Adam how do you decide what to keep and what to cut? I suffer from occasional verbosity myself and I'm always looking for perspective.
I re-read the script while checking to make sure every sentence serves some sort of purpose, whether it's to advance the story, reveal some bit of exposition, add depth to a character or the character's relationship to someone else, set up or tell a joke, foreshadow some future events, ect. If not, then it gets cut. At the same time, I try to think of ways that the sentences could be truncated, but still convey everything without being too awkward. And Jessica goes over it all as well, and she has a very critical eye.
To give an example, here are some cut lines of dialogue from the page where Corey and Trance are trying to get a hold of their friends who never showed up to play C&C. This exchange occurs right after Carmen says "No comprendo." and leaves the room. I've bolded the stuff that was cut.
[Corey has picked up the dining room phone and is dialing a number.]
COREY: Trance, just between us, I think Carmen might be dumb. I mean, you’d think she’d have a better grasp of English by now. Hell, you don’t even have an accent.
TRANCE: I was born here, Corey. COREY (into the phone): Hi, Mrs. Feldman! Is Joe there?
We cut that out because the page was getting too wordy, and I felt the "I was born here, Corey" joke seemed too unoriginal, like something I've seen in sitcoms before. The cut dialog
does convey some new information to the reader, like the fact that Trance doesn't speak with an accent and that he was born in the US, but that's not necessary information and so it's not worth the space those words would have taken up.
On that same page, there was some cut dialogue between Veronica and Heather (again, I bolded the cut content):
HEATHER: Can you believe Tina’s going to the prom with Joe Feldman? Like, last year, he was totally geek, but I guess now he’s kind of chic. He was invited to Connor’s party, after all.VERONICA: Fer-sure, but even dating an ex-nerd is going to cost Tina some major popularity points. I think I’d die first.
We cut Heather's line because the reader can infer what the girls are talking about from Veronica's response. That also helped it to feel more like we're dropping in on the middle of a conversation.
Also what is Eddie swinging? Materialized nunchaku?
Yep. Jessica said she's going to update the page eventually to move one of the word balloons in the second to last panel so you can see the weapon better.
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