I love your website and am an avid follower, but I have to respectfully disagree with your grammar lesson. The present progressive is in no way less active than the simple present. They are both active tenses (as opposed to, for example, "the lawn is being cut by Tom"). You may still favor the simple present for its brevity, but it's inaccurate to favor it because it is more active. It isn't. It also has a different meaning. Although stylistically it may be better to use the simple present in screenwriting (which is not a medium that is renowned for its perfect grammar), it might be more accurate to use the present progressive to describe immediacy as opposed to the connotation of habitually mowing the lawn that "Tom cuts the lawn" suggests.

Thanks for that, epicurus, as you caught me in some imprecise language. First off, I certainly don't mean to suggest there is a rule against using present progressive, rather, as noted, it is my advice to use simple present usually over present progressive. Second, when I said more "active," this is more of aesthetic, even personal use of the term, rather than official. Yes, both forms are active, but in terms of immediacy, I'm suggesting that simple present can come across more so to a script reader than present progressive. Now I suppose there are times when present progressive is desirable, as noted in the OP, say entering a scene wherein some action has been ongoing. But because of the nature of a screenplay, also as noted in the OP, that is, I think, implied in the use of the simple present tense. I will also say this comes from my own experience of reading a LOT of scripts by aspiring screenwriter and university students, and it becomes tiresome to see "is" and "are" verb constructions over and over and over. Hence my more 'aesthetic' assessment of the question. But you are right: They are both active and thanks for making that point. My real motivation in taking up the question, beyond trying to answer it, is the larger issue of time in a screenplay. It's funny how little there is written, at least that I can find, on the implication of a script being written - almost always - in the present tense. Which led to the rest of the post. Anyhow both concerns are secondary to the primary one: Write a great story. You could do that longhand with the whole thing written with present progressive verbs, and if the script rocked a great story, none of the other stuff would matter, only that the writer nailed the narrative. Again thanks for you comment, epicurus!

Whether it's "Tom cuts" or "Tom is cutting" I personally imagine him cutting the lawn. I prefer the third option, which is doing away with the "is" or "are" altogether by doing something like: Ext. Yard Tom cutting the grass Seems a lot cleaner to me.

One of my favorite scripts, "Michael Clayton" does it the way you mentioned. I once wrote a script that way and got raked over the coals by readers. I'm no Tony Gilroy either... So I just use active verbs because it's more generally accepted and overall it probably keeps my page count down. Every little bit helps. Script Link: http://cinemascopian.com/pics/2008oscars/michael_clayton.pdf

Thank you so much for answering my question. I am a fan of using the simple present tense. I just found it hard to use when setting up a scene. To cut to a living room scene to find a character already sitting on a couch I am inclined to write "John is sitting on the couch" rather that "john sits on the couch" as the second one to me sounds like an action. As in john moves from the standing position to the seated position during the scene. I have another question if you don't mind answering. It's another type of action that i find reads messy and I don't know how to fix it. It is using the "looks" constructor. i.e Poppy looks shocked, sean looks interested, Gavin looks stunned. It always read a bit clunky. Do you have any tips on making it flow better. Also, what is your views on scripting reactions? Along with the ones above, poppy panics, Gavin laughs, gavin looks confused. I never know when you need to mention a reaction or not. Especially when i think the next bit of dialogue suggests what the reaction would be. The reason i bring this up, i have recently read the Juno script, and she hardly ever scripts reactions, it mainly goes from one characters dialogue to another, with no 'action' inbetween. It works really well and it means that the flow isn't punctured by unnecessary 'action'. I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you again. Much appreciated. Stuart Foreman