Somewhere, I understand Breanne's point of view. When you spend months (or sometimes years) over a script, it looks unfair to be mixed up with beginners who don't give a s**t about the advice you can give them. Personaly, writing is a passion. It is not because I cannot make it for a living that I won't be careful about my work. IN fact, a script for me is like a sculpture. Once you have finish the shapes, you have to chisel every edge, every curve, to make it the smoother than possible. If I came in this site, it is not to show off but to submit my work and try to see what's wrong in it.

About the typos, I must admit that I could read and read and read again my scripts, I ALWAYS find some of them. Sometimes, you're too much INTO your script that you need an outer eye to see the flaws and the failures.

One hint if it could be useful to some of you: I work with Final Draft. It has a check spelling and thesaurus. But that's not enough to me. So I copy my text under word and check it with the grammar option. It helps me a lot.

Michel

I think Pia brought up a good point.

When you hit that submit button, you are putting your script up for the whole world to see. You are saying this is mine, and this is how I write, look at me.

I have seen a lot of scripts lately that look like first drafts. I think it's because they are just learning how to write, and don't know any better, but it doesn't help the writer to learn how to write if someone replies to them with "Good job." I've seen that on some of these scripts, too.

I started writing screenplays a couple years ago. I always looked for type o's before submitting, but there were always some (a lot) that I didn't find. Format confused me too, and that will kill it for a reader. I thank God for simply scripts, and it's members here. Through them I have learned so much. I never had a writing class. Just self taught and helped by the good folks here. Some of my scripts from 2004 and 2005 are still up on the boards somewhere, and I think I've come a long way from them.

So I think these scripts are coming from new writers who are just beginning to try and figure things out, but like Pia said...The world is eyeing your script.
Your script is not only on this site it's on the internet. Google your name or screen name, and see what comes up. Probably one of your scripts or one of your replies to a script.

  

As George pointed out earlier, everyone here has a spellcheck.  Does it work 100%?  No.  But when we see a main character's name spelled in correctly, or when two words are stuck together likethis, then you obviously haven't been using it.

Also, reading the script after you've completed it will also prevent story line mistakes that make us scratch our heads and ask WTF?


Phil

I select which scripts to read based on several things:

Do I know this author? If so, is he/she one of those few that I will read pretty much anything they write, because I know they are very good or great even.

Does that author hang around here? If not, why bother reading, when they don't care about my input. Occasionally I read from authors like that, but only if the story itself seem to interest me.

If the person does hang around here, but Don gave it a less than favorable format  rating, then I usually check the authors age if available. If the author is very young I take that in consideration and figure that perhaps they just don't know better and I'll try to be helpful. If the author appears to be an adult, I might get less tolerant in my comment. Possibly, cranky even.

If someone submits a terrible script and gets lots of good advice here, but ignore the help given, then I will ignore ALL their scripts.

I think most of us here can tell if a script is a serious effort by a true beginner or something thrown together while a commercial came on during a cartoon.

Now, I've stated this to a point in one of my script threads, but I feel it deserves a mention here as well.  This mainly goes out to those of us who are pursuing a career in screenwriting, though for those of us who are, this is probably a non-applicable issue.

People in the industry do find, read, and look into producing unproduced scripts on this site, I can firmly attest to that since it has happened to me.  Now, like I said, those of us who are pursuing careers in screenwriting, more than likely make every effort to ensure that are scripts are pretty close to being typo-free when we submit them, but obviously there's something that's gonna slip through the cracks.

Just go through it as much as you can.  Two, three, four, five times.  Format is format, if you don't have that down right away, that's going to take a little bit of time, but spelling is something that can be fixed immediately.

Just look at it, look at it, look at it, until you are seriously sick of looking at your character's names on the page anymore.  If nothing else, you may find a plot hole like Phil said, and be able to fix it before it's too late.  Most times a person will only read your script once.

The way I have always written screenplays (Series or feature) is by going slowly at a pace where if I screw up or leave a plot hole I can find it right away.

When act one is complete, I will go over it with a fine tooth comb and make sure it's air tight.

Technically if you just edit bits and parts it's still the first draft. I don't understand how that formula works.

I just know you shouldn't post a script right after you finish it. (I may even start deleting threads in WIP that say they are going to do that) To show how serious I support people who care about the site.

Quoted from Old Time Wesley When act one is complete, I will go over it with a fine tooth comb and make sure it's air tight.

I don't look back until the entire first draft is written.  I had a lot of rewriting to do with Dreams in Dust and Marble as the story got darker and darker as it went along.


Phil

I never go over it until the entire draft is done either. I always find stuff happens later that I never thought of but like and I have to rewrite it anyway. I've had characters change genders, characters merge together, characters disappear entirely, additional plots open up, things occur in act three that suddenly need to be set up in act one, relationships change, etc. Somewhere for me in the writing process, the story starts to take on a life of its own, and I willingly allow the characters to guide me from point to point while more and more loosely following the original idea I had.

Of course this usually shows me that I wrote the first part of the script wrong to begin with and now I have to fix it based on what they made me do to the second half. In my most recent one, I discovered one character mixed up in something unexpected, so I have to make sure that isn't so contrived when it happens. I found that there is actually a love triangle going on that wasn't played on in the beginning. I also need to shuffle some pages around to make soem things happen quicker. But these are things I could not have known when I got to the end of act one...but that's primarily because act one is not where I thought it was.

I hold to my belief that you should write draft one from the heart and let it go where it may. Tighten it later.

Does anyone go back and read what they've written prior to starting a new day's writing session?

I try to do it just so I can get back in touch with the story, at least a few scenes anyway, if I'm really deep into it.

When I start a new session I tend to read everything several times before I continue. It's part procrastination, part perfectionsim. Trouble is, I'll often spend a couple of hours writing and end up with less pages than I started with.

I've no idea how people can number their drafts. All my scripts are just one neverending draft.

I tend to at least scan everything on a new day, if for no other reason than to remember where in the world I left off. Sometimes, if I'm stuck, I'll read the whole thing to maybe catch a thread of something I can run with. It depends.

I don't number drafts. I put a revision date on it so I know when the last time I did something to it was. I consider a first draft to be what you finish before going back over it. Once you make corrections and changes, I consider that a second draft and so on. Some consider a draft to be first until a major change.

Not to be a nudge here, but we're drifting a little off-topic.

The original intent (and point) of this thread is starting to get diluted.

[EDIT:  Oh, is this thread in screenwriting class now?  Where is that moderator hahahah....]

This thread has always been in screenwriting class. And I think that moderator is drifting. I'm sure he'll clean it up at some point.