The Rule of Six is a list of the six most important types of cuts a film editor should make, according to famed film editor Walter Murch in his book, In the Blink of an Eye. Though written for film editors, his suggestions make sense for novelists too.
Like novelists, film editors begin with a rough pile of stuff. In their case, it’s footage. Hours and hours of footage from multiple cameras and multiple takes, plus reels and reels of B-roll to fill in the gaps.
It’s not so difficult for writers who have a single rough draft, filled with characters, incidents (inciting and not), obstacles, choices, and resolutions. But both editors, the film and the novelist, needs to make sense of the rough material. They have to refine the raw form into something story-shaped and whole. That is the point of editing in each medium. It’s not enough to throw scenes at your reader/audience, you have to pull them into the story using emotion and struggle. You need to capture their attention and hold it for the duration.
Oscar-winning editor Walter March offered up six rules to help an editor do this. While they are paramount in editing film, they can be equally important in novels because Murch puts his focus on the audience.
The difference between editing film versus editing a novel is one of scale and control. In film, the editor is critical, but also beholden to the director’s vision and the script, both of which are outside the editor’s role. The editor must create the film from the footage and her skills, while protecting the spirit of the script and director vision.
A novelist has no such constraints. We are the masters of our own stories. We choose what stays and what goes. We are the only creative force (until we either hire or obtain an agent/editor who will apply their skills to your craft, but we aren’t talking about that phase).
Being alone makes editing a novel both easier and more difficult. There is no sounding board, no guiding force, no path to follow other than one we lay ourselves. We must rely on our instincts and skill in telling compelling stories. A film editor never is. That is one reason why having a set of rules or guidelines to follow may help a novelist find her way through the editing process. This is just one set of rules to follow. There are many ways to approach editing a novel. Explore them before you sit down to tackle your first (second, third, fourth) drafts. Find the method that works best for you.
Some of you may need to focus more on structure, while others may need to add in transitions or setting. Only you know what the major issues are in your manuscript. If you don’t know, find someone to help you. There are editors and manuscript consultants (like me) who can point out where you have gone astray.
Using Walter Murch’s Rule of Six is one way to begin. Murch offered this list as a hierarchy of importance in editing:
Rule One: Emotion (accounts for 51% of the story)
Rule Two: Story (accounts for 23%)
Rule Three: Rhythm (10%)
Rule Four: Eye Trace (7%)
Rule Five: Two Dimensional Plane of Space (5%)
Rule Six: Three Dimensional Space (4%)
Murch didn’t expect editors to use all six criteria in each cut, but he did offer this list in order of priority. Emotion is primary for every edit, followed by story and the rest, which holds true for fiction too.
In our next blog, I will break down each of these rules in detail and how they can be applied to editing on the page, rather than the screen.