Poet Ponders the Digital

As a writer, I use technology to help me navigate past the gatekeepers of scriptwriting. Few people realize that when you send a script for stage or screen to any production company, the "Readers" (a job title) tend to come from MFA and Ph.D. programs. These aspiring writers earn a living determining what scripts move to the next stage of consideration (pun intended). The "Coverage Sheet" used by film and some theater companies represents a grading rubric. If a work adheres to the formula, it has a better chance of being advanced in the process. I'm not claiming that the readers know best, but I am admitting that you need to get to the next step or your work is dead. Based on feedback from producers, I developed Word VBA and AppleScript macros to analyze my scripts and mark potential red flags. Some of the "rules" my macros mark are mistaken knowledge the readers insist is accurate. We know they are wrong, as writing instructors, but that doe...

Most writers develop patterns in their prose. Experts can use these patterns to calculate the likelihood that a given text was written by a particular author. For example, my weaknesses include "unfortunately" and "just." President Obama overuses the phrase, "Let me be clear." Does the president need our permission to be clear? I doubt anyone tries to obstruct presidential clarity. Since buying my first copy of WordPerfect for DOS, I've maintained macros to help locate and remove my personal textual demons. The idea is simple: automatically highlight the words and phrases I might want to revise before submitting the text to an editor. Four years ago, a student noticed the red words in an open Word document on my laptop. She asked if the highlighting was part of Word's grammar or spellcheck features. I explained to her that when I finish writing a document I run several macros to mark potential problems. When the student asked for a copy of the...