SCRIPTREADERPRO.COM

Just when do you know if your script is ready to show it to a professional script consultant like ourselves, or a producer, manager or agent?

Time and time again we see the same mistakes repeated by different writers. So, in response, we’ve come up with a checklist of some of the most common mistakes we encounter.

If you can answer “Yes” to all the questions below, your script is probably well on it’s way to becoming a solid draft and ready to send out into the world.

1. Can you tell your story in two or three concise sentences? What it’s about, what the conflict is, who the protagonist and antagonist are, what the goal is etc. These should all be easily explainable in a short, sharp pitch.

2. Is the concept original—something you’ve never seen before on screen—and has high stakes attached? A life changing event for your protagonist. Something that an audience can connect to emotionally.

3. Do you have a clear protagonist with a goal to achieve against a strong antagonist? Again, are there high stakes attached? Are we going to care what happens?

4. Are all the classic three act plot points in place? Is there an Inciting Incident in the protagonist’s life at the beginning of the script? Do they make a Big Decision around page 25? Is there a Midpoint around page 50? etc. And do these plot points properly fulfil their functions? e.g. Is the Climax a showdown between protagonist and antagonist?

5. Are there 7 or 8 major sequences in the script? Each with its own Call to Action, Midpoint, Climax etc. within a three act structure? (See our eBook—“Master Sequences: What’s Really Going On Under Three Act Structure,” for more info.

6. Are there clear A, B and C stories? Is the A story the thing the protagonist must achieve by the script’s end, and the B story the thing that helps he / she achieve it? Most scripts we receive are not nearly complex enough, and the main reason is a lack of solid subplots that impact on the main plot.

7. Does the script fulfil its genre requirements? If it’s a Comedy do people get hurt but not die? If it’s a Horror do people get hurt and die? Every genre has its own set of rules. Does your script follow them?

8. Does each scene serve a dramatic purpose, have a beginning middle and end and go from a negative to a positive charge or vice versa? Who’s the protagonist of the scene and what’s their goal? If it doesn’t have these things, chances are your screenplay also suffers from the next point—unnecessary waffle.

9. If you open your script on any page and compare the dialogue to that in, say, Up in the Air, does it hold up? The biggest fault in spec script’s dialogue is unnecessary waffle. Does every line have a purpose?

10. If you open your script on any page and compare the writing style and description to Little Miss Sunshine, does it hold up? Do you write things like “The phone rings. Kaitlin looks at it nervously. She thinks about who it could be. She bites her bottom lip. Finally, she gets up, walks across the room and picks up the phone.” Or “The phone rings. Kaitlin nervously picks it up.” We hope it’s the latter.