It's best to enter late so your reader/audience is seeing the interesting parts that relate to your story and get out early to keep them reading - i.e. leave on a tense note, something is hanging, something is unknown to hook them into the next scene. The other bits - starting the scene at the very beginning and ending it when all are happy and leaving the room - is quite boring and doesn't hold out any promise of interest. The later in the better - the earlier out the better. I love writing scenes as late in and as early out as possible.

Yes, Lisa. Hitchcock said movies are life with the dull parts out and that extends to scenes. Here's a good quote from William Goldman: “Rule of thumb: You always attack a movie scene as late as you possibly can. You always come into the scene as the last possible moment, which is why when you see a scene in a movie where a person is a teacher, for instance, the scene always begins with the teacher saying, ‘Well, class…’ and the bell rings. And then you get into another scene because it’s very dull watching a man talk to people in a room… In a book you might start with some dialogue, and then describe your clothing, and more dialogue. The camera gets that in an instant. Boom, and you’re on. Get on, get on. The camera is relentless. Makes you keep running.” Good way to think of scene-writing. Keep running!

Because it's one of the ways to work toward Mission Critical rather than Mission Excessive. Excess is boring, doesn't hold attention. Critical is what gets hearts racing. In reading novice scripts, there seems to be confusion over the concept of how each scene has a Beginning, Middle, End -- just like the overall story. This doesn't mean literally, the absolute Beginning, etc. The trick is taking each window of time (each scene) and narrowing it down to its meatiest, juciest, most critical elements. The practice of "lopping off" unnecessary, uncritical and/or excessive stuff takes just that -- practice. It gets easier. It becomes a little game. And it gets FUN. My husband is a bass fisherman and I liken scene-work to "culling fish" --- in a tournament, each fisherman is allowed up to 5 bass in the live well at any one time, with the goal being the one to bring in the weightiest 5-fish limit at the end of the day. Early on, a fisherman will put pretty much every fish in there. But every time that "6th fish" is caught, he/she has a decision to make -- looking through the live well to constantly ensure the "5 biggest fish" remain in the boat, thereby releasing those smaller, perfectly respectable and yet "not the best" fish back into the lake. Kinda similar to culling down a scene...

Wow, I never thought I'd see a connection made between writing and bass fishing, but you nailed it, Joni. Thanks!