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Script Proofreading
Writing With A Partner – One Thing You Must Consider
Pros and Cons All the usual pros and cons exist with any partnership: Pros You have someone to share the workload with, bounce ideas off of, complement any gaps in your skill set, etc. Cons You may be at different skill levels, have unresolvable disagreements, or may...
Peeve Of The Week (4 of 4)
Week 4 The final week of pet peeves! Again, these aren't just words or expressions that bug me for some reason -- they're mistakes I see so commonly when proofreading that they've become pet peeves of mine. For the big finale, I have not one but three writing...
Peeve Of The Week (3 of 4)
Week 3 This is a good one. And by good one, I mean a mistake I see all the time that drives me crazy. There's mistakes See anything wrong with the above subheading? It should be: "There are mistakes," right? You wouldn't say, "There is mistakes." And yet somehow this...
Peeve Of The Week (2 of 4)
Week 2 Before I jump into Week 2's pet peeve, I need to make a point of clarification. These items aren't simply preferences; they are mistakes. Full stop. The reason they're pet peeves of mine is because I see them so often in scripts. Such is the case with this...
Peeve Of The Week (1 of 4)
Week 1 I proofread a lot of scripts. Some mistakes I find drive me batty. And if they drive me batty, odds are they'll do the same to other readers (i.e. gatekeepers). None irk me more than this pet peeve, but I've already written about that one. So for the next four...
How To Properly Indicate Characters Yelling
Barking up the wrong tree Sometimes, it's the easy things that can trip you up in a script. Take yelling and screaming, for instance. Seems like it would be an easy thing to indicate, but there are some common problems I'm seeing in scripts that are derailing what...
Quick Tip: Writing Dialogue Interruptions
Streamline Screenwriting is all about streamlining things. Any redundancies have to go. Such is the case with interruptions. And I'm seeing this mistake a lot: DON'T DO THIS TED Gloria, I can't be in all places at onc-- GLORIA ...
Text Message Formatting
Superman, I defy you! I'm a big fan of David Trottier, AKA "Dr. Format" and his books, "The Screenwriter's Bible" and "Dr. Format Tells All." I'm also really impressed by Christopher Riley's book, "The Hollywood Standard." Between the two of these legends of...
Remembering Blake Snyder: Ten Years Later
Blake Snyder: October 3, 1957 - August 4, 2009 Ten years ago today, the world lost an amazing soul. At just 51 years of age, Blake Snyder -- author, screenwriter, educator and all-round helluva guy -- died unexpectedly and left everyone who knew him reeling. I first...
Quick Tip: No Colons After Scene Headings
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 SHOTS or a secondary...
Should You Specify A Character’s Race?
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 incensed about this...
Quick Quiz: What’s Wrong With This Scene?
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 problems I...