While at the Austin Film Festival, one of the seminars was on the most common errors in screenplays that made them unworkable and in dire need of rewriting to try to salvage the story or concept that was there. The seminar was given by screenwriters ROBIN SWICORD (Little Women, The Perez Family) and NICK KAZAN (Reversal of Fortune), both pros since the 1970's, and also producer DAVID VALDES (Summer Magic Films).

THE 20 MOST COMMON NO-NO's:

1) The central character is passive and does not move the action of the story forward

2) There is no real central character identified that conveys the story to the audience (don't know who the story is about) - only exception to this rule is ensemble such as Big Chill

3) The world of the story is not set up quickly enough (what type of environment the story takes place in and what the genre of the story is)

4) The narrative question (what the story is about) is not defined until too late in the script

5) There is no discernible myth to the story - stories seem small to an audience when no significant force presses the protagonist into the action of the story - there is no force of antagonism that provides truly worthy obstacles to the protagonist to keep the stakes of the story interesting

6) The protagonist does not feel big emotions - small problems abound that are not central to sustaining the suspense of the impending actions in the story that will deeply affect hero

7) First narrative event (revealing information central to characters or story) happens late in each scene

8) The events in the story are not surprising as they happen and do not appear inevitable to the story in retrospect

9) Narrative exposition is used to define characters instead of the actions and attitudes of those characters

10) Scenes happen without a causal relationship to other events (or reveals) contained in the story

11) Not enough is revealed about the characters and their emotions (or beliefs) through confrontations, deeper feelings are never revealed through expository dialogue

12) The writer does not let the reader know the underlying drama (the stakes) in each scene - the purpose of the scene necessarily being there is not made clear

13) Characters act in ways that are inconsistent or uncharacteristic to the way they've been established without there being a believable reason behind their action

14) Expository dialogue is used that has not been passed through an amusing diversion, a peripheral character, or through conflict

15) Characters speak the subtext, do not portray the subtext, betray the subtext - also do use visuals as texture to show subtext to divert audience from just hearing subtext

16) Subtext has not been shown through characters' actions

17) Dialogue is used to explain more about the story than actions are (story is being told not shown)

18) Actions are forced - do not contrive actions to the story that do not fit logically into it - do not make events happen that are not connected logically to the flow of the story

19) Do not use deus ex machina events to solve protagonist's problems - lucky coincidences are not allowed - coincidences are only allowed once at the beginning of some stories to set events in motion, and later only if they happen to heighten the obstacles thrown into the protagonist's path

20) Do not use cliches in the plot, dialogue or characters - if you've seen it too many times before, the audience (and definitely Hollywood readers) have also