An excerpt from my script review for Mile 22 which will be available 08/20/18:
4.) Dialogue and Description
You’re the writer, so make a fucking decision!
Page 69:
During the FIGHT, Jett needs to get SLASHED in the side with
one of the KRIS KNIVES (this will pay off later).
Page 72:
Some place secluded, but VISUALLY cool.
Page 97:
The FIGHT could spill up to the roof of the train if that
isn’t too “Butch and Sundance.”
What the fuck is all this?
Not only does it jar the reader out of your story, have some balls and make a decision for your characters’ sakes, instead of having the reader picture your characters looking at her for directions like a Choose Your Own Adventure book!
Ronda Rousey turns to Hank with a look that asks, “Does he really cut me?”
Now, this isn’t to say that once the script is written that you won’t incorporate suggestions from professional readers, just to do right by your characters as you writer.
It’s your world that you’ve created from scratch, and you can practically do anything you want so long as it serves your story!
Telling us a character “should” get cut and that it “pays off later”? That’s bush league, lazy ass writing.
Readers will come to appreciate when she gets cut and then later when it affects her doing something crucial to the plot.
While on that note, a “payoff” isn’t having another character stitch it up after. A “payoff” in terms of plot would be her getting cut, and then dropping a crucial item, like a gun or phone, while trying to hang onto that and Yuda while Silva punches her there.
(Shit, even that isn’t that worthwhile of a payoff to call direct attention to.)
Aside from that, the description did have some cool action visuals. The trick here is always maintaining a fine balance between “not enough” and “too long.” Some of the blocks went over five lines, and I’ll admit that as we got closer to the end and the description got more and more “extreme” compared to earlier scenes, I skimmed.
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