Indian Sprints - A hack for rewriting

Writing is rewriting. I think everyone has heard that chestnut by now, but it's 100% true. You start with a crappy first draft and rewrite it, and, in doing so, trim unnecessary sentences and enhance the odd little connections between thoughts that really get the imagination percolating.

If you're anything like me (and I hope you are, because I'm a narcissist), you may have a tendency to over-invest the words with a sentimental value that clouds objective analysis.

Many experts offer this advice: put the work away until the thrill of creativity wears off, and the first draft can be read as the stinking pile of waste it most likely is (I like to store first drafts in plastic bags for this very reason. But time doesn't always permit this, so I'll use a trick I've come to call Indian Sprints, named after an unpleasant exercise I had to do, years ago, when I was on the middle school Cross Country team.

To "Indian Sprint" your rewrite, you must identify your absolute worst scene, the one that's utter crap, pure filler, and that's totally boring. This is usually findable, no matter how enamored we are of our own work, there's always something we can identify as bad. Once this has been identified, you must rewrite that scene (and only that scene) until it's one of your favorite things in the script.

I recommend this for a multitude of reasons. Many scripts have awkward bits of connective tissue where information is exposited, cars are parked, or unnecessary characters conveniently shoved off into the rest room. By hyper-focusing on this stuff, it either gets cut, or it gets more organically integrated into the more fun, visual and dynamic sections of your script. Because you're focusing on the worst of an otherwise "good" script, you can find the part that's easiest to change, because it's the part that's least under the sway of counterproductive emotional investment and defensiveness.

Most importantly, the creativity and fresh eyes that rewriting the scenes sparks causes a global reevaluation of the draft at large. Once the "Bob explains the legalese" scene has been rewritten to a sparkle, suddenly the other Bob scenes seem lackluster. Once boring lawyer Bob has been given Oscar worthy dialogue, suddenly the protagonist starts to feel boring. Once the protagonist is brilliant and clever, suddenly the car chase, the one you worked so hard to plan out and execute, begins to look a little stale. And so on and so on, until your script is perfect (unlikely) or you hit your deadline.

I hope you find this trick useful and add it to your toolbox/arsenal. I know that I use it a lot, and when I don't (usually out of laziness) it always comes back to bite me.