White Space Wisdom From Comics & Cutting Room
Screen scribbling isn't only about clever dialogue and dramatic monologues. It's about the space between words. The silences, cuts, the gaps where the audience leans in. To tone this muscle, scribblers can crib lessons from surprising sources: comic books, film editing suites, and the lean pages of the great genre writers.
Imagination in the Gutter
Scott McCloud, in his iconic book Understanding Comics, gave us a concept every scribe needs to grok: the "gutter."
In comics, the gutter is the blank space between panels. Where the reader becomes a co-creator, mentally stitching together what happens between the frames. This tabula rasa demands audience interpretation and rewards their imagination with art.
McCloud outlined some transitions that shape this experience:
Moment-to-Moment: The tiniest shifts. A blink. A twitch.
Action-to-Action: Movement unfolds across panels.
Subject-to-Subject: Camera shifts without cutting the scene.
Scene-to-Scene: Time jumps, and the reader leaps with it.
Aspect-to-Aspect: Mood builds through fragmented glimpses.
Non-Sequitur: No obvious connection. Meaning emerges anyway.
This blather boils down to: great storytelling happens between the panels. Or, for screen scribblers like us, between the lines.
Let The Cut Move The Crowd
One of my heroes is Walter Murch, the legendary film editor behind The Godfather and Apocalypse Now. He saw editing as emotional architecture. His "Rule of Six" ranks what makes a good cut.
Emotion (51%)
Story (23%)
Rhythm (10%)
Eye-trace (7%)
2D screen space (5%)
3D space (4%)
A good edit, like a good scene transition, isn't just about delivering continuity. It's about feelings. Murch compared cuts to blinks, moments where the audience chooses what to see next.
What does this mean for your script?
Trim the fat. Let visuals carry weight. Use clean, concise, and minimalist descriptions to invite readers rather than instruct.
Establish Meaning Via Juxtaposition
Lev Kuleshov demonstrated a remarkable phenomenon with one experiment: showing an actor’s neutral face alongside a bowl of soup, a coffin, or a child, viewers perceived hunger, grief, or warmth in the same human expression.
Sergei Eisenstein pushed this even further with montage—colliding images. Proving the audience can be led without being told. This isn’t manipulation. It’s a collaboration.
Imagine a man lights a cigarette. Cut to a playground. No dialogue, no explanation. And yet... in your head, the man is telling you something.
Shane Black hooks readers with punchy prose. His scripts read like a buddy telling a story over beers. Fast, funny, and visual.
Walter Hill says more with less. His scripts move like a silent film with sound. Every word is deliberate, and every beat is clean.
Frederick Forsyth pulls you into dense, detailed worlds with a journalistic cool. His emotion simmers in what’s not said.
These guys trust the audience. So why don’t you? Level up your pro-game by adding these tools to your scribbler’s toolbox:
Scribble what we see. Skip the inner monologue. Let character actions reveal emotion.
Use whitespace. Think of your script as a rhythm. Let the page breathe and flow like a hip hop classic.
Cut on feeling. Shift scenes like Murch cuts celluloid, guided by emotion. Prioritize how what you show will make the crowd feel.
Juxtapose. Put two unrelated images side-by-side. Let the audience do some work and connect the dots.
Resist the urge to explain. Your reader is smarter than you think. They’ve probably seen a movie before. And if you’re doing your job right, they can probably recognize some relatable human behaviors.
Leave Room for The Audience to Make Art
The best screen scribblers do more than tell a story. They do more than show. They invite the reader to step inside and participate. So, next time you're tempted to deliver every detail, step back. Ask what would happen if you left just enough space for your audience to take the next narrative leap without a tether.
Keep your Scribbler’s Toolbox open. You don’t have to face the blank page alone. Always be scribbling. But make sure you leave a little bit of extra white space between some of the words. :)
