Screenwriting : What's your Pet peeve when reading scripts? (mostly amateur) by Erica Benedikty

Mine is boredom.

Lack of basic literacy drives me mad. Years ago I did coverage for screenwriting students. I decided it wasn't worth the damage to my mental health!

Biopic spec scripts about yourself.

To me, non-stop swearing throughout a script just looks like lazy dialogue. It doesn't help move the plot forward, so it should be minimalized.

Cliches...and not just your everyday variety ones...but the ones that just about every bad film will use and ones that actually perpetuate themselves, as well as ones that develop into even other clichés that are much worse. Yeah. Those. Grrrr.

Barry, I would stay away from Sharknado. lol

Agreed Gabriel, and while there may be characters who do talk like this, I don't believe everyone talks like this.

Ha!, good one Dan,

Wayne, I think when I was in school, my English teachers bought stocks in red pens.

Erica

And huge chunks of dialogue, page after page, non stop monolgue talking. Everybody wants to be Tarantino.

I do my eyeball test, scan the script and if the pages look 80% dialogue and 20% description, I am passing.

Dan, lol, A Pilot script I wrote a few years ago has an opening V.O. of the protag writing in a journal for a page in a half. Now when I look back at it, I'm sure there is so much I can cut down and get right to the point of the V.O. I'll bet if I did get anyone to read it, that would be the first thing they would say.

"F**K YOU BITCH! AHHHHHHHHHH!"

That was from the opening scene of Wild. Man....Reese Witherspoon was so great in that film. May the heavens continue to bless her, screenwriter Nick Hornby, and Cheryl Strayed, author of the amazing book (Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail) that the brilliant film is based on.

I think characters should speak true to character. Fargo had over 100 f-words, if I recall correctly. Made, Casino, Running Scared, Goodfellas, Resevoir Dogs, Straight Outta Compton, Alpha Dog, End of Watch, Scarface, the Wolf of Wall Street, Pulp Fiction...all had hundreds of swear words. The film that probably had the most, though, is Gary Oldman's classic, Nil by Mouth. And every film I mentioned here are great films, at least to me.

I'm a big fan of characters speaking true to character.

Actually it is a sign of poor writing. If every other word out of your character's mouth is a swear word then when something terrible happens and they really need to swear to show an emotion or fear or whatever it loses its impact.

Bill, In the hands of a pro, it can work quite well. Fargo, love it. Any Quentin Tarantio film (which too many new writers try to mimic) is laced with swearing. But it works for the characters he's created. I have nothing against "a" character swearing if it suits the character.

Unforgettably in a lot of amateur scripts, I think the writer is young (or as above, is just trying to mimic Taranito) so the characters come of as young even though they are suppose to be an office manager dressed in a smart, expensive business suite (45), trying to pick up young girls at a bar with the two characters ever other word a swear. Not that this can't happen, but it just doesn't come of as real. I love watching movies and I don't see this very often in movies.

Dan, it could very well be a sign of poor writing, as I often think that's the case. But I don't want to lump everyone who has a character swear on the first page as a bad writer.

Now that you mentioned it, I'm writing a pilot of a series with young people (on their early twenties), as main characters, and no swearing has been included. My pet peeve in scripts? Long descriptions of characters and/or locations.

Mine is meaningless metaphor. It only distracts and never enhances.

Contrived dialogue that doesn't sound like a natural way of talking at all...

Erica. I am sure it isn't always a sign of poor writing, but it does take away from those times when swearing has some real meaning. Obviously we are just discussing writing style so we are all going to have our own opinions. Personally I just don't care to use unnecessary swearing in my screenplays. I prefer showing my character's emotions through action. Again, this is just my own personal preference. Since I never read other peoples screenplays nothing they do bothers me.

As far as the swearing goes, I curse a lot as does everyone I know (including professionals at work) and most of the industry execs I've met cuss like sailors. So there tends to be a lot of swearing in my scripts. I've yet to have anyone tell me it takes away from my dialogue, so I'm guessing I don't overuse it.

In regards to my personal pet peeves, typos and grammatical errors are number one for me. If a person is too lazy to spell basic words correctly or formulate a sentence properly, I lose interest in the script.

On swearing, not often. But I have a script where it appears in every line. That was just there culture (my characters). It had no power to them. It was a way of applying weight to a word.

My pet peeve is trying to read some script that isn't even nearly formatted properly, then comes loaded with enormous numbers of typo and misspelling. Foul language was originally included for it 'shock' value but it's become commonplace and over used now. I don't use it in my writing but once I sell the script - it's theirs to do what they wish. Including a lot of cussing and swearing in your script/movie often pushes it into a more restricted rating which means that your audience numbers go down. The more butts in the seats, the more money I make.

That's well put Doug. One of the many skills it takes to write a good script is the ability to make the audience experience cliche sentiments in different and unique ways. I salute the writers who can find different ways to show a character's emotion.

Sometimes you need a few damn swears to get your shit across to people.

It's all in the placement. The greatest scripts put those swears in the best places to give them more meaning and make an impact. If you play it right, sometimes a good swear will show the audience the seriousness of a situation. I've seen movies where they place a swear word in a scene, and it just comes off as cheesy and forced. Kind of like cool guys never looking at explosions.

Travis - Dialog is used for much more than just playing out your story; dialog is also a character facet that helps define your character and his/er position/significance within the story. I rarely/if ever insert swears in a script - they're almost always not needed.

