Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses — don’t you believe it, especially during sweater season. (Picture Marilyn Monroe in How to Marry a Millionaire) But, I’m Rom Com illiterate, (I’m learning — progress report pending) so let’s move on to a non-proposition form of pass.

Literally, use “pass” as a softer synonym for “edit process” as opposed to “attempt to pick up”, “politely reject”, “throw in a foward motion” or “oops, butt burp” and the reverse of that tired old phrase works for me. I never make passes unless I wear glasses — passes at my screenplays. Glasses are mandatory. There’s a fourteen hour limit on my gas permeable contact lenses and I can’t possibly edit an entire screenplay in only fourteen hours.

For my latest screenplay (which starts with an F just like my last two - what is up with the F words?), I decided to develop a structure for my edit process. It seemed to work. I didn’t wake up with burn marks on my chest. Safety tip — laptops get scorching hot so don’t curl up with one for long periods of time if you can avoid it.

We outline our stories, we outline our pitches, we even outline our days in our calendars so I figured I could try outlining my edit process. So, here goes.

The First Pass - Story Elements & Dialogue

This is a no brainer. The problem for me, however, is that I can’t get always get past a certain word or phrase that I know can be written better. Resist! I must resist! Save it for pass two. First things first. Make sure the structure is there and the dialogue isn’t predictable or cliche but don’t spend too much though debating words. I already did that in the writing process and can do it again after I get through this critical pass. Obviously, I’m going to stumble on rhythm problems, too, but I must resist the urge to fix those until the next phase of editing. In talking with other amateur screenwriters, I’ve found that for many of us (if not, most) this is the one and ONLY pass they take at their stories. They just do it eight or nine times. That won’t work for me. If all I ever did was edit my stories over and over checking story content and dialogue, then my screenplays would all be 130 pages or more.

The Second Pass - Getting Tight and Lean

This is critical. I’ve always thought of this as “cleanup”and “condensing” but I didn’t really have a clear process until I found these three suggestions from Philip Morton. I won’t repeat them in detail so you’ll have to go to his blog and read them for yourself. It’s great stuff. Cut it out and tape to your wall or put it in your binder of screenwriting tips.

(1) Trim setup, exposition & dialogue
(2) Cut repeated action
(3) Multiply to condense

The final portion of this process comes from Bill Cunningham, in response to Morton’s suggestions.

(4) Avengers’ trick

I’m sure there is a technical term for #4. I just don’t know it what it is. But, this is a method that Bill Cunningham describes frequently using on The Avengers television show –

They would pose a question at one location and immediately CUT TO a new location with the person giving the answer required. No exterior establishing shot required.

Example:

EXT. ROYAL GARDENS - DAY

Steed and Mrs. Peel stand over a dead body in the middle of a dry grassy field. Steed turns him over and a lungful of water pours out of his mouth.

INT. SCIENCE MINISTRY - DAY

A LAB TECH turns to Steed and Mrs. Peel…

LAB TECH - He drowned, no doubt about it…

STEED - In the middle of a dry field?

LAB TECH - Could he have been placed there afterward..?

MRS. PEEL - No, his footprints lead right up to the point where he keeled over…

STEED - Or in this case, keel hauled over…

LAB TECH - Dreadful.

The Third Pass - Story Elements Again

Okay, now that I’ve trimmed, cut repeated action, multiplied to condense and gotten the story moving by splitting dialogue up between scenes, it’s time for me to go back and make sure I haven’t inadvertently botched up my story elements. So, it’s back to pass one. Once that’s done, I may very well have to go through pass two again. This might require I go through pass one again. It’s a vicious circle. But, at least I have an outline of the circle — okay, it’s really more like a figure eight .

The Final Pass - Spelling and Grammar

So yeah, I actually check spelling and grammar along the way, but I need at least one pass that is nothing but proofreading and that DOESN’T mean relying on spellcheck cuz I am here to tell you that if you leave the letter “L” out “public hearing”, spell check won’t catch it!

