Minimum Words, Maximum Impact

The origin and importance of one of the best screenwriting mantras… ever!

I know the source of this mantra. It was one of my online screenwriting students. During a weekly live-chat session. I was going on and on about the importance of writing tight, taut, lean scene description, make it easy on the eye, clean on the page, really getting on my bully pulpit. Then a student typed:

Minimum words, maximum impact?

Here I had been guilty of the very thing I was decrying, then — boom! The perfect comment. Four words. And maximum…