Fix This - 4.13.25

Even if a story is fantastic, sloppy writing is distracting. Your goal is to tell your story effectively, not sidetrack the reader with mistakes. 

It can be hard to spot errors in your own writing. Practice by identifying what you would change about the excerpt below...

The scene opens with good description, but things start to go awry with the sentence, “The lighting is weirdly dramatic.”. Remember, it’s not the writer’s job to guide production. Technical details like camera angles and lighting fall under the purview of the director and cinematographer, not the screenwriter. Even if you’re making the film yourself, the detail takes the reader out of the world of the story and puts them momentarily on the set. This is jarring and distracts from the scene. With that in mind, our advice is to cut it.

The next mistake is the way the writer has formatted Trevor’s dialogue to indicate he’s yelling. When a character yells, their dialogue should be written in all caps. No need for the parentheticals.

There’s a bigger problem, however, with Trevor’s entrance. Namely that he doesn’t currently have one. He just starts speaking before we even know he’s in the scene. Confusing!

Always strive to make it clear where your characters are and what they’re doing before giving them dialogue. In this case, the writer intentionally left Trevor out because they didn’t picture him in the room when he yelled his first line. That’s fine, but it still needs to be easily understood.

Here’s a better way to do it…

The next mistake is small, but it’s a spelling error we see ALL. THE. TIME.

“Unphased” is not a word. It should be “unfazed.”

One more change to go…

Trevor’s last line of dialogue sounds a little funny. Why? Because the writer didn’t use a contraction. Sometimes, this is intentional for emphasis. Here, it was an oversight.

When real people speak, they use contractions. As you’re polishing your draft, we recommend you do a pass where you only look for opportunities to add contractions to your dialogue. It does wonders for making your lines sound more realistic.

There you go! A few quick changes and the writing is improved.

To learn more about writing, as well as a comprehensive strategy for taking your movie from the seed of an idea to a stellar script, sign up for Screenwriting Essentials. We’ll teach you everything you need to know to write a standout script.