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Clean Lines of Action

David Gane
David Gane

I push my students to think about cause and effect in their scenes and scripts. When the action we read is convoluted, we stop and go back to try and make sense of it.

Yet, in a film, we are not in control of time, so our brains are trying to register poorly formed action while trying to simultaneously process it.

Jim Emerson points this out in his In the Cut Series:

The cleaner the action, the easier it is to sweep a reader (or viewer) along with the story.

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David Gane

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Co-writer of the Shepherd and Wolfe young adult mysteries, the internationally award-winning series, and teacher of storytelling and screenwriting.

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