I'm starting to get it. The reason why you do this (we clearly don't deserve you). Not only to sell your (probably fantastic) services but also, I sense, to help everybody, in general, to write fewer unreadable crap so the lives of the readers (the assistants mostly, I'm assuming... rather than the producers and directors we fantasize about) get to be slightly less miserable. Also, we do need better scripts. Cheers!!!
You mentioned something that hit with me. Assign characters a person that you know. I wrote four projects. Everyone loved my first one. I did that. I have to do that in the future too. I took a free course. 7 steps to writing an outstanding Project. It was awesome. I took notes. I do most of the 7. I have to force myself to do at least a semi outline. Build the characters and stuff first then write the project. They had a course for like $500 bucks. It makes you walk through each step and at the end of 8 weeks. You have a finished project. The lady works through Sundance. She also said- Study scripts that are similar to the one you are writing. That's a new thing for me. Hey-- Least I took notes and I see a big part of some of my weak spots.. I'm getting better.
I find I use italics frequently in dialogue to make it clear if I want an emphasis on a specific word. What do you think? Distracting? Too directorial? Or okay? Ever seen this done much by other screenwriters?
It's done, but usually in dialogue underlines are used instead of italics. Italics is usually reserved for foreign language speaking. But if you have too much, it is distracting. it's not that you can't... it's whether or not you should be distracting.
