Wow! What a great story…. You found True Romance and recommended it.

I had the “who is this writer experience” when I began reading a script by Shane Black when I didn’t know it was him. I was in a screenwriting class and we had been looking at the first 10 pages of various scripts, not knowing that any of them had been produced.

When you see an exceptional script with a strong writing-style, it is pretty amazing how it can stand out.

A reader has to get through a lot of material in a week, especially if they’re a freelancer being paid by the script. If you make your script hard to read the reader is already in a bad mood. Grammar and spelling matter. If your script is full of typos and grammatical errors it means one of two things — you are sloppy or you don’t know the language very well. Neither of these things is good. Proper formatting is also very important as that’s how people in the biz expect scripts to look and everyone understands how to read that format. Don’t re-invent the wheel.

I would also add, don’t send pictures, drawings, illustrations, whatever. That material is useless to us and only makes you look like an amateur. A good script stands on its own and readers love to find one. The first script I recommended was TRUE ROMANCE by Quentin Tarantino. His first film had not yet been released and I had no idea who this was so I went in with no expectations. By page 5 I was thinking, wow, who is this guy? That’s how you get a script sold.

Thanks, Kavi…. I read your poem! Yes, we all could use a noble guide.

Yes…. Amazing how much we pick up from something so basic…. Thanks for the feedback, James.