Boo_Radley said:
I'm with Dpat on this one, and the example he uses is pretty much what I use when writing.
Mini-slugs help a lot during action scenes, and drawing attention to something by capitalizing it is a good way to "lead" the reader's eye without including those pesky camera instructions.
Example:
Tom and Bob stand nose to nose, mid-argument. Tom seethes with blind fury...so blind that he doesn't notice
BOB'S HAND
slide behind Bob's back and wrap around the grip of a PISTOL.
TOM
continues his vocal assault...etc.
I wouldn't recommend writing your entire screenplay like this, but it comes in handy when wanting the reader to notice a specific thing or, as when I capitalized the name "Tom," to draw your attention back to him, all without nary a camera direction, INSERT or BACK TO SCENE in sight.
This is indeed a particular style that's commonly seen. I think it has generally fallen out of vogue however and oher approaches are being used, some even from before this style came around. It's okay, but its downside is that over the full length of a script it wears on you, it tends to become trite and "too cute," as it were. I suppose this occurs particularly when it isn't used in proper instances or is overused. I've heard readers say it insults their intelligence. Go figure.
In my experience it would be considered passe'.
As a spec writer you have nothing to say about the camera except insofar as you can imply the camera by writing what's being seen on the screen. Clearly, you know this. Mini-slugs eat up vertical space and their intent can be handled within the narrative in ways that are just as effective, and use less vertical space. For example:
Tom and Bob stand nose to nose, mid-argument. Tom seethes with blind fury...so blind that he doesn't notice Bob's hand slide behind Bob's back and wrap around the grip of a pistol.
The same information is conveyed, precisely the same. The read goes more smoothly, two sentences. What's really the difference between "Bob's hand" and "BOB'S HAND"? Or "pistol" and "PISTOL"? Nothing in terms of meaning. They both mean the same thing. Hey the reader is going to read the script, you really don't need to lead them by the nose through it.
Another problem with this form is that it's too directorial ... implying a NEW ANGLE when in fact one is probably not necessary. Directors don't like this in a script. In your example,
Tom and Bob stand nose to nose, mid-argument. Tom seethes with blind fury...so blind that he doesn't notice
BOB'S HAND
slide behind Bob's back and wrap around the grip of a PISTOL.
"BOB'S HAND" comes off like a mini-slug, yet you don't mean it to be that at all. You've only set it off on its own line as a means of putting attention on it.
When this form first came into common use, Directors would remnark, "Is this supposed to be a slug, or WTF?"
And when you lace an action scene with these "attention getters" it does make the scene appear to have been slugged and that's not a spec writers job, that's your directors job.
Not to say I haven't used this form a time or two, but after hearing what folks have said about it and thinking about their remarks, I'm much less inclined to use it today.
Do an experiment, take an action scene you've written using this form and revise the "attention getters" out and just write it in a more normal or traditional manner; print the two out and lay them side by side and compare them. Read tem both one after the other. You
might be surprised.
But, to each his own, eh?
-- I was just tryin' to answer Winterchase's question with a simple example while mostly guessing what s/he meant. But when there's a small, easily overlooked action off the main action that's important, I'd maybe want to draw attention to it, and I think that's when mini-slugs can come into play.
