"
It is quite as possible to use too few inserts, especially leaders, as
it is to use so few words in them as to mar their meaning. Young
writers are often more eager to follow the advice of their mentors
than they are bold to use their own common-sense; and having had the
importance of brevity well pounded in, they produce scripts with the
double fault of not having enough action to make the plot clear, and
not enough inserts to help out the action.
As an example of this tendency toward over-compression, take the
script of one amateur writer. It contained a scene in which Mary, the
heroine, constantly abused by a drunken step-father, steals out of the
house at night as if about to start for some other town where she can
make her own living and be free from the step-father's abuse. In Scene
7, Mary, carrying a suit case, leaves the farm-house where she had
always lived. Scene 8 shows her "plodding wearily" along the road
leading to town. Then in Scene 9 we are back in the kitchen at the
farm-house. "The room is deserted. (Everyone supposed to be in bed.)
The door opens and Mary enters, carrying suit case, which she puts
down just inside the door. She staggers to the rocking chair and drops
wearily into it, as if completely fatigued." And so on.
On reading the script, one's natural supposition is that Mary has
thought it over while "plodding wearily" toward town, and, remembering
the comfortable bed which awaits her at the old home--even though the
next morning will bring more ill treatment at the hands of the
step-father--has returned to make the best of it.
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