READER NOTES - 1

What makes you keep reading something? And what makes you stop reading something?

[–]theweslawson[S] 25 points 9 months ago

I'm sure there are agencies where scripts are thrown out after the first 10 pages if they aren't formatted perfectly and engaging right away, but at my company that is not the case. It is very rare that a script meets the criteria for me to give it a zero (meaning I did not finish reading.) It has to fail on almost every level.

This has only happened once so far. The script was full of spelling errors, formatting errors, and a plot was not introduced by page 40 - where I stopped reading.

That being said, the most common score given for amateur work is 2, which is a pass. This means the agency may look at future work from the writer or a revision but will not do anything further with the submitted script. The most common culprit for this score are pacing, structural, and dialogue problems.

Make the dialogue sound real. Don't use too many cliche phrases. Pay EXTRA attention to the dialogue from characters that are the opposite sex from you.

Pacing problems are generally scenes that are too long with extended conversations that become dull. Move the characters to different settings or the audience will get bored (unless you're Quentin Tarantino and can write dialogue like a motherfucker).

Structural problems are things like how smoothly scenes flow into each other. Are subplots helpful or harmful? Are structural devices used (flashbacks, foreshadowing, etc...) and are they effective?

Finally, it's all about balance. Don't cram too much in to your script but don't leave it overly simple unless you are very confident in your dialogue and character development.

source

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Some don't think this one reader on Reddit is much of a source. This is a bit from an article by the great screenwriter and former reader Terry Rossio who developed a reader checklist that became the standard for the company he read for. You can read the whole thing here (and should) but here are the first two entries under Technical Execution:

Checklist B: Technical Execution

#21. Is it properly formatted?

#22. Proper spelling and punctuation. Sentence fragments okay.

READER NOTES - 2

This thread on Done Deal sparked one of the sillier debates I've ever read on screenwriting. There was a simple issue: how do you indicate voice over? The simple answer is (V.O.) after the character name.

It's what is called a "character extension."  Very descriptive: something that extends the line of the name. You put (O.S.) there. Or (CONT'D) there. It's what is called a "convention."  That is: it's how it's done in a subculture, like screenwriting.  They have different conventions in other forms.  The overarching position in the thread, and in so many other threads in so many other places is:

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THERE ARE NO RULES IN SCREENWRITING.

Here's a YouTube video of a panel of professional readers speaking to hopeful screenwriters. It's quite long and the sound isn't great in many places, but here are some excerpts:

Re: typos and poor grammar -

It's another red flag that someone doesn't have an element of craft, that someone isn't invested, hasn't spent the time to think "Oh, maybe I should read it before I send it out." Or give it to somebody who is a grammar queen to like, knock it into shape, so, typos lose me right away. Bad, I don't know how it happens at this level, but bad formatting, things that are formatted wrong, I have no idea how it happens but it happens all the time. And my big pet peeve is the mis-use of the wrylie. ...

I know how it happens. It happens because people get crappy advice on forums that says, "You don't have to learn anything or spend any time on form or understand the process.  You're great idea will be enough!"

No. It won't. Here's why:

[screenwriters should]...understand that they're writing for a reader.  If I've got my hands on it, it's bad news, they can't get it to an executive producer, they can't get it to someone else.  It's a big signal that they don't understand the process that they're going through.  

But.  But he's not going to pass up a great story, right?  Well, this is the question posed by another reader on the panel when one said how painful reading a bad script was:

But when you hit a really bad one, you don't read the whole thing, do you? 

He's quite surprised another reader would "read the whole thing."  And he worked for a major. Many readers just won't read to the end of a badly constructed script.  All those typos and grammatical errors and crappy formatting and five lines mid-dialogue in a wrylie, all that over-description of precisely what everyone is wearing, all the long blocks of text - they aren't reading your story.  They don't get there. Remember this, as a reader:

Your job is to say no,

So. If you slept through Composition in highschool, 

• if you are too lazy to buy a copy of The Screenwriter's Bible, or even look online for the numerous guides to formatting, 
• if you are trying to use language you don't employ in daily life because you want to sound smart and instead just sound like a 16-year-old who slept through English Lit as well as Comp, 
• if you think anyone can hit it big with a great story and you'll be the one ... you are probably too lazy to read this post.

