Art of the Rewrite

One of the things I've never been terribly good at as a screenwriter is the rewrite. Don’t get me wrong…I always rewrite, and I do find it to be a valuable tool. But it hardly seems that I completely fix all of the problems in a screenplay when I do the rewrite. There always seems to be a few scenes or part of an act that just doesn't seem to work. And the entire work suffers because of it. As nearly any screenwriter will tell you, pro or beginner, those scenes stick out like a sliver in your brain.
Just recently, I planned on handing over one of my screenplays, "The Madcap Armament", to Rebekah so she could proofread it. I've left that screenplay sitting around for so long that I figured it was time to make sure it was as good as it could possibly be before I let it be covered by time and other stories.
One major problem with the screenplay however, was that it had been written in as a word document. You see…I now realize, with the aid of Final Draft, how poor some of my formatting attempts were. It's not a pretty looking script. So, I decided to transcribe the whole thing over to Final Draft and fix a few minor issues before I sent it off to Rebekah.
Upon re-reading it however, I came across a series of scenes in the second half of Act II that left me with a nagging feeling. Like a dull ache, those scenes stuck out in my mind as being off-key, out of place...just all-together bad. I couldn't place my finger on the reason why they felt that way; they just nagged at me. I decided to wait on sending the screenplay, at least until I could puzzle out the reason why that section of the story felt wrong. In fact, it is a weird thing when something feels off in a screenplay. It doesn't just feel wrong...it feels fuzzy.
Act II, Part II of "The Madcap Armament" felt fuzzy. As a result, I started to let the act simmer in my mind. I even read that portion of Act II over and over again, trying to pinpoint the exact spot in which things started to feel fuzzy. After some careful reading, I found it. The second I located the point at which everything began to fall apart, I realized what my problem was.

The main character disappeared.

Almost literally. There is a point in the second act where the main character, Leonard Chaplin, disappears off the page, only to be replaced by secondary characters that are more lively and unique then he is. And then, when the second act ends, the story begins to pick up again. Why? Because Leonard reappears and starts making drastic decisions about how he is going to end all of the problems facing him. Leonard begins to be the protagonist again.
Once I realized this, I was blown away. It was a pretty dramatic problem, one that gradually got worse as the screenplay moved along. And the funny thing is that the second half of Act II doesn't read badly...it doesn't move slowly...it just feels terrible. Just to be sure however, I began to read a book that I had purchased and left sitting on my shelf for months. That is Syd Field's book on Rewriting.
All I can say is that I should have read this book sooner. Already I've begun to appreciate the fine art of rewriting. Not only that, I've realized why my approach to rewriting constantly fails, why problems like the Leonard Disappearance continually crop up in my screenplays. I simply do not know how to rewrite. But I am changing that.
After reading the first 4 or 5 chapters in the book (and jumping around through several others), I learned that my problem definitely stemmed from the disappearance of Leonard. The protagonist had in essence lost control of the story. He ceased to take action and now only knew how to react. And I pinpointed the exact spot in which the seed of this problem was planted. It took several scenes before the problem began to show however.
That is the diagnosis. The cure? A complete rewrite of the second half of Act II. Old scenes will be dropped. New ones will be written with Leonard as the focus. The remaining scenes will be crafted to fit to his character arc. It will take at least a couple of days, but when it is complete, I will be able to rest easy when I send the screenplay off to be proofread.

I might add that my foray into this untouched arena of screenwriting couldn't have come at a better time - the rewrites for our screenplays are due in Screenwriting III. I spent the majority of my afternoon today working on the first act of "Sin of the Opiate". Unlike Madcap however, I have an entire class of screenwriters to point out mistakes and help me rewrite. After collecting their notes together in addition to my own qualms, I began to refashion Sin of the Opiate. While I still have a plethora of tasks to complete before I can turn in a polished draft, I can at least say that the screenplay is beginning to take some kind of shape.

Here's a new download for you of 6 rewritten pages from the screenplay. I never posted the originals, but I didn't want to post something that you had already read. Enjoy.