April in November, or, Continuity Editing

I think I’m almost done. Remember my D&D-style movie script that I wrote last April? The one for the 100-page Script Frenzy challenge?  After it was done, I decided it needed a little revision.

The original draft never had the moment where our heroes’ success was truly in doubt. Where, if I might borrow a phrase, the quest stood on a knife’s edge. So I went back and added one. No big, right?

But everything after that point in the plot was subtly shifted. I couldn’t just cut-n-paste the previous ending on wholesale. So, now I think I’m done, but I’ve shuffled so much stuff around that I need to do a continuity editing pass.

It’s an annoying step – mostly because it’s a technical, almost mechanical job, rather than an imaginative, creative one. What I need to do is review the draft and account for the progression of events. I’m looking for things like characters using their weapons two scenes after being disarmed.  And who has the McGuffin, which changes hands as McGuffins tend to do.

So here’s another secret of writing, which I hope inspires you as much as it does me. Sometime in writing, like in any craft, there is annoying busy work that needs to be done. I guess the secret is to want the finished product enough.