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You are making the mistake of describing things we cannot see. And your spelling will get you rejected by a reader immediately. First, JAMES SMITH, 17, walks slowly into a bar, with a vacant ...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-19T22:13:22Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34846 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T08:28:58Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34846 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
You are making the mistake of describing things we cannot see. And your spelling will get you rejected by a reader immediately. First, > JAMES SMITH, 17, walks slowly into a bar, with a vacant expression. He has been in a car accident, his varsity jacket is torn and bloody, blood drips down his face from a forehead cut. Leave out the indirection (one hell of a bad driver), leave out any humorous asides like a smiley face, do not reference "the accident" if you have not shown an accident in the previous scene. The prose is not a conversation between you and the script reader, it is a description of what the viewer sees, period. Be concrete and literal, it is filmable. "drifting" into a bar is poetic, but you can't film it unless he is a ghost or weightless in space. "Walking slowly" is something the actor can do, James is stunned. "He has been in a car accident" is something the makeup department knows how to do. The specifics of the torn jacket and blood are for them too, and indicate the severity of the accident.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2018-04-04T23:53:51Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 1