BUT - if you are new, even if you did sleep through Comp, but now want to do this job, if you have the discipline and drive to educate yourself and spend years learning a craft, IF you are willing to do the work, then, please:  Don't listen to people who want you to believe you don't have to. 

Aspire to greatness and work your ass off to get there.  Because you really want someone to read to the end of the script. You really want someone to experience your story. 

Directing the Camera

Mary GRABS a crowbar and tip-toes up the stairs and comes up behind her FATHER and SMASHES him over the back of the head and it EXPLODES in blood, skull and brain matter as he CRUMPLES to the ground.

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From a post at r/Screenwriting by filmcanman* suggesting this is a better way:

Mary GRABS a crowbar. Tip-toes up the stairs. Comes up behind her FATHER. SMASHES him over the back of the head. It EXPLODES in blood, skull and brain matter. He CRUMPLES to the ground.

What's the real difference?  What we see when we read it. In the first instance WE SEE a full shot of the scene, we see her full torso and we see the stairway.  We see her father standing with her in the frame raising the crowbar and smashing him.

In the first case, a director is going to make a lot of decisions about what to shoot and how. Or, not make decisions and use a lot of full and wide angles to include all of this action with these people. 

But in the second case, WE SEE:

• Grabbing a crowbar.
• Feet tip-toeing up stairs.
• Mary behind her father.
• The crowbar raised.
• The smash into the skull.
• Blood, bone, brain flying.
• Father crumpling. 

That's seven shots. The first could be one long tracking shot. I'm not a director, maybe one long tracking shot is better. But in the second instance, you slow the reader down and imprint a series of specific images in their minds.

Transmit a vision of the movie by using the form of the paragraph to speed the reader through simple descriptive paras, or slow them down during powerful moments. The writer saves words, avoids over-description and can in many cases, effectively directs the scene. 

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*Here is a more complete version of the post:

Don’t use metaphors or similes.
Scene direction must contain verbs. (but avoid passive verbs).
Put sound EFFECTS in CAPS.
Be careful of run-on sentences. Take out the words "And" "As" & "But" whenever possible.
As example:
Mary GRABS a crowbar and tip-toes up the stairs and comes up behind her FATHER and SMASHES him over the back of the head and it EXPLODES in blood, skull and brain matter as he CRUMPLES to the ground.
Should read:
Mary GRABS a crowbar. Tip-toes up the stairs. Comes up behind her FATHER. SMASHES him over the back of the head. It EXPLODES in blood, skull and brain matter. He CRUMPLES to the ground.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/1yxhcv/fight_scene/cfoslzj

It's More Like Guidelines, Anyway

Screenplay Formatting

Brian Koppelman told us: 

All screenwriting books are bullshit. All. Read screenplays. Watch movies.

Let them be your guide.

I agree. What’s also true, is that the complete newbie needs to know a few things – like what a screenplay looks like and how to format it.

Dave Trottier in his The Screenwriter’s Bible gives a lot of great information for the newbie screenwriter. And his columns are full of good suggestions. SUGGESTIONS. 

When Koppelman tells us to read screenplays, one of the first things to notice is how often the best ones break the rules. You action paras should only be 4 lines long? Break up your actions pages with dialogue? No camera directions? Read The Usual Suspects. How many rules can you break on page 1?

But even Trottier will tell you that the point is to tell your story. That’s what McQuarrie did. I have no advice. I just want to keep the idea alive that we aren’t engineers, even though a story does have to be structured, at least a bit. We’re story tellers.

I have an absolute love for reference books. I think Trottier’s is an excellent one. But to understand screenwriting:

Read screenplays. Watch movies.