The First Rewrite
Get the structure right! This should be your first concern. What’s your theme? What has the
character learned, if anything? How does the story end? Then go back to the beginning and
make sure you’ve set up everything right away. Nothing will help if the story isn’t set up in
the beginning. What is your hero’s problem, and what does he want—what is his goal? Who
is he opposing to get it? What terrible thing will happen if he doesn’t succeed? What’s your
hero’s character flaw, the thing that he learns to overcome in the end, the lesson that he’s
learned from this story? To keep your story from becoming episodic the action should
progress with greater and greater potential consequences for the hero as the story goes
along. All but the shortest stories should have two big plot twists or reversals, a major crisis
scene near the end, and a big climactic battle with the villain. Be sure that everything ties
together into one tight story.
Next work on the characters. We should immediately want your hero to succeed. We
should empathize right away. Characters don’t achieve a character arc unless their charac-
ter flaws are established in the beginning. Character change should never come out of the
blue at the end; it’s always set up early. And we set up things through action, not static expo-
sition. We have to establish not only that the character has flaws, but also that it might be
possible for him somehow to change. We need to see the motivations of the hero and of the
villain.
Go to the middle. You might want to add more surprises, more twists, more information
that comes out and spins the story around in new directions.
If the story’s too long, you must cut, or you may want to cut to increase the pace. Don’t
cut any of the structure points, and don’t cut out the character flaw or what your hero learns.
This leads to the story’s theme. Don’t cut the theme. Don’t cut any of the important con-
flict. Do cut out unnecessary characters, or combine them. Cut out exposition. Audiences are
interested in what’s happening now. They’ll figure out what they missed. Cut out anything
that’s repetitive. Cut out the flowery speeches, the propaganda, the preaching. Cut out unnec-
essary dialogue. Chop off the beginnings and the endings of scenes if you still need to cut.
Often they aren’t needed. Get rid of the adjectives. What you want left is the essence.
The Second Rewrite
Work more on the opening. Many readers will read the first five or ten pages, and if they
aren’t hooked, then the script is tossed aside. This is where the story editors and executives
decide if they like your script or not. Grab your audience! You want action, not words. Make
it visual. Be sure that the structure is set up in the first couple of pages.
Go to the end. Does the story build to the biggest conflict? Make it bigger! Is the story
resolved quickly after that? Is there a twist that we weren’t expecting at the end?
Strengthen differences! Strengthen differences between characters and the conflict each
has with each other. Can you improve each character’s ties to the theme? Remember that
one character can be the poster child for the theme, and one can represent all that is opposed
to it. One can represent what the audience might think. Look for ways to cut back and forth.
Cut between dialogue scenes, then to action, then to different locations in order to contrast
and draw parallels, to increase the pace where it’s needed, and to heighten the suspense.
262 Animation Writing and Development