Thursday, January 15, 2009
respect your craft
I read a lot of screenplays for my internship. A LOT. And I'm not allowed to talk about them, obviously, but one thing I can say is that many, many, many of the samples I get show a very serious lack of understanding of how to use a comma. So, dear screenwriters, if you want to gain the respect of the people who might consider producing your insipid little romantic comedy, do yourself a favor. Learn where to use a comma. When a character addresses a character, like, "Hey, Joe," a comma goes in between "Hey" and "Joe". A comma is not necessary in a sentence like, "You know better than anyone what you want." There should be NO comma between "anyone" and "what". Why you think there ought to be one is beyond me. Please cut it out. My grammar is not perfect and the occasional comma error is not gonna bug anyone, but when it's every page of your script, it's annoying. Learn your punctuation, screenwriters, or I'm gonna be a lot more likely to PASS on you.
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In summing up, I wish I had some kind of affirmative message to leave you with. I don't. Would you take two negative messages?
-- Woody Allen
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