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132 WRITING THE SCENE feared to turn around—slowly he forces himself to do so—it is evident that he does this only through a violent effort of his will—he turns until he sees Ben—he starts up, throwing back his chair as he does so—Ben comes down to the opposite side of the table—where he stands for a moment without speaking—• Giles steps to table—his hands appear to be groping for some- thing—suddenly he whips a revolver out of the drawer—he pre- sents it at Ben's breast—with a sudden lunge, Ben leans across table and grasps Giles' hand—turns weapon against Giles" own breast—a shot—Giles gasps—strangles—sinks slowly to the floor —Ben turns to window to escape—Grace suddenly appears at window—she is silhouetted against the moonlight, standing so that it is seen she has a revolver. In straight manuscript this is almost fifteen lines. It will play little more than twice as many seconds. The two line scene written above may run as long. This scene could have been written in brief, but the director might not have caught quite the idea from the shorter action. It is interesting to note that this scene in parts suggests the scene shown in Example J, although the first draft of the scene was written some weeks before Mr. Hall sent in his sample page. 15. In the scene examples shown it will be seen that the pronoun is not as often used as in general speech. This is because it is better to be exact than to avoid the frequent repetition of the name of the per- sonage referred to. "John" or "Ben" possesses a distinct meaning. It so often happens that "he" or "him" might be accepted as referring to either one of two persons that it is best not to take chances and to use names in preference to pronouns. 16. Another thing to note is that the dash or hj^Dhen is used to re- place a variety of commas, periods, colons and semi-colons. The use of the dash is decried by many, but it not only avoids the use of in- volved punctuation, but it seems to break the action up into phases and presents to the mind of the reader the action in detail rather than the action as a confused and confusing whole. It works well in ac- tual use and most directors prefer it where they have any preference at all. 17. Action is written in the present tense. It is som.ething that is happening at the moment; not something that has happened or is to happen. We write that "Ben comes down," because as the scene is being realized in action Ben actually is coming down. You are at liberty to elect your tense for the synopsis, but action is always a thing of the present and should be written in the present tense and no other. 18. Dialogue is used in the action only when dialogue will tell more than action will. This does not refer to the cut-in leaders, but to dialogue as a form of description for action. Suppose that you have some such scene as this: 47. Library—lights down—Stanton bv safe—Edna enters through door—Stanton snrings un—presents nistol—Edna shoots—Stan- ton drops face down—Edna turns on the lights—kneels beside