The first time you see it, it grabs you by the throat. Maybe it’s a whip-pan that reveals that huge emotional moment, maybe it’s the all the shots cut to the beat in a new montage set to cool music.

The second time you see it, you nod. The third time, you start predicting it. The fourth time? You’re checked out. The technique that once felt electric now feels lazy and predictable.

That, right there, is the Law of Diminishing Returns in action.

Now we usually hear that phrase tossed around in economics textbooks or MBA classrooms. But it’s just as relevant in the editing suite. In fact, if you're a working editor, ignoring it can cost you big: audience attention, emotional impact, creative reputation, and ultimately, the perceived value of your work.

So in this essay we’re going to analyse this common problem and go through everything you can do to change your mindset and creative process.

Let’s dive in…

Editing as Economics

At its core, the Law of Diminishing Returns states that as you continue to apply the same input, the benefit or "output" you get from it eventually starts to decrease.

Here’s a short story I tell all of my students to illustrate this:

I’ve loved chocolate cake and fresh whipped cream since I was a boy. My grandmother used to make it for me, it would be one of the biggest highlights of my week-long summer visits.

But, here’s the thing… if she’d have given me chocolate cake and whipped cream every night for that week, my joy and excitement would have been destroyed by the time I left. I would’ve never wanted to see chocolate cake and fresh whipped cream ever again.

The Law of Diminishing Returns is everywhere in our lives and yet it often slips underneath the radar without so much as a conscious thought. But it has huge consequences for our career inside the edit.

The formula is simple: If we keep using the same trick, the same structure, the same pacing, or cutting pattern, its impact will erode with every repetition.

Think about a reveal. The first time the audience realises something they didn’t expect—through pacing, shot selection, specifically timed music, whatever—there's a huge dopamine spike. A narrative payoff.

But if our next reveal is cut in the exact same way, and then the next, and the next… our viewer starts to anticipate the formula.

And here we start to tread on dangerous ground… Anticipation kills surprise, which means our payoff collapses completely.

Our editing becomes predictable, and predictability kills impact.

This is more than just a question of technique. It’s about how human beings assign value. Value is not static; it’s relative. Just as oversupply of a commodity in a marketplace causes its price to fall, oversupply of a stylistic or structural editing pattern causes its impact value to fall.

So we need to start thinking differently. We need to start to realise that editing isn’t just creative. It’s economic.

Real-World Editing Examples 

Let’s break this down into the kinds of editing we see every day.

1. Reality TV

Having cut a huge amount of Reality TV in the early years of my career I can confidently tell you that this concept is what separates the everyday editor from the seasoned pro.

That same punchline cut, again and again. That same reaction cut to the wide-eyed contestant. The exact same zoom into a shocked judge. Cue the same sound cue. The first time, it’s funny. By the fifth time, it’s dead. It feels manufactured, formulaic, and cheap.

2. YouTube Edits

Watch many of the top 50 channels and you’ll start to see the same motifs: rapid-fire cuts, digital zooms, glitch transitions. The first few times, they create energy, they look really stylised and cool.

But, if they’re used without restraint, they fatigue the viewer, who will then start skipping and fast-forwarding major chunks of the show.

3. Documentary

How we choose to reveal is a huge one in documentaries. Some editors structure their reveals in exactly the same way, with the same shot structure, the same type of music and the same use of sound effects. It feels like a sausage factory conveyor belt.

You often see it in certain types of science or historical documentaries (which are not traditionally the most dramatic or action-based films). Producers want to over-dramatise reveals to keep the audience engaged, so they turn them into Hollywood-style action scenes, repeating the same formula again and again.

With that kind of dramatic oversaturation, audiences start watching the clock and guessing what’s next.

The more your audience can predict what you're going to do, the less they feel what you're doing.

Why Editors Fall Into This Trap

Editing is a difficult landscape to navigate with very few people teaching the high-end concepts that are used by top professionals. You’re certainly not going to learn any of these concepts at film school or on media degrees.

So why do so many editors commit the crime of diminishing returns? Well, there are a few very strong reasons.

