Proper Grammar is Crucial - or Not

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.

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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.

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.

Whom are Now...

INT. THE CACTUS - DAY
A redneck's culinary wet dream with a novelty DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS flag hung with pride, customized neon signs, and stuffed woodland critters speckling the faux, wood paneled walls of this Jim-Bob version of Denny's.

West Texas diner as described by a budding screenwriter looking for a critique of his work.  It causes me to wish so very much that the conceit of a writer inserting himself into his story in order to impress the reader with the smug contempt he has for the cardboard cut-out world and characters he, himself, created would be more widely recognized as the sophomoric inanity it truly is.

His version of a person.  In this case, diner waitress:

MARTHA
I knew it.  I figured just by lookin' at'chas yous were.  But when I noticed y'allz vehicle parked out there I--

I believe it's possible the intent of the writer was to amuse.  Which he did when he wrote this action line:

Chase's eyes veer up and back over to:  Trevor and Elly, whom are now molesting one another with kisses. 

Whom are now.  I did not make this up.  I also recognize that this brings out the smug superiority in my own soul every time.  But also my concern for the sad hopeful who wrote it. 

Imagine this lands in the lap of a reader raised in West Texas and who didn't sleep though middle school English grammar and possibly attended an institution of higher education. They might even know how rare it is to find "faux" wood paneling as it's much cheaper to make wood paneling out of wood than whatever one might find to fashion into a resemblance of wood paneling. 

Respect your characters, your work and yourself enough to learn your craft.  You are a writer.  Words have meaning.  Nuance.  Grammar is more than how someone refers to their parent's mother in the Vermont woods.  

It's hard enough to succeed.  Don't shoot yourself in the foot while trying position yourself as superior to the waitress who could be the very picture of your reader's Grammar and who is smart enough to never try and make herself sound like anything she is not.