"Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she was now staring was clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino with long white hair."
Take that Dan Brown sentence from THE DA VINCI CODE and rewrite it for the script page. First, convert to present tense:
Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she is now staring is clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino with long white hair.
"Almost inconceivably" is an annoying "have your cake and eat it" phrase, like "Her eyes were almost pure blue but with a tiny hint of grey."
With that sentence Dan Brown tells us this: She almost can't believe an albino holds a gun on her, but she
does believe it. In her mind it
is conceivable. So why mention it at all? It only makes sense if she's truly shocked, if this turn of events is truly
inconceivable -- which it is! So we must lose the "almost."
Inconceivably, the gun into which she is now staring is clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino with long white hair.
"the gun into which she is now staring" is a painful way of saying "the gun she's staring into"...
Inconceivably, the gun she's staring into is clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino with long white hair.
"the gun she's staring into" -- we could knock out this "-ing" word by substituting "the gun she stares into"...
Inconceivably, the gun she stares into is clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino with long white hair.
I'm still not comfortable with "the gun she stares into." How about "the gun in her face." Not shorter, but it feels to me like a smoother bridge between the elements in this sentence: her face, the gun, the albino's hand, the albino.
Inconceivably, the gun in her face is clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino with long white hair.
"clutched" is unnecessary detail. It adds nothing to the narrative. If the way the albino man holds the gun suggests something about his character or state of mind then fine. That's not the case here. The word must go. Ditto "pale." A pale hand could easily belong to a non-albino person. Both words add nothing and we lose nothing in striking them.
Inconceivably, the gun in her face is in the hand of an enormous albino with long white hair.
"is in the hand of" equals "held by." I could argue "is in the hand of" is the elegant choice, but our mandate is ruthless brevity.
Inconceivably, the gun in her face is held by an enormous albino with long white hair.
We could stop there and be happy. Let's review our script page edit:
Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she is now staring is clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino with long white hair.
Inconceivably, the gun in her face is held by an enormous albino with long white hair.
"is held by" is forced on us by the desire to keep the passive construction to properly effect the albino man's reveal. It feels clunky and self serving. How about:
Inconceivably, the gun in her face belongs to an enormous albino with long white hair.
Comparing original and edited:
Almost inconceivably, the gun into which she is now staring is clutched in the pale hand of an enormous albino with long white hair.
Inconceivably, the gun in her face belongs to an enormous albino with long white hair.
Have we lost significant meaning in our edit? Have we introduced confusion, vagary, ambiguity? The only thing I'd consider is how the new sentence frames the shot with less precision. The original sentence heavily implies a visual focus traveling from her face to the gun to the albino's hand to the albino. The revision leaves it to the reader/director to frame the shot in their heads.
Go ahead and offer your own rewrite (and your whyfors) in the comments.
