As a screenwriter, there’s a very long list of things to cover to make sure your script really works.

Story. Characters and their arcs. Theme. Plot. Dialogue. Action.

With awl of that going on, who has thyme to pay attention too such trivial things like weather or knot a word in you’re script is spelled correctly?

See what I mean? Misspelled words are distracting and unprofessional. And these are just homonyms. Getting into stuff like “loose-lose” is part of another issue altogether.

“No problem,” you say. “I’ll just use spellcheck to fix it.”

For the love of Ernest Lehman, don’t. Spellcheck is not a cure-all. It knows spelling, not context. As far as spellcheck is concerned, every word in that sentence above is as it should be.

One or two typos in a 110-page script are understandable, but you don’t want more than that. There are many out there more than willing to pass on your script if the number of misspelled words keeps increasing.

Not sure if your spelling is up to snuff? Ask a fellow writer. Nobody’s going to think any less of you for it. Chances are their editing/proofreading skills are what you need, and they’re probably more than happy to help. Just make sure to offer to help them with their material as well.

Not everybody is a good speller, but it’s something easily fixable. Truth be told, even some of my scripts, despite my vigilance, have contained (gasp!) the occasional typo.

Emphasis on “occasional”.