I think we would agree that art should reflect real life. 90% of the people I know curse. I think it's partly why network shows don't seem as real. In the real world people say bad words and get naked. Not having bad language with many characters is like a war movie where nobody dies. Are we making movies to keep the squares happy or are we making art?

No disrespect intended to anyone.

Don't forget...way back in the 1960's....guys like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin actually went to jail for violating obscenity laws. Talk about fearless artists. I'd put the words here, but I don't want to get censored again like I did a few posts ago where I used the f-word. Jeez....suddenly I feel like it's the 1960's again. Heh-heh.

Yeah I got censored too, Bill. Thing is, F bombs (and variations thereof) are part of my daily life. Not just at home but in my job, my surroundings, etc. How can that NOT translate into my art? I mean, if I were writing period pieces from the year 1492 or something maybe there's no place for F bombs. But when you're writing the kind of raw shit I write, there's gonna be some cursing.

And like I said, I've yet to have any reader tell me there was too much cussing in my screenplays.

Travis - I don't think we would agree at all. I don't see the relationship between art and swear words and very few movies reflect real life (except a few documentaries.) The shock value is long gone like putting jump scares in your film. Language evolves over time and I think (hope) that obscenity is nearing extinction.

Well without this going too far off the F rails, It's not just about swear words in scripts. (see what I did there, yup, mastered it).

Swearing in scripts really depend on who your intended market is. If you are writing a raunchy comedy, It's pretty safe to say it's getting an 'R' rating. But the question isn't really about art or censorship, if you want to use it, use it. I've had characters in my script use it sparinly, but that's due to the character. I just read a sort script on another site and at the bottom of the page 2 the characters use swear words. Difference is here for me, I laughed because it was funny and fit. As the comedy went on and their plans went to crap, they started swearing more and more.

Back on topic to pet peeves I read one pet peeve that was about the description of female characters, it's either over sexualised or almost exclusively relates to their appearance.

Maybe it's a generational thing. Not much swearing on Matlock or Murder She Wrote.

I think obscenity is alive and well in this world. It's not going anywhere.

My pet's name is Miles. But Peeve is an interesting name too.

It's all about the writer. Some are just better at writing obscene dialogue than others. My biggest pet peeve when reading a script is spelling. You have no idea how many people have sent me their scripts and asked me to read them and I could barely get past the first few pages because the spelling was so atrocious.

Rick that's why writing is considered to be so subjective. So much if it is about what a reader likes/dislikes and what they individually deem "good writing".

There’s something cool about looking at a painting and seeing photo-realism. Where you think it’s a photo but then you look closer and see that “Oh, someone actually painted this.”

And yes, there’s something cool about a writer who’s trying to write the way people talk and imitate that cadence and there’s something cool about an actor trying to behave the way real people behave. If you can accomplish that, you’ve done something, but what you’ve done is pretend to make a documentary.

And there are cases where that has an awesome effect, (Spinal Tap for example.) But, being as much like a human as possible isn’t one of the parts of drama. It would be the equivalent of a singer trying their hardest to sound like a musical instrument. It would be a cool thing to do, “Wow my eyes were closed and she sounded just like a flute.” But other than being impressed by the accomplishment, wouldn’t you rather listen to a flute?

Reality, and the illusion of reality, (which is what screenwriters should be writing) are very different things.

Other than that, a huge pet peeve of mine is reading super long biographies of characters with little facts that have nothing to do with the story. (When he was five he did this, and when he was six he did this.) If your character says "When I was five, I watched my father die," then that's the only time your character gets to travel back in time and be five. Because it has relevance to the story.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cf9erulmi_4

Owen - I don't see where I related swearing with art.

I feel that over use of swearing (my personal opinion) is simply a crutch used by less skilled writers. There are a few times that I'd like to insert a little swearing into the dialog - but then I stop to ask "how would Dirty Harry phrase it?" I'm confidant that your compression ratio differs from my own.

Travis - Jus' think of me as the old cowpoke at the bar (his 'stash is a little fuller.)

I honestly don't have an issue with swear or slang words so long as they fit the need. I feel like my eyes are going to start bleeding sometimes at the long paragraphs of description followed by pages of unnecessary dialogue. To top it off, said dialogue is horribly written both in tone and full of typos.

Bad grammar.

THANK YOU Christopher Binder! I am surprised I had to read down this far to find my pet peeve, $h*tty grammar. It stops me, sends me back to reread and mentally correct to figure out what they mean - ugh. It's the worst because I know I'm going to have to KEEP doing that throughout. A close second is dialogue that is clearly for the reader, not the other characters.

People trying to be too "existential" or overly theme heavy. They're tying too hard to be "smart" that they forget to be entertaining.

Allen - in the industry it's known as being too preachy and it'll plunge a dagger into your story's heart.

Spelling mistakes are the hallmark of a poorly written script. I was working on a production with lots of typos and wouldn't ya know- it was missing scenes/ scenes not properly numbered. If a writer can't take the time to spell words correctly then they do not have a serious script. Plus, if I'm the DP and the script has made it's way down the chain to me, it should have been reviewed by at least a producer and script supervisor. This tells me the whole production is reeking of incompetence and passing the buck.

My pet peeve? Almost copy cat premises. I mean in the vein of "I've written this script about an assassin/hitman who is double crossed" or a "I've written this script where these people are trapped in a room and they have to figure out these riddles in order to escape and survive."

Rick - I continually strive to enhance my writing. You stated it precisely; "Every word pushes the story forward."

Rick H, "yes" to all of your questions. Thanks for summing it up.

I'm lucky to have nothing but dolphin characters in my stories so far. They never swear.

:)