Clip

Patter watched her work. A long, draggy conversation floated past — full of "so anyway," "you know," "I was just thinking," and "what was I saying?" Clip's scissors danced through it. Snip. Snip. Snip. When she finished, the whole rambling thing had shrunk to two crisp lines that held all the real meaning. The rest fluttered to the ground like confetti.

"It's the same talk," Clip said. "Just without the dead weight. Shorter. Sharper. Every word that's left actually does something."

Then she showed Patter her favorite trick. She took a scene that began with a character waking up, having breakfast, walking to a friend's house, knocking, saying hello — and she snipped away the whole beginning. The scene now started right at the interesting part: two friends, mid-argument, the door already slammed. "Start late," Clip said. "Don't begin a scene at hello. Begin it where it gets interesting. Cut everything before that."

Patter felt the click. The kids write every 'hi' and 'bye,' he thought. Their scenes take forever to get going. Clip skips straight to the part that matters.

"Clip," Patter said, "I run a workshop. The kids' dialogue scenes are full of 'hello' and 'how was your day' and it takes a page before anything happens. Would you join us? Lend them your scissors?"

Clip was already trimming the question down in her head. "Yes," she said. Just the one word. Patter laughed — she'd even clipped her own answer.

So Clip joined the workshop, and the talking-scenes there are lean and quick now.

When Patter teaches economy, Clip demonstrates. "Read your dialogue out loud," she tells the kids, "and find the words that aren't doing anything. The 'hellos.' The 'ums.' The 'so anyways.' Then —" she clicks her scissors — "snip them."

A young writer had a scene that opened: "Hi." "Hi." "How are you?" "Good, you?" "Good." "So..." "So I wanted to ask you something." Clip snipped the whole top off. The scene now opened on: "I wanted to ask you something." Instantly it had energy — the reader leaned in, wondering what the question was.

"But careful," Clip added, snipping the air thoughtfully. "Economy doesn't mean cold. Sometimes a 'hello' matters — if it's awkward, or warm, or the first word two enemies have said in years. Keep the words that do something. Cut the ones that just fill space. The test is always: is this word working, or just sitting there?"

A young writer asked, "How do I know if a line is working?"

"Take it out," Clip said simply. "If the talk still makes sense and feels the same — the line wasn't working. Leave it out. If something important breaks — put it back. It was earning its place."