4. Scene Doesn't Move Your Story Forward? Cut It!
It could be the greatest scene ever written by a human being with a keyboard, but it if doesn't move your story forward in some way, shape or form, it probably doesn't have a place in your script. I'm sure you've heard the phrase "kill your darlings" (or some paraphrased version) dozens of times, and that's one of the truest phrases going when it comes to this profession: your story, to quote Woody Allen, should be "like a shark. Constantly moving forward or it dies." He was talking about relationships, of course, but it's a good analogy for scripts, too. Fact is, if you've got a script and you've written a great scene that could be taken out without taking anything away from the story (remember what I said about voice-over?), it's gotta go. The scene is an unnecessarily mark on the structure of your piece, after all. The worst thing is that moments like this can be seen as an extension of your ego. If a script reader gets to one of these scenes and the pace you've set throughout is suddenly dropped, there's a chance they're going to get bored. And boredom is your worst enemy. Your script is a
shark, okay? Don't stop it from swimming.