Fix This - 3.9.25

Small adjustments can make a big difference to the quality of your writing. Once the major elements of your script are solid, you can turn your attention to polishing your sentences. Take a look at the excerpt below. What changes would you make to improve it?

The first question to ask is if you have chosen the strongest possible to communicate what’s in your head. In our experience, we’ve found that “sits” can often be replaced with something more descriptive. See how changing this one word creates a more vivid image for the reader…

If you want to tweak that sentence a bit more, you could rewrite it like this…

Continuing on, the next part that needs fixing is the sentence, “The handwriting on it is familiar.” Why? Because it’s novelistic writing. James might recognize the handwriting, but the audience wouldn’t be able to tell from this excerpt alone that the handwriting is familiar. To make this work, you either have to show the audience the (very distinct) handwriting earlier so that we also recognize it or you have to put the fact that he recognizes it in dialogue so the audience knows what he’s thinking. In this case, the handwriting being familiar wasn’t especially pertinent to the story, so we cut that part entirely.

If you wanted to, you could rewrite the sentence as, “James stares at a letter in his trembling hands.” It’s more concise, which we often encourage. Often, but not always. Here, we opted to keep the sentences separate so that the letter detail feels like a small reveal.

One more change to go! Can you find it?

If you pointed to the last sentence, you’re correct! There’s a problem with the image order. First, he jumps. Then, we hear the knock. Hmmmm. That’s not quite right. Because it’s the knock that startles him, we should hear the knock first. (Action first, then reaction.) The sentence would become, “A KNOCK at the door startles him. He jumps.”

But does that still feel a little awkward to you? It does to us. That’s because “startles” and “he jumps” are a bit repetitive. Turns out, you don’t need both. In this case, being concise wins…

There you go!

Now that you’ve have practice spotting mistakes in other people’s writing, see if you can make any of these changes in your own.

If you’ve got an idea, but you need help developing and writing your script, sign up for Screenwriting Essentials. We’ll teach you everything you need to know about completing an excellent script draft.