Write, write, write

When it comes to information, we screenwriters should be Ebenezer Scrooge at his stingiest. This is no mystery to any of us - you don't unload information by the shovel, you deliver it with the tiniest little espresso spoon you can find (actually, even better, use a fork).

Where is she?

You'll probably read about this in every how-to-write-a-screenplay book. Give the audience the very minimum of information. Just enough to keep them needing the next scene, to keep them guessing, to keep them glued. Hand out too much and people will walk off to get another beer from the fridge ... not exactly what we should aim for as writers. If you really want to keep your audience in the story, be as stingy as you possibly can with what you know and they don't.

Why is that writorial stinginess so relevant? Essentially because it is a very basic human desire - we always want to know, to understand, to make sense. "The Vanishing" was brilliant Dutch film that played with this human need to great effect. The flick got the Hollywood remake treatment a few years later, same director and starring Jeff Bridges and Kiefer Sutherland ... don't even get me started on that one.

The Vanishing: Rex and Saskia, a young couple, are on vacation - at a service station Saskia disappears. She's simply gone. Did something happen? Did she leave Rex? For years Rex looks for her - he finds nothing - he knows nothing - he has nothing to hold on to - he goes almost mad. Then, after several years, Rex is contacted by a stranger who claims to have abducted Saska back at the service station ... and he says he will tell Rex what happened to Saskia, but only if Rex agrees to go the same way she went. And that means he will have to take a sleeping potion... that's all I'll say - if you haven't seen it -pick it up, well worth watching. And it is all about that infernal not-knowing.

With every scene you write, ask yourself: Did I give them (the audience) too much here? Can I give less? Do I absolutely have to reveal this bit to be able to move the story forward? Can I keep them guessing just a little while longer? Less is definitely more. Stick to this and you're on a good path. Now you'll just have to figure out the bit about what exactly to reveal when exactly and that, I'm afraid, will never be simple.