Fix This - 7.21.24

You might be tempted to look at your script and say, “There might be a few little mistakes, but what’s the big deal? The reader will know what I meant.”

While it’s probably true the reader will understand your story, grammar and formatting mistakes are distracting. More than a couple of them makes your script look sloppy. No one wants to work with a writer who’s sloppy.

Take a look at the excerpt below. Can you spot the mistake?

If you know the correct way to format interruptions, this is easy mistake to spot. If you don’t, we’ll show you how so you can do it the right way in all your scripts forever.

To write that a character has interrupted another character, you don’t use ellipses or parentheticals. Instead, you use dashes like in the fixed example below…

Two dashes at the end of the interrupted line and two dashes at the beginning of the interrupting line. Easy peasy.

Interruptions are a key part of writing great dialogue. In our online Screenwriting Essentials course, we have an entire lesson (five videos and workbook!) devoted to crafting excellent dialogue for your characters.

Start the course today, and you’ll a better writer by tonight.