Picking up a thread from my diachronic script revisions review from The Last Clockwinder, here's a detailed looked cutting down a few lines. What I'm doing here is trying to retroactively apply logic to the changes we made. I'm not going to claim they are 100% the thought process at the time.
Here's what I quoted yesterday:
Version 1.3: I never really knew her. We’d speak, a little, when I brought shipments. Small talk. She wasn’t very good at it. I guess when you’re stuck out on the edge of the world with nothing but a bunch of plants for company, you don’t get too good at small talk. This life wouldn’t be for me, is what I’m saying.
Version 2: I never really knew her. We’d talk, a little. But when you’re stuck out on the edge of the world with nothing but a bunch of plants for company, you don’t get too good at small talk.
What changes:
- 'speak' --> 'talk': Sounds better when read aloud.
- 'when I brought shipments': Cut. It's redundant. That was the only time Levi was here, we can infer that.
- 'Small talk. She wasn’t very good at it. I guess': Cut. Repetitious of the sentence that follows.
- 'This life wouldn’t be for me, is what I’m saying.': Cut. Not really relevant to the thrust of the scene at hand, even if it's true and potentially interesting.
Another line:
Version 1.3: She was brilliant, though, that much was obvious. I don’t really understand how this place works, why it’s here, any of that, but she clearly knew every living breathing bit of it. And she loved being here. This was her place, y’know?. There’s few enough find that in their lifetimes. Got to envy her that.
Version 2: She was brilliant, though, that much was obvious. She clearly knew every living breathing bit of this weird place. And she loved being here. But I think she was lonely.
What changes:
- 'I don’t really understand how this place works, why it’s here, any of that, but she': Cut. Not actually important for us to have this called out? It's sort of obvious from Levi more generally, but also just fundamentally not an important explicit piece of information, or charming/entertaining/engaging by itself
- 'it' --> 'this weird place': Tidying up to consolidate into one sentence.
- 'This was her place, y’know?. There’s few enough find that in their lifetimes. Got to envy her that.': Cut. I liked this line, mostly for 'There's few enough find that in their lifetimes.' But that wasn't really what the scene was about in the end, either, which meant it was tangential to the thrust of it. I'm not arguing for this leanness in all writing, but also: space was tight.
- 'But I think she was lonely.': Replace the last line. Levi psychoanalysing Edea (probably incorrectly). Ultimately flowed better into Jules's capstone on the scene.
Then through some further alchemy, these two separate lines combine and consolidate into one:
Version 3: But Edea... I never really knew her, you understand. She was brilliant, though. And she loved it here. But I think you were good for her.
What changes:
- 'But Edea...': Added to bridge the subject back and keep flow moving without excessive words.
- 'We’d talk, a little. But when you’re stuck out on the edge of the world with nothing but a bunch of plants for company, you don’t get too good at small talk.': Cut. Nice enough line, but wordy per se and also... fairly self evident from the time we've spent with Edea. Not doing enough work to make the final cut.
- 'you understand.': Added for rhythm in that first sentence. Technically unnecessary, but sounded better on reading. Not 100% if that made it into the audio.
- 'that much was obvious. She clearly knew every living breathing bit of this weird place.': Cut. Again, at this point, the lines that we're cutting are not especially bad in and of themselves. Instead, it's coming down to 'what is this scene for and how few words can we say it in?' We know this about Edea by this stage, and the gist of it is therefore carried, more simply, by Levi's next line of 'And she loved it here.'
- 'But I think she was lonely.' --> 'But I think you were good for her.': A more personal and justifiable thing for Levi to declare, while having the same flow effect. It's also more specific.
Reading this draft back, a lot of these changes come down to 'we figured out what this scene was doing, and needed to do that in the least space without killing off the charm'. Jules is curious about Edea, and the effect her arrival might have had on her. Levi surprises her a little with his answer, with he's right or not.