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Script Proofreading
Should You Write For Free?
No Pay, No Gain At my first Pitch Fest many years ago, one particularly helpful production company rep, who sensed I was new to the game, gave me this advice: "Never work for free." As I was processing what he was saying, he reiterated: "No, seriously, never work for...
How To Indicate The Passage of Time In A Script
Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking... me off I've been seeing a lot of these kinds of shenanigans in the scripts I've been reading lately: Sarah watches the front door for a few minutes, anticipating Dan's return. A "few minutes"?! You actually want the audience...
Character Thoughts – “Unfilmables”?
What were they thinking? In novels we become spoiled, being able to peer into a character's mind to know what they are thinking. As a screenwriter, we don't have that luxury. We must only write what the audience can see or hear. Otherwise, they're known as...
How To Format Establishing Shots
Establishing When you just want to show a quick EXT. (exterior) shot of a building, before setting up the INT. (interior) shot, is it okay to use a scene heading without any scene description below? Yes! But -- you need to add ESTABLISHING after your scene heading....
ChatGPT for Screenwriters: A Game-Changing A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) Writing Assistant
We Are Living In The Future! As screenwriters, we're always looking for tools and ways to take our writing to the next level. Enter ChatGPT! ChatGPT is a language model developed by OpenAI that uses machine learning to generate human-like text. It has been trained on...
Year-End Message
Goodbye, 2022! Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Life Day or whatever the Flying Spaghetti Monster does, the year end is a wonderful time to reflect on all of our experiences and how they've shaped us as writers. It's crucial to keep in mind that our...
Scene Headings: SAME does not equal CONTINUOUS
I've been seeing this mistake a lot lately in the scripts I've been proofreading. The writer will use SAME when they mean CONTINUOUS. They are not the same thing and have very different uses. SAME TIME SAME (sometimes written as SAME TIME) means that the scene occurs...
Script Idea Or Execution: Revisited
Last year, I posted an article asking, "What's more important: script idea or execution?" My answer was that the script idea is more important. But for those of you who have been following my blog for years know, I'm not interested in any specific agenda other than to...
Is Your Logline Too Vague?
First things first If you’re not sure what a logline is or why it’s important, I recommend you read this logline primer. Here’s the key takeaway: A logline is a sentence (or in rare instances — two sentences) that captures the essence of your screenplay in the most...
INT. and EXT. Sure You’re Using Them Correctly?
This one's easy, right? Not so fast. Everyone knows that when you use INT. in a scene heading, it means "interior" and when you use EXT. in a scene heading, it means "exterior." That much is straightforward. But what happens when you want the subject matter to be...
What’s More Important: Script Idea Or Execution?
Idea vs. Execution I subscribe to a number of different online screenwriting groups, and one of the most common pieces of amateur advice I see is this: It’s not the idea that matters, it’s the execution. Well, I’m here to tell you, that’s categorically FALSE!...
An Easy Way To Understand Theme
What is theme? If there’s one aspect of screenwriting that confuses people more than any other, it’s theme. To be honest, it confused me for the longest time as well. And that’s because people who write about theme tend to get all philosophical and flowery in their...