Summarizing action.Ī writing style like this indicates the writer has forgotten that film is a visual medium. The above examples should read like this:Ī good way of catching many cliches is to simply ask yourself if you’ve seen or heard that particular phrase before? If the answer’s yes, take another look to check if it’s a cliché.ĭo a Cmd+F search on your script for these most common offenders in spec scripts, all of which involve eyes for some reason: “his eyes widen” “her eyes narrow” “he rolls his eyes”.Īlso, do a search for the phrase “like a…” as anything that follows could well be a cliché. If you’re prone to leaving out hyphens, brush up on how they should be applied and make sure you get them in your scene description and dialogue. This description from Sideways is a good example of the latter: There’s a difference, however, between car porn and naming a car as an additional way of showing a character’s personality. Unless you’re writing a Fast And Furious-style movie in which high-end car makes could be important, leave these kinds of descriptions out. Very often this means simply leaving out any specific instructions on what they should do with their face or body. Always aim to direct actors as little as possible and let the circumstances of the scene suggest how they should play it. Often it’s clear what the writer intends with phrases like these, but another way needs to be found to get the action or emotion across. Go through your screenplay, cutting all of the following writing style mistakes and make it feel more professional in one day or less. Mistakes that pro writers don’t generally make. However, there are quite a few mistakes and odd stylistic choices that we see writers make again and again. It’s clear from the way the writer chooses how to put the images they want the reader to see down on the page. It’s clear from the dialogue, formatting and writing style. 112 comments 35 quick edits to improve your script’s writing style in 24 hours or less.Ī reader knows from the very first page whether the writer knows how to write.
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