All Done and I Can Finally Relax

Liar, liar, pants on fire. The simple truth is that I will likely go through this whole outlined editing process over and over until (1) I am so involved in another project that I finally stop obsessing over this one (2) I get a read request and am forced to stop editing, or (3) I drop dead.
I believe I’ll take a pass on door three. (Refer to first paragraph for definitions of “pass”) Meanwhile, anyone have an outline for outlining?

Take time to be sick. That’s my maternal advice for the day. Oh sure, you can suppress cold and allergy symptoms for weeks with over the counter stuff but sooner or later, bacteria will win. It always does.

I am relatively certain that I cracked a rib this morning while coughing up a lung. I’ve gone through a myriad of pharmaceutical combinations but they knock me out for hours. Then, I wake to the indignant growls of my five pound Chorkie (Chichuachua/Yorkie), Toby, who loves to curl up under my chin while I sleep. Too bad for him that I drool in my drug induced sleep.

Yeah, I’m charming.

Toby has been particularly affectionate since his toenail got caught in the carpet and ripped open a bloody geyser. My boys took him to the vet while I cleaned up the blood and put clean sheets on my bed where Toby had sought refuge from that mean ol’ carpet that bit his foot.

But, on to Rom Coms.

Billy Mernit’s book, Writing the Romantic Comedy, arrived yesterday and the unexpected surprise here is that the book is not just a lot of opinions and observations about writing romantic comedy, it’s somewhat of a course, complete with viewing assignments, essay questions and critical thinking exercises. This will take some time but appears to be just what I need — if I’m serious about this — and I am. So, I started reading the book right away and somewhere on page 21, fell fast asleep.

My boys woke me later to give me the vet’s verdict and I swear, I could smell Old Spice on my pillowcase. No kidding. Those were clean sheets. I went to sleep reading Billy’s book and woke up smelling tacky cologne. Weird. The romance thing was working on me already.

There are a lot of films listed in that book. So, after the Toby report, I glanced over the list and then went a different direction. I put Speechless in the VCR and promptly fell asleep. Yeah, I’m gonna learn a lot this way — choose a Rom Com not on the list and then pass out.

I was floating in a “you’re about to wake up” fog when Julia (Gina Davis’ character) said something about Kevin (Michael Keaton’s character) wearing a ton of cologne. Know what? He was! I could smell it! In his defense, Kevin had accidentally dumped a whole bottle of cologne in his lap while driving in the car but had he really spilled so much that it permeated from the television into my bedroom? Besides, it wasn’t romantic. It smelled like a little old man you might bump into at the checkout counter.

No more sleeping. I got up, ate a bowl of soup, and glanced at report cards but I could hardly hold my head up so I went back to bed. Know what? I could still smell that old man’s cologne! I put a clean case on my pillow and it tamed the manifestation enough for me to sleep. Even so, my dreams were a restless parade of black socks and Bermuda shorts.

I woke up this morning cursing that book, cursing Rom Coms and cursing my imagination which had stunk up my pillow again — until I saw my son rubbing deodorant on the dog’s bandaged foot. What the?? The vet had said it would keep Toby from gnawing on the bandages, the boy explained. Oh, okay. So much for my romanticism about old men in black socks and Bermuda shorts.

I went back to bed. I’m still there.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.
Friedrich Nietzsche

A few months ago, I wrote that heroes and monsters are as subjective as the person pointing them out. I think this will be particularly true for United 93.

So far, I’ve only heard positive things about United 93 despite some pre-film arguments that it was released too soon or that it would cause additional suffering to people still grieving unfinished lives. I plan to see the film and I defend the freedom of speech and expression of those associated with its development and release.

However, I do have one regret — one sinking, unfaltering, sick regret in the pit of my stomach that tells the hair on my neck to quiver every time I see the United 93 trailer — one gnawing, throat clogging, nerve wrenching, blood curdling regret –

Terrorists get to see this film, too.

Like us, terrorists will see heroes who summon up all their courage and determination and ultimately defeat their enemies. They’ll be inspired by the singlemindedness of characters who played a key role that day and they may even leave with a renewed sense of patriotism because like us, they will believe in their hearts that failure was still a victory.

We see heroes. They see heroes. We see monsters. They see monsters. But we’ll be looking at different faces.