Lesson 2

[Margaret]

Margaret’s Wordsmithing!

Vision: To be the best faith-based screenwriter

What I learned: I thought I had fixed all the unnecessary words but I was wrong! This was a valuable exercise. What I learned though, was that doing this same exercise in other classes limited the number of changes I had to make. I must unconsciously not be choosing to use words like “are” and “is.”

Changes I made: I think the biggest change was finding the number of times I used “turn” or “turns”. What I found was that the word is rarely necessary. I cut almost every instance of “turn” out of my script.

I also eliminated some “ing” words. I found that when I used gerunds the sentence was not concise or not strong enough.

“Look” was another one that caught me. I was able to change 75% of my “look” to other words that had more meaning.

[Lloyd Shellenberger]

Subject Lloyd’ Wordsmithing!

“What I learned doing this assignment is a script is a living and breathing document that will change right up to the day of the shoot. I can improve it every day”.

Working hard every day to become the best writer I can be and as a result I do become the best writer in Hollywood.

I went through all 98 pages and made changes on 30-40 pages. Dialogue and description.

I went through the scene with Fazziz and Reese. She is Reese’s change agent, but the dialogue was awkward and unreadable. I changed it and made it meaningful and foreshadowing. I also did the same with the Chaplains dialogue.

[Lenore]

WIM Module 9, Lesson 2: Elevating Key Words/Cut Disstractions

Lenore Bechtel’s Wordsmithing!

My vision: I want to create enough salable screenplays that an agent will want to market my work and recommend me for writing assignments.

What I learned from doing this assignment is how vastly a script can be improved by doing searches and finding appropriate synonyms for common words.

Right when I thought I couldn’t make my screenplay any better, this assignment showed me how. What fun it was! I searched for all the repetitive verbs and repetitive nouns Hal found in Cheryl’s script, found many in mine, and replaced most of them with more descriptive verbs and nouns.

Then I scrolled through my script looking for orphan lines, and I rewrote to eliminate them. While scrolling through, I tested all parentheticals and eliminated some that weren’t absolutely necessary. I didn’t have to search for overuse punctuation because I was certain punctuation wasn’t my problem.

Here are some substitutes I put in for “sits.”

Stephanie plops on the bench, crosses her arms, and pouts.

Freida settles into the window seat.

She puts the violin in the case and wiggles into the front passenger seat with it.

I truly enjoyed doing this assignment.

[Brian Bull]

BRIAN BULL – Wordsmithing

VISION!!!
My ultimate goal is to get my scripts from my hands to the SILVER SCREEN!!

“What I learned from doing this assignment is…
I learn that there were a few words a used repeated and needed to change that. I was surprised. Lesson well learned.

The ONE THAT GOT AWAY – A Fisherman’s Tale
A fisherman is determined to catch the fish he blames for his younger brother’s death, however, in the end, it turns out the fisherman is the one who had gotten away.

ASSIGNMENT

6. Tell us how many changes you made and give us three you feel really good about.

I made a number of changes – the biggest change I made was the word “look”. I had the word “look” over 25 times. I was shocked.