Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The perils of coincidence

On his blog, screenwriter John August argues that a reliance on coincidence undermines Spider-Man 3.
My point is not to rip on Spider-Man 3, but to urge readers to look at their own scripts with an eye towards coincidence. If you’ve written a treatment, search for the following phrases: “at the same time,” “accidentally,” “luckily,” “unfortunately,” and “meanwhile.” They’re often a tip-off that you have events happening by coincidence. There’s almost always a better alternative.

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