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220 A PRACTICAL MANUAL OF SCREEN PLAY WRITING
be ruthless with his own work. The small voice of conscience, somehow, will operate whenever a wrong word or phrase is used, or when a joke is inserted where it should not be. Mark these places with an "x," or with a colored pencil, so that when the time comes for revision you will know exactly where the objectionable spots are. A second reading of them will almost always convince you that your original reaction was the true one.
Repetition. Carelessly repeated words are, perhaps, the most frequent of dialogue errors. An attempt should be made to eliminate repetition, especially when the repeated words or phrases are close to each other. In the following example,
JOE: I'll say she is!
FRANK:
Say! where'd she go?
the repetition of "say" is awkward. Its complete elimination would do no harm to the dialogue. Watch, also, for the unwarranted repetition of names. This is a common failing in most writers of dialogue and should be checked for constantly. However, be sure to identify new characters by their names, in the dialogue, at their entrances. Repetition, of course, is welcome when it is used designedly for dialogue-hook purposes.
Length. Check for speech length. No matter how important its contents may have appeared at first, any long speech can be trimmed down without destroying the meaning. Make certain that these long speeches will be given pictorial pace with visual action, with camera and character movement, with changes in image size and angle, with reaction cutaways and the like. Break up most long speeches with interjections, questions, or any of the devices mentioned under dialogue hooks on pages 205-210.
Rhyming. Words that rhyme with other words in the same speech, have a tendency to creep into dialogue. These should be rewritten so that the rhyme is broken. Rhyming words call unnecessary attention to themselves, and thus dissipate audience attention.