The Line-Level Rewrite Checklist

You've got a finished draft. It reads fine. That's the problem, because "reads fine" is what a generated script does right before it gets flagged and right before it loses the viewer at minute four. So this is the pass you run over every script, line by line, before it goes anywhere near a voice.

Start by skimming the whole thing for repetition. ChatGPT loves a phrase and will use it eleven times, and it will also write you the same paragraph twice with different words, usually a third of the way apart. Delete the second one outright. Don't merge them. While you're in there, strip the filler that isn't carrying anything: the over-explaining, the sentence that restates the sentence before it, and anything opening with "as we all know." Nobody all knows.

Then go after the hedging, because this one changes the whole feel of the script. Models refuse to commit. Everything is "can be," "may sometimes," "often considered." A real person takes a position and then admits where they're shaky, which sounds like "I'm not a hundred percent sure, but," not like a cautious expert covering themselves. State the thing. Own it. Flag the doubt separately if it's real.

Now the mechanical checks, and these are the ones you can run down like a list.

Look at how your sentences start. No more than two in a paragraph should open with the same word, and if you've got four in a row starting with "The" or "He," rewrite three of them. Open with a name instead. A date. A location. An action verb. A consequence. Anything with weight in the first syllable.

Look at your verbs. Was, had, made, got, went, said. Aim to replace at least half of them with something that carries an actual image. Not "his accounts were empty," but his accounts sat empty. Not "she said" over and over, but she told reporters. The specific verb does work that the sentence around it no longer has to.

Look at your transitions. But, and, so, then, over and over, is how a model connects ideas. People connect them conversationally. "And that's when." "Which meant." "But here's the thing." Get at least three of those into every section, and make them earn their place.

Then reposition one number per section. Every section has a statistic or a date buried in the middle of a sentence where nobody hears it. Pull it to the front and let it lead. The number lands and the sentence changes shape at the same time.

And check the seams. Sentences that should be combined, still sitting there as two short choppy ones. Lengths that have drifted back into uniform. Run those checks before you accept a humanized draft, not after.

Last thing, and it catches what the checklist misses. Read the whole script out loud before you record it. Every line you stumble over gets rewritten. Every line you'd never actually say to a friend gets rewritten. Your mouth finds the fake sentences faster than your eyes ever will.

If you can't say it, don't ship it.