4. Axe The "Boring" Bits/Kill Your Darlings
Alfred Hitchcock said, "Drama is life with the dull bits cut out of it." You're probably thinking, "Why would I write any boring parts, anyway?" Nobody sets out to write a boring scene, of course, so how do you know if something you've written is of the tedious kind? The best way is to see what happens if you take the scene
out. You might love the scene or think it's completely necessary, but what happens if you just take it out? Sometimes you'll find that you just go back to writing the same scene all over again because it was necessary. But more often than not, you'll find that the scene wasn't as essential as you thought it was - and that one line of dialogue will suffice instead of the four or five pages you had previously, slowing down your plot. And it's the "slowing down" of the plot that will increase your chances of dullness. And this all goes back to a phrase that you've probably heard many times before: "Kill your darlings." This applies to writing of all kinds, and basically translates (in screenwriting terms, anyway),
don't include something because you're in love with it, include it because it needs to be included. So that scene you wrote that you think is the best one in your story but you're struggling to find room for? Kill it. It may break your heart, but if you know - deep down - that it's not working, the best thing to do is just take it out completely.