Exaggerate Precisely… To explain what I mean by this, I’ll quote Stephen King: “The adverb is not your friend. Consider the sentence “He closed the door firmly.” It’s by no means a terrible sentence, but ask yourself if ‘firmly’ really has to be there. What about context? What about all the enlightening (not to say emotionally moving) prose which came before ‘He closed the door firmly’? Shouldn’t this tell us how he closed the door? And if the foregoing prose does tell us, then isn’t ‘firmly’ an extra word? Isn’t it redundant?” More than any other art form I know, screenwriters need to use as little of their ‘material’ as possible. Yet they have to convey a massive amount of information in that material. Wrylies are frowned upon in action as much as parentheses. Sure you can fix the above example with, ‘He slammed the door.’ I know that was the first thing that popped into your mind right? But this is cinema… The door slams in his wake – its window spiderwebs She runs after him – broken glass showers down… She falls to her knees and sobs. All of the words are active, visceral, and advance the action. There’s no past tense, I don’t care what color the door is, and there’s no mistake that 'his' point was made. Mondays don’t have to suck, may yours launch you into a prolific week.
Screenwriting : Today's Wish and Creative Tip by Laurie Ashbourne
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I do so love On Writing! Thank you firmly.
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It is a keeper, John!
I keep two copies because I give them away.