And thanks to Phil – those are good tips. Especially like #5. We make talk like that in real life, but in your script, don’t have your characters always say, “Um, well…”

One of my pet hates is “like a” e.g. “He strides over the lawn like a military commander”. I wince when I see this in both prose or screenplays. Only on rare occasions do I believe that usage sits well.

Your ‘noise’ words I don’t actually understand as a category. I think of noise words as acceptable onomatopoeia.

Avoid Weak, Progressive verbs in Action lines (is verbing):
Is walking, is sitting, is talking
to be (am, is, are, was, were, be, been)
T0 have (have, has, had)
there is – are – was – were
-ing words ending in -ing
Remove the verb “to be” (and all its parts) and use an active verb. Make “Two MEN are outside” into “Two MEN stand outside.” With the progressive verb form, turn “He is dialing the phone” into “He dials the phone.” Overuse of the verb “to be” is a pet peeve of many, many Hollywood readers.

Avoid generalities:
it , very, nearly, almost, really, seem, appear, felt, feel, quite, few, thing, stuff, about, several, some, very
“it” and “there” where they are used impersonally or without meaning. Keep them only when “it” is used as a real live pronoun or “there” as an indication of direction or place. “It is raining” becomes “Rain falls” or more simply “Rain.” “It’s your turn!” becomes “Your turn!” “There are bottles everywhere” becomes “Bottles litter the room.”

Avoid noise words:
that- (Usually not necessary in most sentences)
just, begin, begins, beginning, began, suddenly, would, should, could, rather, got, get, anyway, because, “ly” adverbs, so, then, even, only, about ,
start, started, starts, starting

As, Then:
This happens as that happens. This happens then that happens.
Replace as and then with a period. Make sure that you have two complete sentences.

Avoid redundancy again:
down – up (as in sit down, stand up – is redundant)

Basic rules applying to script dialogue.
1. Spell out all one and two digit numbers. Three or more digits are written numerically.
2. Spell out indications of time. E.g., do not write 2:15, write two-fifteen.
3. Spell out all personal titles except Mr., Mrs., and Ms.
4. Never hyphenate a word from one line to the next unless the word is normally hyphenated anyway. An example of this would be something like son-in-law.
5. Do not start a line of dialogue with Yes, No, Okay, Of course, Thank you, Hello, Well, Hey, I mean, Yeah. This may seem clumsy at first, but it will grow on you, sometimes leading to the elision of entire first sentences. “hello”, “goodbye”, “please”, “thank you”, and “you’re welcome” unless used for irony, character, or emphasis for some reason. We all know their use is demanded by generally-accepted standards of courtesy, but courtesy is just not very cinematic.
6. NEVER have a One Word dialogue line. A character MUST have more to say than Yes.

Character Introductions:
Each significant character must be introduced with an action scene that defines to the audience the character’s ‘current’ nature. Begin with a bang and explain it later. The audience wants someone to love and someone to hate. You have to make that happen.

IMMEDIACY
In film, things don’t “begin to”, “start to”, “continue to”, “suddenly” happen, they just HAPPEN. NOT- It begins to rain. BUT- Rain turns the dust to mud.
Nor does something happen “then” something else happens. Things just HAPPEN, in the present tense, without an intermediary “then”.

Advice from a friend:
Avoid energy-less words like “sits,” walks,” “stands,” and others like
them. Use your thesaurus and find more energetic or interesting words.
There are 200 words that can be used in place of “walk,” for example,
stride, amble, move, shuffle, strut, saunter, stroll, and so on.
I have a rule for my own writing, which is — no script should ever contain
the word sit, walk, stand, or very.

Combine adjectives, nouns, and adverbs into very well-crafted verbs, even if you have to make them up (see verbs below).

Make every word count, make it life or death, push it past the edge, make it a surprise to you yourself, dare to achieve greatness with each well-selected word, because that’s what writing well is all about.

Create:
Utilize the richness of the English language to create powerfully descriptive verbs and greatly enhance writing efficiency. Nouns, sounds, attitudes, etc. can all be combined into one verb–thereby enlivening and economizing your writing. “The BOY galumphs to the shed.” With no descriptors on the boy or the building, we see the mud, his footwear, his way of moving, his attitude in doing it. Get all these things into the verb.

Pick out-of-the-ordinary verbs wherever possible. Especially the most overused screenplay verb “to look”. Consider using:

SYNONYMS FOR “TO LOOK”
Eye, glance, glimpse, peep, sight, leer, ogle, glare, peer, pry, stare, gaze, survey, scan, inspect, reconnoiter, behold, discern, perceive, descry, make out, discover, distinguish, recognize, spy, espy, ken, command a view of, witness, contemplate, speculate, view, observe, watch, pore over, goggle, squint, gloat, etc. The same goes for “to go”, and “to say”. Find a colorful, not-so-common, more descriptive alternative, perhaps starting with an online search through dictionary.com’s thesaurus or http://www.atomica.com
There are MORE than 200 words you can (and should) use instead of **walk**.

Punctuation
Brush up on your punctuation. No Commas after and. EX: He went to the house and, opened the door.

I love how when you try and tell somebody how to succeed or make their writing better (because you’ve studied it for 20 years) they come back with how theirs is special or different.

The New Generation want and expect this.

They want “cool” attitude driven memorable ONT dialouges.

And at the risk of sounding too producer-ish, if the script is remotely good, but not 100% – This simply means we can hire a re-writer!

That’s exactly what happens when the story is really good but the rest of the script sucks including all the red flags.
—

However, you have explained how ‘it’ happens e.g. a favor etc.

I did understand your point about WHO does the re-writing.

I don’t understand how you came to that conclusion… What I mean is this… There are times when even a poorly presented script is going to get read. Somebody knows somebody… Somebody’s doing somebody a favor. Somebody sees something the writer’s written before and wants to read more… Whatever the reason IS, this is a reason that the poorly presented script is going to get read.

It happens.

However… When it happens and producers like the story within the material but not ALL the material, then they usually opt for someone to rewrite and NOT the writer who wrote the material.

Why?

Because all they’re seeing is STORY and not someone who could PROBABLY perform a favorable rewrite.

Unk

And at the risk of sounding too producer-ish, if the script is remotely good, but not 100% – This simply means we can hire a re-writer!

That’s exactly what happens when the story is really good but the rest of the script sucks including all the red flags.

I don’t know about anyone else but I’d like the opportunity to rewrite my own stuff over someone else. That’s why you want your RESUME to shine. It gives the interested parties more confidence that you know what you’re doing.

And do we want to be one-hit wonders or do we want a long and varied career?

Hollywood is LITTERED with one hit wonders…

Unk