Fix This - 4.6.25

A fantastic screenplay has to work on all levels—story idea, character, world, structure, dialogue, voice, and... physical writing (which is our way of saying, "the words on the page"). Once your main story elements are solid, you can turn your attention to cleaning up the writing itself. Getting rid of mistakes instantly makes your script more professional. 

What would you change about the excerpt below?

Mistake number one… “She imagines what their future might look like” is a prime example of novelistic writing. In a book, this would be no problem. In a screenplay, it’s no bueno. Why? Because an audience in a theater can’t see what’s happening inside Emma’s head. The writer needs to make it obvious what Emma is thinking by rewriting her thoughts as a scene or giving Emma a line of dialogue. A third option is to take out Emma’s specific thought entirely. The audience will be able to tell from the actor’s performance that something is on Emma’s mind, but they’re not expected to know exactly what it is.

Next, you can remove unnecessary repetition after Arjun steps on something sharp. “He YELPS in pain” and “Ouch!” tell us the exact same thing. It’s up to you as the writer which one to cut. We chose the action description, but if you needed to shorten your script, cutting the dialogue would save you a few lines.

Moving along, the writer has told us that Emma’s line, “Oh my gosh!” is V.O. (voice over), but this is a mistake. V.O. is used when the character delivering the dialogue is not physically present in the scene. Telephone calls, TV broadcasts, and narrators are examples of when to use voice over.

If a character is physically in the scene but not on camera, you should use O.S. (off screen). From time to time, you might also see O.C. (off camera). This means the same thing, but it’s a bit dated, so we recommend sticking with O.S..

The last change to make is also a formatting error we see a lot in client scripts. Did you spot it?

A lot of writers want to make it clear a character is interrupting another character by using ellipses and/or parentheticals. The proper way to format an interruption is with two dashes at the end of the interrupted line and two dashes at the beginning of the interrupting line.

Like this…

Ta da! A few easy tweaks makes this excerpt more polished. Polished = professional.

For more in-depth writing advice and a comprehensive strategy for taking your movie from the seed of an idea to a stellar draft, sign up for Screenwriting Essentials. We’ll teach you everything you need to know to write a standout script.