By Raisy Roo

A “quick read” simply means painting your scenes with a minimum of words, and the trick is to not lose anything in the process.

Just as the director and film editors’ job is to cut scenes that aren’t necessary to convey the story, your job screenwriting is to remove words that aren’t necessary to convey the story. If you’re good, you can do this along the way. If you’re like me, you’ll have to go back (repeatedly) and find the areas that can be “quickened.”

The action in the paragraph below is an example of a slow read, if you will.

“Jack sits down in the chair and removes his wedding ring from his finger. A waiter is passing by and Jack decides to drop the ring into a bowl of milky white soup on the waiter’s tray. “

From the scene heading in your script, the reader should already know we’re in a restaurant. Chairs are pretty common in a restaurant, so when Jack sits he is most likely sitting in a chair. The reader is also probably aware that most people wear wedding rings on their finger. The last line relating to the waiter is simply better served abbreviated.

A more effective way to describe the scene may be like this…

“Jack sits. Tugs at his wedding ring. Drops it in a passing waiter’s clam chowder.”

Or, if you’re more traditional…

“Jack sits. He tugs at his wedding ring and drops it in a passing waiter’s clam chowder.”

Turn your script into a lean, mean, money making machine by making it a quick read.

By Raisy Roo

I’m a firm believer that if you have a great story that’s professionally written, it will be discovered, one way or another - but it doesn’t hurt to market your work in creative ways in the meantime.

One neat idea is to create an audio promo for your screenplay to post on your website, link to your query emails, etc. An audio promo is what you would hear for a movie over the radio. There’s an elaborate sample to listen to at the bottom of this post, which was a pitch for a movie that wasn’t written yet.

So, imagine what your movie trailer would look like on the big screen, and then write a quick script from scenes that makes sense for audio. Once you have this part mapped out, it’s time to find some actors.

You will be stunned at the number of talented voice actors at home with microphones in hand waiting for opportunities like this. You’re in for a treat if you’ve never used a service like Voice123. Simply post a script of your characters’ dialogue and a brief description of the scene and within hours (sometimes minutes) you will have dozens of demos to listen to with actual price quotes. Prices will be all over the place – maybe $20, maybe $100.

A word of advice, do your best to match your characters with an actor’s natural voice. For example, if your character is Australian, find an Australian actor. Quite often when an actor tries to “act” for audio, it shows in their performance. The best work from voice actors comes when they are just being themselves. Be sure to send a group ‘thank you’ message to everyone you didn’t use; you may call upon them again.

Once you get all your voice files, it’s time to edit and mix them into an awesome mini production. You can tackle this yourself if you’re handy with audio software like ProTools, Adobe Audition, etc. If not, you’ll need to find someone. Lots of musicians can work with desktop audio, or you can farm this part out to audio engineers. StoryPromos.com is a little niche audio house (2 audio engineers working part-time in a basement) that specializes in this kind of production.

Whether you end up using the promo or not, it’s a cool way to breath life into your written pages.

Good luck and have fun!

“A virtual reality where the physically impaired perform real world jobs becomes hijacked by a nefarious quadriplegic determined to lock out the corporation that created it.”