GRAMMAR: Proper grammar is crucial. You need perfect grammar, and you also need to break the rules. Certainly tenses should be consistent, words spelled correctly, and nouns and verbs should agree. On the other hand, sentence fragments are a screenwriter's stock in trade. For example, it's perfectly acceptable to write:
Anthony pushes through the jungle, toward the clearing. Suddenly three loud SHOTS are fired. Anthony peers through the leaves. One. Two. Three men lie on the ground. All dead.
Anthony moves closer. Closer still. Right to the edge of the clearing. He can aaalllmost see what's going on --
Many grammatical rules being broken here. But they're all done on purpose. The clarity of the scene is not lessened due to the grammatical violations.The quote is from Points for Style* by Terry Rossio at the Wordplayer site.
I usually just put things here by other people, mostly so I can find them easily for my own purposes. But this time I'm giving advice because I am qualified by education and experience to give it:
You know what makes a script painful to read? A writer with no command of language. One who is so very obviously trying so very hard to sound erudite, to appear to be experienced. Someone who looks up synonyms online.
If you don't know the difference between connotation and definition, stop writing until you do. If you don't use the word in your everyday life, leave it out of your screenplay unless it's technical.
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