Conciseness.—­But this desirable sort of scenario elaboration MUST NOT lead to over-expansion.  Brevity and conciseness are not necessarily one, any more than are fullness and prolixity.  Be concise—­cut close to the line; having started your action by setting forth a basic incident at once interesting and plausible, keep the wheels of your story in motion, letting it accumulate speed as it runs on, and never slow down until after the climax has been passed.  Keep your eye—­your “picture eye”—­on your characters as they move about and carry out the actions which you have planned to have them perform; but describe those actions, as well as the motives which actuate them, in just as few words as possible.  Do not trifle with the tendency to be wordy, or even to introduce too many scenes.

The time is rapidly coming when the production of a photoplay will mean the earnest and intelligent cooeperation of the author, editor, and director.  But there is a very decided difference between including in the paragraphs of action everything really necessary to the proper understanding of the motives actuating the different characters and the indiscriminate introduction of extraneous details that neither assist in telling the story nor help in making it interesting.

Over-Condensation.—­On the other side of the golden middle-ground lies the weakness of too great brevity, and this is the very fault that some otherwise good writers at times permit themselves to display.  Their plots are strong, and their work is so well and favorably known that their scripts are accepted; but because they have over-condensed it becomes necessary for the editor or director to add to the business of a certain character, or possibly to devise explanatory inserts.  Too little is worse than too much.  In many cases it is the writer’s failure to include a few words describing a bit of by-play or a short piece of business that makes the scenario faulty, even though it may find a grudging acceptance.

The Number of Words.—­The question has frequently been asked by amateur writers:  “How many words are there in a full-reel photoplay—­what is the average number of words to a scene?” and so on.  No such consideration as the number of words in a script enters into the production of a motion-picture drama.  “Photoplays are put on,” said one prominent producer, “with a stop-watch in one hand and a yard-stick in the other.”  It is the number of feet of film used, and not the number of words contained in the scenario, with which the director is concerned.  There can be absolutely no set rule—­in from ten to fifteen words you may say all that is necessary in the description of a scene that will use up three hundred feet of film.  Another scene which consumes one hundred feet may require five times as many words, or more, to make perfectly clear to the director a short but very important bit of business.  If you leave out the non-essentials, you will save on the number of words, but you should never hesitate to tell all that is necessary in order to make clear the motives and actions of your characters.