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It should be a given that when you've completed a screenplay that you proof it closely or have somebody else proof it for you if you're not that thorough. And I don't mean only for bad grammar, puncutation or spelling.
What often comes to haunt writers is what I call script residue. Those are the random lines or scenes or descriptions that you forgot to edit or alter from say your first draft to you final draft.
Let's say you do 3-5 drafts before sending it out. Let's say your second lead was a guy in draft #1, but by draft #3 became a girl. Let's say your big Act Two action sequence took place in Guatamala, but by draft #5 you moved it to Greenland. And let's say you deleted all the dialogue reflecting the tropical heat and jungle of Guatamala and replaced it with the snow and ice of Greenland.
The thing to be careful of is that your script is indeed cleansed of all references from the earlier drafts. This isn't a job for Spell Check. This means a line edit of the entire script. You don't want a reader, agent or producer who's reading a scene set at an ice fishing camp in Greenland to be confused by a line of dialogue about the anaconda that's been terrorizing the villagers. And you don't want to confuse them even more by having your female lead (who originally was a male lead) recount the good old days in the men's locker room at the all boys prep school "she" attended.
In short: proof diligently. Get all previous script residue out of the way. It can hurt you. Readers are picky enough and you don't want to tick one off by confusing them with a scene that you forgot you wrote three drafts ago. |
