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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board  /  Screenwriting Class  /  Opinion
Posted by: JohnI, November 3rd, 2020, 11:35am
Been constantly told there’s no place for adjectives and adverbs in scripts.
Although I try to stay away from this they are sometimes unavoidable.

Your opinion.

How much is too much’

And

How much do these hurt your scripts chances

Posted by: Matthew Taylor, November 3rd, 2020, 1:17pm; Reply: 1
There is a place for them - up to you to decide when they are best placed.

In a lot of cases, you can probably use stronger verbs instead of an adverb. And you should probably use nouns instead of adjectives (IE think visual, instead of saying a character is scruffy, describe his clothes and the sate of his beard)

But saying you should never use them is a bit silly - An example I just found on the net is "The gun slips from his sweaty hand" - sweaty being the adjective and seems fully suitable to me as it's visual.

As to how much they hurt a scripts chances, no idea. I like to think that story is king and if someone likes the story, they can see past these things which I consider to be petty in the grand scheme of things.



Posted by: AnthonyCawood, November 3rd, 2020, 3:18pm; Reply: 2
Everything in moderation...
Posted by: eldave1, November 3rd, 2020, 3:57pm; Reply: 3
Absolutely nothing wrong with them in a vacuum.

I do examine them for efficiency.

e.g.,

DAVE YELLS LOUDLY

More efficient as

DAVE SHOUTS
Posted by: MarkRenshaw, November 4th, 2020, 6:38am; Reply: 4
Statistically speaking, the data shows that script readers for competitions favour voice, characters and story far higher than screenplay format, punctuation and grammar. In other words, they will overlook minor typos, orphans, unfilmables and adverbs etc as long as the script is kick ass.
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