BWTV-AI Module 4 – Lesson 15: Wordsmithing

[Brent Brent McKnight McKnight]

Hi everyone!

I’ve come up with some prompts I use for wordsmithing my pilot. If you find these helpful, feel free to try them yourself and let me know how it worked for you. Be aware these are not Hal approved prompts, and have not been vetted by any development team. These are just ones I came up with on my own.

Before using the prompts, be sure to spellcheck first, and use something like grammarly or prowritingaid. Also follow the wordsmithing lesson from our class.

Prompt 1: Please check for spelling and grammar errors in my screenplay, and provide the corrections. Please identify passive words and suggest active words. Please identify past tense and suggest how to rewrite in present tense. Please identify weak words and phrases and suggest stronger, more vibrant words or phrases. List all corrections and suggestions in bold type.

Prompt 2: Check for clichés and negative stereotypes, and list them. Please identify and list common tropes found in the writing.

Prompt 3: Identify instances of “directing from the page” and suggest alternatives.

***The first part of this next prompt isn’t so great, it needs work. But the second half can get you great, thought provoking questions.

Prompt 4: Identify any questions contained in this screenplay which a second character answers the first character’s question which would be better left unanswered or rhetorical. List the question first, then list your suggestion in bold type. Then please list some ideas for hypothetical or rhetorical questions one character might ask another.

Prompt 5: Please evaluate my screenplay against the Bechdel test, Mako Mori test, Vito Russo test, DuVernay test, Sexy lamp test, Latif test, and the Landau test. Identify and list problem areas.

****The next prompt can help with eliminating orphan lines

Prompt 6: The following paragraphs of description, action lines, and/or lines of dialogue need to be shortened by about 10 characters per paragraph so as not to have any orphan lines at the end of the sentence that carries over to the next lines and consist of only one word or two short words. Please suggest two alternate ways to rewrite each paragraph to reduce it between 10 and 15 characters per paragraph.

[Barbe LaPierre]

Thanks Brent. These look very interesting. Can’t wait to try them out.

[Jerry Robbins]

Thanks for sharing these.

[Margaret]

Thanks for sharing!

[Bob Creager]

What I learned: So much. I just took one or two elements at a time, and ran through the script and every time, I found improvements.

I think the biggest improvements came from looking at each line of dialogue and description and using the rules to make them short and succinct. No unnecessary wording. Removing the character’s name at the beginning of every paragraph of description easily reduced the page count.

• This reply was modified 1 year ago by  Bob Creager.

[Lenore]

BWTV Module 4, Lesson15 Wordsmithing

Lenore Bechtel Finished Wordsmithing

What I learned from this assignment were t things I should have already figured out for myself. One, because I’m writing comedy, my descriptions—not just the dialogue—need to be humorous. Two, orphan lines are a no no. Words to avoid: just, starts, is, are, ings. I was surprised at the ings.

I surprised myself with the many, many changes I made. I truly thought the script was as good as I could get it. But I got some excellent suggestions from Margaret Silebi’s feedback, and wonderful ideas from this wordsmithing lesson.

But I’m not enumerating here the changes I made because I made them without first copying and pasting the text I was revising.

I must say Module 4, Lessons 6 through 15 (those after our first draft) have been great assignments. I’m going to use every one of them for any script I write in the future.

[Jeff Chase]

Jeffrey Alan Chase Finished Wordsmithing!
What I learned doing this assignment is it is always advisable to do one more draft/edit. Yes, I am seeking perfection here. Got a coverage Recommend on my script last Friday. I’m stoked.
Noteworthy changes:
I discovered two typos and a missing (V.O.) in my script.
I removed some bloat at the end of one scene and the beginning of another when transitioning from my Teaser to Act 1.
I changed the name of one character that was too similar to my protagonist.
I changed a slug line that wasn’t properly formatted or defined.
Added a “location” page to my pitch deck to give producers a better idea about recurring production costs.

[Denice Lewis]

Would you like to exchange feedback, Jeffrey? My email address is prismartsllc@gmail.com.

[Denice Lewis]

Denice Finished Wordsmithing
What I learned doing this assignment is that I love wordsmithing.
Examining every word led to changes in dialogue, sometimes before or a?er, or in previous scenes. Cuttng words made it easier to read and less cluttered. I can’t point to a specific interesting edit or improvement; there were many. The biggest change came with noticing and changing the repetive information and the voices of the characters.

[Sunil Pappu]

Sunil Pappu Finished Wordsmithing!

“What I learned doing this assignment is… to check every line for tone and improve keywords. I rewrote them to eliminate distractions and orphan lines. Check for typos and repetitive words in a paragraph. I read it backwards and finally had it read out loud to make corrections. I was also able to bring my page count from 62 to 56.”

• This reply was modified 1 year ago by  Sunil Pappu.

[Denice Lewis]

Would you like to exchange feedback, Sunil? My email is prismartsllc@gmail.com.

[Phyllis Strong]

Phyllis Finished Wordsmithing
What I learned from this assignment was that doing a pass for test every line, check for tone, keywords and eliminate distractions improved my script each time. I had -ing words that I missed and orphan lines as well. A big change was that I cut a paragraph of description from a scene that added color, but wasn’t necessary. The dialogue also made another leap in improvement.

[Margaret]

Margaret Finished Wordsmithing!
What I learned: Chat GPT was very useful in finding spelling and grammar errors. Did it in far less time than I could have!
I was able to review lines and fix spelling/grammar errors as well as passive lines.

[Jerry Robbins]

Jerry Robbins finished wordsmithing!
What I learned doing this assignment is that you can accomplish rewrites in several passes, checking for different dialogue or discription components. The final part is wordsmithing, and it is much easier and more thorough if you go backwards from the end. Luckily, this seems natural to me because I am one of those people who look at the end of the book before I start reading it. I was amazed at how many “talks, sees, watches, looks, stares and especially the word ‘is'” that I used. I’ll just name a few here, but there were over a hundred changes I made in that one pass alone.
1. pg 36 – Cipher looks at to Cipher studies
2. pg 46 – She looks to She peruses
3. pg 47- Cipher looks to peers
4. pg 50 – watches to notes
5. pg 53 – stares to gazes

[Patricia Semler]

Pat Finished Wordsmithing
What I learned doing this assignment is a sentence may look pretty, but not deliver the right content or separate character voices.
Edits included –
Images from vampire entertainment venues to convey an equal but separate society, a subtle dig at today’s racial biases.
Awkward on the nose dialogue was deleted or refined with subtext.
When Selene meets with Arthur the original dialogue was very upfront, not her character at all so her actions and dialogue were redrawn to cover her full ambitions.
Rough scene action was fleshed out.