by Trevor Mayes | Jul 17, 2019 | Punctuation, Scene Headings, Writing
CUCKOO FOR COLONS I’m seeing things like this a lot lately: MONTAGE: — Gail washes dishes. — Gail does laundry. — Gail collapses on her bed. Why is there a colon after MONTAGE? NEVER put a colon after a scene heading like MONTAGE or SEQUENCE OF...
by Trevor Mayes | Jul 9, 2019 | Characters, Writing
Foot, meet hornet nest So there are a few screenwriting groups on Facebook that I belong to. In one of them, a concerned writer had posted an excerpt of a script reader’s review that said, “Why does the character need to be Asian?” The writer was...
by Trevor Mayes | Jun 17, 2019 | Proofreading, Quick Quiz, Writing
Riddle me this You know those puzzles where you’re shown a picture and told there are a bunch of things wrong with it? Well, this is the screenwriting version of that puzzle, and you get to play detective! In the following short scene, there are a number of...
by Trevor Mayes | Jun 11, 2019 | Writing
Yes, they do. Very much. For about 25% of you, this may be the most important article you’ll read this week. Writers tend to break down into four types: Those who are fastidious about their writing and take great pains to make sure everything is written...
by Trevor Mayes | Jun 3, 2019 | Action Lines, Writing
What do we see and hear? Fundamentally, your job as a screenwriter is to convey to the reader what they should be seeing and hearing, without bogging them down with unnecessary details. Sometimes the desire for efficiency, however, causes screenwriters to become too...
