Hello to every good people of Stage 32. I'm 23 years old unprofessional screenplay writer from Bangladesh. I'm here to know about something. I wrote few screenplay. After writing every screenplay I read it for correction. I find a lot of grammatical mistakes. No matter how many time I check. I found mistakes . What can I do. here. It waste lot of my time. Please help. Thanks in advance. :)
Screenwriting : Need Help by Rafsan Mahmud
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Thank you Mr. Boseley. Our native language is way tougher then English. I tried that. But it didn't work. I don't have anyone who will work with me. So I guess my option is 3. Which is impossible right now, as I'm a still student. Thank you for your comments Sir :)
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Rafsan, I feel your pain. My husband's first language is not English and he struggles with this in his work all the time. Paying for it to be edited may not be as costly as you think, but if you truly believe that it is out of your reach, then it is possible that someone on S32 may be willing to help you. I would like to help, but my plate is full right now. Plus, I think it might help if the person editing has some knowledge of your native language. Best of luck in your endeavors. Just a little side note: In the future say "amateur screenwriter". "Unprofessional screenwriter" means that you lack professionalism, which I'm sure is not the case:)
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It's by no means perfect, but an online service, like Ginger (www.gingersoftware.com) might help you.
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Thank you Mr. Anthony. And thanks a lot Mrs. Andino.
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There are some great grammar books out there. One that I like is The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. You can check out free resources online that list the Chicago Manual of Style. Grammar girl.com is one of those. But the best ways to get better at grammar is to read, critique, take a class on grammar, or get someone to proofread your work. Fiver.com offers cheap proofreading for five bucks. Hope that helps.
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I think your best option would be a proof reading service but as Sam said, this can be costly, but it should also yield the best results. There are plenty of people who offer this type if service, myself included, but there is a big difference between giving a script a once over versus a possible broken English translation and I say this without malice. It might be a good idea to pick your best story and hire a proof reader to see how that improves your story delivery or even try to garner some free opinions as to which one of your stories you should start with.
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I'll suggest a product I use called ProWritingAid, a fairly comprehensive top-level editing tool. I think it can be got as a standalone application, but I use it as an addin to Win Word 2013. I've found it to be quite effective for detecting really boneheaded grammar and spelling mistakes, overused words & phrases, poor diction, and a host of other basic technical, style, and dialog problems. It's pretty okay with casual and business English, but has to be used with care by those of us who dig deeper and get fancy with verb moods and convoluted but correct grammar, neither latter of which I suppose should be used much in screenplays anyway! The catch is that it's a thin client atop a subscription service that communicates with the provider's servers to do the analyses, so a good internet connection is needed to handle the back & forth. A caveat too is that if the servers go offline or you've suddenly no internet, the product stops working. For screenplays I export from Fade In to .rtf, import to Word, run the checks, then just open the .fadein file and work in any corrections. If FD were smart they'd offer a similar addin to lure back or retain customers tired of overcomplexity and high cost. Fade In could eat FD's lunch if they did so. IMO. NB other than having shelled out the big bucks for a "lifetime" subscription (good till I croak or prowritingaid.com go belly-up) I have no financial or business involvement with ProWritingAid.
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This is something I do that helps a lot. I use Final Draft, and there is an option for it to "read" the script out loud. Some times when we read something our eyes correct a mistake, or when we read something, we read what it should say and not what it really says. Hearing your script read back to you, you pick out almost all of the mistakes. I do agree with everyone else though, find a proof reading service too, just to be 100% sure. I can also say, the more you write, the better you'll get at it, not only from a story perspective, but also a spelling and grammar perspective as well.