The Not So Gentle Art of
Editing Scripts

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > WORKING > EDITING >

'A play can feel too long because of three lines. . . . you try and hold things to a point of maximum tension, if you miscalculate you lose the tension in a moment, as though a piece of elastic has snapped. To win back that moment you might find that you are taking out (or even in some cases re-inserting) an amount of writing which would be completely unnoticeable in a novel.'

-- Tom Stoppard

Editing is a middle ground between the foolish assumption that your first draft is the greatest play ever written -- and therefore not a word should be changed -- and the equally rash impulse to burn the whole thing in the nearest fireplace you can find. Just because D. H. Lawrence used the first draft of Lady Chatterly's Lover for firewood, doesn't mean you should.

• Characters

• Dialogue

• Structure