Even though we’re a small company, we get a lot of unsolicited manuscripts. Some of them are a pleasure to read. The remainder vary hugely.

Of course what matters is what’s on the screen, not on the page, but a script that looks scruffy and is scattered with spelling and factual errors shows sloppy thinking, and if you can’t be bothered, then why should we?

So here are some of the things that keep cropping up in scripts that pass across our desks:

We get lots of the kind of thing that spell-checkers don’t pick up:

“loose” instead of “lose”. Did you loose your mp3 player, or did you lose it? Did you loose the dogs of war? Or did you lose the dogs of war?

Confusion between their and they’re and there.

Or between your and you’re; its and it’s. Often forgiven as occasional oversights (oversites) but you’d be surprised at how consistent people can be.

“Ex-patriot” instead of “expatriate” (Of course, a character might be an expatriate because they used to be a patriot, but now they no longer are…)

“Compliment” instead of “complement” - or the other way around. She complimented him on his discovery of complementary therapy.

“vile” instead of “vial”. This one comes up in nearly every period story - a vile vial.

King Henry V111 (Vee one one one) instead of VIII (Vee eye eye eye). Roman numerals consist only of letters.

Lots of grocer’s apostrophes. As in apple’s and pear’s. And, of course, no apostrophes where there should be one. Kevins Kingdom.

Misplaced attempts to sound proper: “Are you coming with Janie and I?” instead of “Janie and me”.

We also see a lot of lazy factual errors - the dates of wars or the names of capital cities. If you don’t know, check. If a reader/producer can’t trust you in the little things, how can they be expected to trust you in the rest of your story?

Forgive the grumpiness. We really try to be fair to every script. Sometimes it’s not easy. We may be adding to this list as new examples appear. If you can keep yourself off this page. You’ll be happier; and we’ll be happier.