"I Suppose You're Wondering Why I've Called You Here..."

"Who's this guy? Is that what you're wondering? Don't worry. We'll meet him later."

Actually, I was wondering who taught you chatting with the reader in your action notes was kosher.

Then I wondered how we can make them stop.

Now I'm wondering how much whiskey I have in the house.

Bye Bye

If you want to come accross as professional, please don't use both "screenply by" and "story by" on your cover if it's the same name both times. Save that for when different people perform those tasks.

Some films do show both, but on a script it makes you appeare desperate for credit, like your next note might say 'typed by,' or 'formatted by.'

It's enough to make a reader want to say Bye-bye.

Buried Under 50 Feet of Gild: A Lily

True, we readers are often a tired bunch. We read at five in the morning to avoid exercise. We read on planes to avoid talk about 'the game last night.' We read when other people's children scream because other people's children are screaming. We can miss things. Been known to happen.

That is no reason to highlight a joke WITH CAPS! AND BOLD TYPE! AND UNDERLINING! AND ITALICS!

This is the screenplay equivalent of Myspace sparkle font. It makes me recoil from my screen. I can't tell if you think I'm dumb or if this is your one good joke and you're worried I'll miss it.

I respect you. I've been where you are. I know it's a hard job. Throw a little respect back to your reader and the process works better for everyone. Especially you.

/the four exclamation marks alone would have sufficed

TITLE

If you want to use the title in a line of dialogue that's your choice. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Your call. But for the love of Pete please don't write it in CAPS. We get it already. We do. And if we didn't get it it's probably because we don't want it. CAPS won't change that.

As You Know...

If you start a diologue line with "As you know-" you might as well stamp INFODUMP on the page.

"As you know..." is not only a notorious lead in for infodumps, it's also bad dialogue. When was the last time you heard it outside of a business meeting? Or heard good dialogue inside of one?

If you see "As you know..." in your script jazz it up (have someone react to how patronizing it is) or cut it out. It rarely leads anywhere worth going.

As you know.

How to Make 10 Mistakes on the First Page

Hard to believe, but I just found a script with 10 no-no's on page one:

1. Slug line did not specify setting of first scene, just the building

2. Scene moved between four rooms/locations w/o scene changes

3. Action lines filled with multiple, separate, actions. Fine for a novel, but not a script

4. Action lines tell us info we could not possibly see

5. Lead character's name in caps twice instead of just at first sight

6. Other character's name not in caps at first sight

7. Upcoming plot point is something we could see in a few pages, but the lead tells us about it instead (killing the mystery and breaking the 'show, don't tell' rule)

8. Dialogue states the same point twice

9. Specific song was mentioned as playing on radio

10. Lots of 'we see's in action lines

And one to grow on in case any of the above are up for debate:

11. No description given on meeting any of the characters

Art has few rules, but screenwriting is an art that has quite a few. I recommend scripts that break a few here and there, but ten in the first page? No reader could recommend this without risking their job.

Help us help you. Master the rules. Then, whether you follow all of them or not, your mastery will show in your work.

This Next Bit is Awesome....

Remember I asked you not to write novels in 'action lines?' That maybe we don't call them 'action lines' just because calling them 'unpublished novel lines' would be too many syllables? I have an addendum...

Also avoid using your action lines to tell us how awesome, or deep, or metaphorical your next bit of dialogue is.

If it is good, you just undercut it with a spoiler. If it isn't... I don't need to explain the downside to that.

Cover Story

Newsflash: Cover stories are hardly ever about how awesome someone is. One person rarely appears on many simultaneously. You hardly ever see one face broadcast all over Times Square, especially over the word 'Messiah?'

If you want your lead to look like Captain Awesome McSuck My Balls you have to try harder. Like, original 'State of Play' harder, where the bright young hope of his party was not introduced during an interview in which a flirty reporter asked him to comment on the rumors God was stepping down next year to let him the take over. That is not what State of Play did.

This is what they did: In what looked like a dry committee hearing he personally reamed an oil company shill a new one with his team's own investigative research.

He earned respect.

Earned.

Stop telling us your lead is so damn cool and show us something.


(Show, don't tell. Didn't I read that in a screenwriting book somewhere?)

Conflicting Emotions

The three most common ways to FUBAR conflict.

1. Conflict missing, presumed icky
Sure we identify with our characters. How else would we know what they're about to say? Maybe that means conflict makes you uncomfortable.

Tough. Strap on a helmet and get in there.

2. Under-conflicted
See season two Numb3rs. The conflict would involve one character making a guess about another then being proved wrong - all without that problematic 'confrontation' stuff. A potential disagreement would be hinted at and apologized for... all without the trouble of actually happening.

3. DID YOU JUST CALL ME CONFLICTED???
Season 3 Veronica Mars has a great example of this. The victims of a serial date-rapist on campus think their perp may be a member of a frat. The titular PI is hired by the frat to exonerate them and in so doing gets a photo of the elusive criminal. Naturally the victims on a desperate hunt for justice are... pissed as all heck? What?

Veronica Mars was a good show with great dialogue but they passed out at the switch here. I'm sure if cornered a rep for the show would say something like 'The women believed the frat contributed to a culture of ra-'

Sorry, I can't write b.s. that thick without pausing for air. It was a classic example of 'We want a conflict so, uh, you guys. Yeah, you're totally pissed' writing.

