the very least.

And so I had to trim the fat, but once I had it all trimmed, I was still way over at 80k words. Which is where compromising begins.

You have to start asking yourself the really hard questions. Do I really need a particular scene? Do I need this great bit of dialogue or action sequence? Traditionally this has been known as “killing your darlings” by writers, which seems like a morbid pretense but it feels authentic, especially when you put your heart into your writing. It does feel like you’re killing these little moments that you really love in your work. But you have to do it in order to write clearly and concisely.

So even with complete control, you have to recognize that your story likely isn’t going to end up the way you initially envisioned it. Even with all the outlining in the world, it’s going to shift. It’s just like the beast that Jay mentions.

As it is, I’ve realized mistakes I’ve made with Penumbra. That means I’m cutting a large portion of the first 1/3 which is bad news. But the good news is I know exactly what I’m doing and where I’m going, so it’s full steam ahead again. And I’m loving the work.

Give RedLetterMedia all of the love they deserve: http://redlettermedia.com/