1.  Comfort. Once a structure or cutting pattern or stylisation works, we cling to it.
2.  Deadlines. We don’t have time to invent new solutions.
3.  Approval Bias. A producer or client loved it last time, so we copy-paste it for an easy win.
4.  Creative Tunnel Vision. We forget the mindset and experience of our audience.
5.  Fear. New approaches might not land, so we play it safe.

I’ve been guilty of every single one of these throughout my career. But then I realised something… playing it safe rarely creates impact. And editing is the art of managing impact.

The High Price of Low Cost Repetition

Let’s talk more about the actual cost of this cheap and easy way to get through our work. The costs of these diminishing returns aren’t abstract. They show up in real ways:

•  Viewer Disengagement: The audience gets bored, distracted, or skips.
•  Emotional Flatlining: If every moment is cut to peak intensity, nothing feels intense.
•  Narrative Predictability: If they can see our punchline or reveal coming, it has no impact.
•  Creative Devaluation: Our work starts to feel templated.
•  Reputational Risk: We become known as a stylist, not a storyteller.

Remember: the goal of editing isn’t just to assemble shots. It’s to orchestrate attention. And attention is the scarcest resource in our industry. There has never been more content fighting for the attention of the same amount of people. Competition is fierce and the only known antidote is to become an incredible visual storyteller.

How to Break the Pattern: Creative Strategies

So, now that we know the problem, what can we do about it? How can we go beyond basic creative editing theory and start to think like a high-end professional? Well, we need to start editing against the Law of Diminishing Returns:

1. Track Your Repeats

Literally write down the stylistic motifs you’ve used on any timeline. Look for patterns: how often have you used the same sound cue, cutting rhythm, title animation, or musical formula? You need to creatively audit yourself.

2. Vary Your Structure

Throughout any long-form project that you’re cutting, push yourself to never repeat a structural or narrative technique in close proximity to a similar one. You can try this out with something incredibly simple:

Vary the shot size and energy at the start and end of every scene kind of like a “reverse domino theory of editing.” If you’ve ended on a wide shot, start the next scene with a close up. If you’ve ended the outgoing scene with high energy tension, start the next scene with slower pacing and music tone.

This won’t always be appropriate but this concept gets you into a 'variation mindset.'

3. Add Contrast

Editing is like music: the chorus only hits because of the verse. Don’t just escalate tension. Release it. Give the viewer breath, silence, contrast. Build rhythm, not noise.

4. Use Repetition With Escalation

If you must repeat, make each instance bigger, stranger, or more profound. The "rule of three" works when each beat evolves. Think of comedy: the third punchline always subverts the pattern.

5. Create Your Editing 'Inventory'

Build a toolkit of 20+ distinct techniques you can draw from. Rotate them. Challenge yourself not to reuse the same one more than once per episode or scene. This is a creative goldmine because it’s another example of our 'variation mindset.'

6. Get Critical Feedback

This is also huge… Sometimes we’re blind to our own habits. Ask a fellow editor or director or someone you really trust creatively to watch a sequence and point out moments that felt predictable or repetitive.

7. Edit for Surprise, Not Just Clarity

Clarity is essential, but too much of it becomes spoon-feeding. We want to inject some ambiguity and we can often do this by withholding information and playing with expectations.

Don’t forget, a major part of our skill as professional editors is misdirection.

The Editor as Economist

After we’ve learned the basics of high-end storytelling on the timeline, I’m always telling my students that we shouldn’t just see ourselves as a creative technician or artist—but as an economist of attention.

•  Every cut is a transaction.
•  Every stylistic choice is a currency.
•  Every technique has inflation risk.
•  Every audience has a limited attention budget.

Overspend your tools, and you bankrupt your sequence.

The best editors spend strategically. They know when to go big, when to hold back, when to surprise, and when to subvert. They treat their timeline like a marketplace of moments.

Nothing is overused. Nothing is assumed. Everything is earned.

Final Thought

The irony of great editing is that it often goes unnoticed. But bad editing? The audience feels it instantly, even if they can’t articulate why. Repetition, predictability, and diminishing impact are silent killers. They erode trust, dull emotion, and reduce what could be extraordinary to something that simply "works."

Don't just make it work. Make it impactful. Make it blow them away.

Edit like an economist.

Paddy