Isolating character relationships

“Why isolate character relationships and what the hey does that mean, anyway?” You ask.

“Happy I dropped by,” I say.

Isolating character relationships means taking a pair of characters and reading only the scenes that they are in together.

In other words, look at only the scenes with Orlando and Rosalie. Constance will be in some of those scenes too, but focus mainly on Orlanda and Rosalie. Without the clutter of everybody else’s stories and plot threads screeching like a million seagulls, study just the Orlando and Rosalie relationship. When you only have one relationship to consider, you can calmly fix its imperfections.

Do it like this…

Save a copy of your draft as ‘Orlando & Rosalie Sept 11 22” and cut every scene they’re not in, inserting ##### between their scenes so you know when one ends and one begins. Make sure you keep slug lines and scene numbers. It’s helpful to also write the number of pages between the last scene and this one.

With the entire relationship spread across a few pages, problems nearly impossible to see while staring at the entire screenplay will stick out like a zebra in a herd of horses. You may also observe that from pages 32 – 56, Orlando is nowhere to be found! How could he have vanished for 24 pages?! Now you know what you need to fix.

Studying characters’ scenes in isolation makes their relationship crystal clear. What’s missing leaps out. Are the progressions as smooth as silk? Do Orlando and Rosalie make a giant leap in their relationship that calls for three added scenes halfway through? You can see what’s moving too fast and what’s dragging. If you’ve written (more or less) the same story point three times, pick the best one and cut two.

The more you look, the more you’ll see. Soon you’ll wonder how you wrote without isolating characters’ scene.

When you’ve scribbled all over the “Orlando / Rosalie” pages, create a separate draft of Orlando and Constance’s scenes for the same repair looky-loo. Then print Rosalie and Constance’s! You’ll be amazed what you discover. By solving small, simple-to-find puzzles in your story, the entire tale will be strengthened… without the paralyzing depression of “I have to fix this GIGANTIC 110-page snarl of mess?! Shonda Rhimes couldn’t even solve these problems!!”

Isolating character scenes is simple and effective.