I ran a series of posts last year that was hugely informative. Since GITS has more than tripled the number of unique daily visitors in the last 6 months, there are probably a number of people who haven’t checked out the Q&A. To give you a taste, here’s the 6th and final post from script reader D.C. Mar:

What are the common mistakes screenwriters make that drive you crazy?

There are so many, too many to note here, such as careless spelling/grammar, improper formatting, dense, novelistic stage descriptions, etc. Instead I’ll concentrate on a few less obvious ones that account for a majority of the “passes.”

Characterization:

A common mistake made by both pros and novice writers is an inattention to characters. This may seem a contradiction to the answer I gave above about “concept” being the most important element of the three cited. But your concept would have to be out of this world for me to forgive reading a hundred or so pages of a script with characters I’m given no reason to care about.

Whether your script is action or thriller or horror or broad comedy or rom-com, I want to understand, identify with and/or root for someone in your movie. Too often writers plug in stock characters that simply serve the dictates of the plot. If your characters are bland or poorly motivated or unsympathetic or don’t make sense because they’re simply slaves to plot dictates or are a carbon copy of the villains and heroes from other movies, then chances are your great concept and/or wonderful plot will be undermined and obscured to the point where I won’t even recognize their potential.

As a reader, I’m most excited by scripts that carry me into the story through well drawn and/or memorable characters and I’m turned off by scripts that have thin, undeveloped or stock good guys and bad guys. As I mentioned earlier, great, memorable characters are often what elevate a familiar or okay concept to one that is fresh or exceptional. One of the most common results of deficient character development is a script that’s formulaic — what we readers often describe in coverage as “by-the-numbers.”

Telling, not showing:

Another common mistake is a reliance on dialogue to advance plot and characters. The cardinal rule “show rather than tell” is essential. Although readers love seeing pages of dialogue and sparse stage description – airiness – in scripts, that doesn’t mean we like to see on-the-nose and/or expository dialogue that tries to explain what should be dramatized – how the character feels, who the character is, what’s going on in the plot, what are the themes, etc. A script with blistering, snappy dialogue is still not going to get favorable coverage if it lacks the sound story architecture and character development to go with it. It might get you a nod as a dialogue punch up guy, but it’s simply not enough for a script to have good dialogue only while concept, characters and plot are underwhelming.

Un-cinematic – it’s a movie, not theater:

Another mistake that’s often a byproduct of the talky, expository script is one that lacks visual writing. Movies are a visual medium and readers want to “see” and “feel” the movie in their mind and feel it viscerally and emotionally as they read. Consequently, scripts need visual and visceral impact. They need to feel like they belong on a big screen and not on stage or on a tiny (YouTube) window.

Clichés:

Another common mistake, one that I guarantee that every reader hates, is the use of clichés. We read so many scripts per week that what you might think is an acceptable cliché, i.e., the phrase “…like a deer caught in headlights,” is something we’ll catch and groan over. Clichés also include familiar character types (the commitment-phobic boyfriend in a rom-com, for example) or situations (i.e., the girlfriend catching boyfriend in bed with another woman, etc.). The catch phrase you’ll want to avoid in coverage is “this tired, predictable and cliché-laden script…”

Lazy, uninventive writing:

Another common mistake is a reliance on luck and convenience in the plot. There is nothing more boring than following a character who constantly gets out of tight fixes or solves problems due to luck and/or convenient factors.

Dense, overwritten narrative:

One thing I (and other readers) hate is writing that lacks clarity or a script that is overly complicated and which forces me to backtrack often and re-read portions to understand what’s going on. As I’ve been saying repeatedly, if your script is not a fun, easy read, it won’t receive favorable coverage. Simplify the stage descriptions to the are minimum. Prune the lyrical prose and save for your novel.

Sentence fragments:

The flip side of dense, overwritten narrative is the overuse of punchy, staccato sentence fragments. When used effectively, sentence fragments are great. But when overused, as in every sentence is a fragment, it makes for difficult and annoying read. We readers hate it when a script tries too hard to be punchy and economical by stringing together all sentence fragments and no complete sentences. This is because we have to fill in the missing gaps to understand the flow of the action. There is an art to using sentence fragments and the trick is balance. Use fragments in moderation and when it’s most effective as a point of emphasis.

Novice alerts:

Many mistakes signal “novice writer!”

If you’re green to writing and haven’t done your homework as to what is the proper format or what constitutes a professionally presented script, it’s OBVIOUS and the script will get an automatic pass. We still have to read it, but not happily and the comments will be unforgiving. I’m always amazed by scripts that come in double-spaced or have long, long blocks of stage descriptions or dialogues. At the very minimum, scripts should be presented professionally and readers shouldn’t be able to tell if this is a script written by a first time writer or by a working pro.

There are two types of scripts that readers love: the really, really good ones that are an obvious, easy, no brainer “consider” or “recommend” and the really, really bad ones that are an obvious, no brainer pass. This is because coverage for these are fast and easy to write. It’s easy to rave about a script or rip it apart. The much harder ones for readers to cover are those that have us on the fence because it’s much harder to justify why it merits a consider or deserves a pass. Obviously, writers should avoid making it easy for us readers to give their script a no-brainer pass. Even if your script is not an obvious “consider,” at least make it hard for us to justify giving it a pass. Then at the very least, you might wind up with a “consider” for the writing even if your script gets a “pass.”

D.C. is one of my students, a fine writer, and has worked as a professional script reader and story analyst for over a decade in Hwood. You would do well to read the other posts in this series:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Script readers are Hwood’s gatekeepers. It just makes good, common sense for screenwriters to understand as much as possible about how they approach rendering a judgment on the material we write.