Paul Renhard talks about the writing process

Writing is Re-writing – ain’t that the truth!

The first two things everyone tells you when you start writing screenplays are number one – ‘show don’t tell’ and number two – ‘the real work starts with the re-writes and the editing’.

Well, we finished the first draft of our latest feature film project over two years ago and since then I’ve lost count of the number of rewrites and edits it’s undergone. Obviously, we haven’t been working on it every day since then, but in the past four months hardly a week’s gone by without some work being done on the script – and some weeks it’s been almost every hour of every day!

But here’s the thing . . . the script just keeps getting better.

Now I know that all creative projects reach a point of diminishing returns and the real skill is knowing when you’re there. I can honestly say there have been numerous times during this process when I’ve thought ‘that’s it, this script can’t get any better’ and then our producer has asked for a re-write and what’s emerged has been an improvement.

So, here’s what I’ve learnt. It’s better to do one rewrite too many than one too few . . .  oh and keep all your drafts!