What to Keep and What to Cut | Robert McKee Answers

Original Post Date: June 16, 2014 - Robert McKee discusses how to decide what's working in a scene, and how writing your climax leads to a retroactive edit of your story.

[@Melvin7727]

Such a simple and clear explanation. Brilliant. This came just in time for my current horror screenplay, and helps me in my mind transform it from a 2016 horror film into The Shining. It really is all about concentrating on one idea.
He's dead on the mark when he says "a writer cannot afford irrelevancies." Reminds me of a quote to describe what an artist does: "An artist looks through a room of objects and picks precisely one of them up, holds it up, and says 'this is important.' And everyone stops to look at it and consider it."
Also dead on with "the audience doesn't know it's unnecessary." We look at movies as being designed. They are meaning and order; they are not chaos. Meaning and order means that every inch of it has a purpose. This also takes responsibility out of the audience's hands and places it squarely on the writer. I love this explanation.

[@Tonabillity]

To quote David Letterman, “Once again you’ve expressed my thoughts eloquently”👌🏾

[@Stratword_]

Sometimes you may have to cut a scene that's written beautifully. No matter how beautiful, if it doesn't propel the plot, no need for it.

[@saadrehmanshah]

Imagine how that would impact Home Alone, Die Hard, and Game of Thrones. I mean, in GOT, everything just gets cut off.