When I come across this in scripts I assume the writer has few social skills and doesn't grasp why people get mad at them.

That's the generous estimate. The other is they're lazy.

Write conflicts. Make them believable. I know it sounds like a waste of good cyberspace to say this but you'd be stunned how often it's missed.

Eyesore

First rule of Screenwrite Club: If we don't need to know, we don't need to know.

I'm looking at you, 'deep, hazel eyes' writers! Unless it relates to a plot point (like a sign of infection in 28 Days Later) we don't need to know eye color. You're just making yourself sound unprofessional.

And no one's eyes are cerulean. Stop right now. Back away from the thesaurus.

"A Myriad of..." No.

Every time a writer uses myriad correctly, an angel gets its wings.

True story.

"HELLO: My Name Is..."

It's not often I see a synopsis, so on this note YMMV. But why in the name of Great Ceasar's ghost do so many writers feel the need to mention the lead's name?

Unless it's a famous historical or fictional name, like Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, you should leave it out. It's not like reading "After losing her spot on the Olympic synchronized swim team Kate* Winterbourn must accept her status as an alternate... AND DIFFUSE A TICKING BOMB!" will prompt me to think 'Didn't I meet Kate at that 4th of July party?'

When in doubt leave it out goes double for your synopsis and logline. The lead's name should be straight to the bin, nothing but net.

*I'd also like to point out not all white chicks are named Kate, but as a white chick called Kate myself I'll just STFU and GBTW.

Cut "CUT"

We don't need to read "CUT TO:" When you start a new scene it's implied.

This one search & destroy will help your page count and your reader credibility.

A Novel Concept

This is your screenplay.
This is your book.
Can't tell the difference?
Then dodge my right hook.

Apologies. I needed the rhyme. The point stands: A book and a screenplay are different things. The key difference (other than the obvious ones) is in the descriptions.

ACTION LINES should look like this.

What action lines should not look like is this. Right here. You're looking at it. You're bored already aren't you? I am, and I'm writing it. Paragraphing, paragraphing away, too much text, killing trees. Why, yes, printer cartridges do grow on trees in my world, thanks for asking! Hang on, I think I've got a few other random points to make - and as long as it's all squished into one paragraph it only counts as one line. This'll save on my page count too! Isn't this swee-

They don't need to be one sentence but if I see a fully loaded graph I start to skim. If you use them, see what can be cut. If something can't be cut, perhaps it deserves its own line.

Save your poetic invocation of the Georgia wetlands on a late summer morning for the novel.

Driven to Tear

The "single tear" cliche is a way of letting me know the scene is tragic. At least, that's what you think.

For a reader (definition: one who does not like to be hit over the head with things any more than anyone else does), it sounds more like this:

"TRAGEDY! MY HEROINE IS TRAGICALLY PERFECT! HER WOE IS PERFECTLY TRAGIC! EVERYTHING IS JUST SO PERFECT AND ELOQUENT AND TERRIBLE! OH, THE HUMANITY!"

Don't go to shout. Lose the single tear. We hear you plenty well using your indoor voice.

Good for the Environment

The next time I read a v.o. of the phrase "That's me" I will beat the living smack out of a tree.

You wouldn't hurt a tree, would you?

This was played out by the time 'An American in Paris' came out and even they upped its originality by first showing someone else's face. Fifty odd years later it still needs something else to make it work.

This has been used in some good scripts, but it's also abused in a metric ton of bad ones. Tread carefully here and remember:

When in doubt cut it out.

Don't Play that Funky Music

♫ Hey mister, hey mister writer, you're not a DJ. Turn the music down! ♪

Times mentioning a specific song is allowed:

1. Karaoke scenes
2. Dichotomy (a happy song over a fight scene, etc...)

And even then you should use 'a song like...' This lets potential producers and directors know what's going on in the scene without locking them into an expensive song.

Even better for you, it lets them know you're a professional who will not crazily think the script must be your 'vision.' It's the producer and director's vision, it's just your script. (Even if you don't believe that, that's the company line. Learn it well.)

Writers who are delicate about their 'children' don't get called back. Writers who insist that the song on the radio must be The Jam's "Waterloo Sunset" may have good taste in tunes, but will also have a bad rep with their reader.

Yes, established writers break this rule. But they got to be established by proving they weren't fussy, helicopter-parents. So tuck it back in your pants.*

*and by 'it' I of course mean your iPod

Take Cover

Cover pages. The scripts I see aren't supposed to have personal info on them.

This is not hard. We don't ask you to create a new cover page without personal info (though that would take you all of half a minute). If that's too much bother send in a script without a cover.

This isn't a favor to me - it makes me no nevermind. It's a favor to you. It's so you know how to keep me from doubting you before we even get to 'Fade In.'

Not all my notes will be this simple, but the simple ones are also not negotiable. I've rec'd scripts with this mistake, but they've had to fight harder to win me back.

Make it easy for yourself. Fix the cover.

We See....

We see....

No two words have driven more readers to Theraflu abuse.

"We see..." tells me to take you less seriously. It's unprofessional, redundant, and may be a tautology - but I haven't looked up that word in a while, so maybe not. The reason is b/c we already see everything you write. If you write

Behind her back she holds a CAPTAIN'S GUN.

we'll see it. Writing 'We see a CAPTAIN'S GUN' only tells us you skipped a page of the screenwriting book/played Bejewled on your phone that day in class.

This is a quick search & destroy fix. You're welcome.