My goal here is to present a snapshot of how the script for one scene evolved over time and for what reasons those changes happened. The only context worth having for reading is that Jules is the player character, and Levi is her old friend and colleague, talking to her over the radio. (Though you can check out this other post for more context.)
I’ve used images in-line with my doodled notes on them. If for some reason images aren’t good for you, I’ve replicated these and my scrawling on this Google Doc.
Alright. Here’s Version 1. This is the first typed-up version I found, so is the oldest barring whatever I scribbled in my notebook.
Iteration 1 (First Draft) 350 words, 2 pages
Three takeaways at the end, which mess with the rest of my numbering system, hah.
It’s shorter than I would have guessed for the first draft (though we’ll see why later)
The skeleton of the final scene is here from the very beginning. That’s one of the reasons I chose this scene over some of the others that kept the same title, but whose content entirely changed – we’ll actually be able to chart a course through the revisions.
For all that it’s short, and in some ways more successful than a few of the later versions, I’d call the style quite rambly and unfocussed compared to where it ends up.
On to version 2
Iteration 2 (First Revision): 500 words, 3 pages
The scene fills out quite a bit in this version. Key callouts (from this point, my numbering will be incremental and will help draw things together across versions):
Added some lines for flow – Jules needs Levi to coax out what’s bothering her. More dramatically/emotionally interesting BUT it very much feels like padding compared to the leaner final scene.
A revision of the previous version that doesn’t really change anything yet. This line will become a theme – it changes in almost every draft, as I was clearly dissatisfied with it in some way, until I land on something that actually works.
Lots of lines added here – the wordcount soared by 150w! – which do a decent job of fleshing out the characters, building in some world details, and injecting some humour. But at the cost of bloating the scene significantly.
I use placeholders like this a lot when drafting, though you won’t see many here, because I generally resolve them, even if not perfectly, for a turned-out versioned draft.
More added, as in point 3. It does flesh things out in ways that get lost in the final draft, but there just ultimately isn’t the space for this kind of thing in this form of narrative.
‘and now our new friend here’ is an artefact of a point where the player character might have been a third party other than Jules or Levi.
Iteration 3 (Version 1.3): 575 words, 3 pages
2. Yep, still playing with that line.
4. An attempt at a ‘fictitious swear’. Didn’t fit well; rightly removed from here and the script overall after this.
7. A new closing monologue from Levi. This is playing with theme and what the story is grappling with and has to say. It comes off a bit bald, but even more than that it just makes the scene even longer (up another 75 words!).
Iteration 4 (V2): 300 words, 2 pages
8. Now we’re talking! This was part of the Big Cut Pass across the whole script when it became clear just how untenable scenes of the previous length were. This shaves off 175 words, and takes it down to barely 2 pages. It makes a massive, positive difference. You can see we’ve lost some detail, but considering how the scene flows now, it’s clear just how desperately needed that was.
Slightly extended tangent on that point: the bloating and then shrinking of the scene could be taken as evidence of a certain amount of ‘faffing about’, given that it’s come back to a form much closer to where it started. BUT I think that’s a flawed reading. First off, the process of adding then subtracting is – if done judiciously – more like reducing a sauce than pushing a rock up a hill. Things may end up looking a bit like where they started, but it’s a lot stronger and more intense.
Second off, the redrafting was part of the process of figuring out more about the game as a whole – exploring character and theme, and strengthening what things end up on the page, even if other things gets left out. I will say that this was an intensely good-feeling thing to do, and also a bit of a luxury in games writing. The ability to iterate like this – to test and extend the writing and make it better, was very, very valuable, but is not always possible.
(Add to that that some of the iteration came specifically from playtesting and seeing what people were and weren’t getting about the story and story-world – what was boring them or going over their heads. Length played a big part of that – saying too many things just meant that nothing stuck, no matter how compelling the individual details were.)
9. This line is an interesting one to compare directly across versions.
Original version: Over the years? A dozen? At most. There are – were, I guess – supply runs every half-year. I picked up a fair few of them. Heh. But I guess you know that better’n most. Why d’you ask?
First revision: Over the years... A dozen? At most. There are – were, I guess – supply runs every half-cycle. I picked up a fair few of them. Heh. But I guess you know that already. Why d’you ask?
Very minor wording changes. Notably, ‘half-cycle’ feels a lot more ‘on genre’ than ‘half-year’.
New revision: Over the years... I brought a few dozen shipments, maybe? Why d’you ask?
Those words – 13, count ’em – say as much as the 36(!) of the original line and give up precisely nothing of value.
What’s even more important, actually, is how this line looks in the final script:
Final script:
That’s right, zero words. Because, ultimately, with space at a premium, that line was achieving absolutely nothing.
2. THERE it is! Finally, a version of this line that actually feels like it snaps. The space dedicated to it feels fairly sizeable in this revised scene (a line, a reaction, then a line), but I think this was worth keeping because it was amusing and good for showing the relationship between Levi and Jules. The humour angle (I’m not going so far as to call it A Joke, but it’s certainly a minor gag) gets goodwill from the player BUT crucially also gives some nice dynamic lines for the voice actors to play off, and really works tonally with the shift into the emotional core of the scene at the end.
10. Another set of lines to compare to the previous version. First off, they’re the only bits that remain of a much longer exchange. Second, the lines themselves:
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.
About half as many words, and I think nothing lost that’s not a) not that important or b) communicated just fine elsewhere.
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.
Similar reduction. We lose some of the more naturalistic rambliness and wordiness, but we knew by now that was absolutely not the way to go with this script.
7. Also note how much has come out of the ending. No more monologue; slightly different emphasis, but striving for the same emotional/thematic notes.
Iteration 5 (Final script): 175 words, 1 page
There we go. Less than a page.
11. The first line is now Jules. This is the result of a match pass – these scenes were always triggered by the radio ringing, and the player answering it. Having Jules speak first didn’t make sense! So, this is purely functional to cover that.
9. Right to the point. Some of the same lines, but no working around to the point of the scene. There just isn’t the space for that.
12. We switched this from a chuckle to a groan on the basis of trying to tamp down any read that Levi and Jules were an item. If that’s what you got from the game... well, you do you (but also: no).
13. Slightly simplified version of this gag.
7. Same ending content, but much simpler. No monologues, just a few lines with the characters’ own points of view in brief.
These were by no means the only interations, just the ones notable enough to reproduce here. If people find this valuable, I might dig into the passages I quoted at length and why I think each of the cuts to it worked (the process of figuring out what to take away at a word-by-word level). And, potentially, look for another scene to dissect in this way. Say ‘hi’ in the comments or on Twitter if that’s interesting to you.