Mansplaining goes on in spec scripts. A lot. So as not to offend, I will call it the gender-neutral “screenplaining” instead. It is a structural problem that happens when the writer believes that readers need certain information up front to be able to properly interpret the story. However unintentionally, screenplaining condescends by assuming that the…
Read moreDialogue, Contest Readers and You
Unlike a reader who can pass on a script after the first awkwardly constructed page, a competition reader must read on, deeply, in order to provide feedback to the writer. You want this reader on your side immediately. Dialogue can help. Even how it looks on the page helps. BALANCED WHITE SPACE IS YOUR BEST…
Read moreWe Already Know This
If you think twice, you don’t have to say it twice. Just five years ago, if you faded out on page 120, you were still shy of the red zone. Now, opening a hundred and twenty page script makes me moan with inconsolable self-pity and drop my head on my keyboard. 109 looks like fighting…
Read moreFIRST WE MUST KILL ALL THE CLUNKERS
It’s late, your optic nerves are shriveling, your laptop is so hot it’s burning your thighs. You need to get from here to there, fast. You’re in a weakened condition. You take a shortcut, you shoehorn a raw and bloody slab of backstory into a conversation where it doesn’t belong so you can move your…
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