There is nothing worse for a reader than seeing a page of only action/description. There is nothing better than seeing a full page of dialogue.

Enough with the Act 3 wedding scenes. There is nothing original left to be done there.

Don’t start sentences with the word ‘then’, even in action-heavy scenes. It screws up the pace and excitement. Trust me on this.

“Get him outta here!”, said by or to a cop, is a really bad cliche.

Don’t base your script around something that may not exist, or people may not remember, in 2 years time. Because that’s how long, minimum, it’d take for the actual movie to get made.

Very serious, dramatic references to Dante are kind of silly. People forget that The Divine Comedy was, well, a comedy.

Vampires and werewolves are over and done with. Come on, show me some swampmen and mummies!

If you change the setting of your script, you have to change the dialogue too. People in the US do not talk like people in Britain or Australia.

Scenes after the end credits: Just don’t. If I liked your script, it’s unnecessary. If I hated it, you’re just inflicting more pain.

Your logline has to be something you could actually say out loud. Don’t just jam clauses together and pray that it makes sense.

Don’t drink and write. It does not work.

(It does make you feel like Hemingway, though.)

Your character descriptions are so quirky and overly elaborate that I have no idea what the characters in question are supposed to look/act like.

It should be ‘fourteen’, not ‘14’. Write the actual word. This is a screenplay, not a text message.

Let your voice into the script. Have fun writing it, and chances are I’ll have fun reading it.

Please stop making characters repeat stuff back to each other. It’s not snappy back-and-forth, it’s a waste of space.