Like a lot of the archived posts, this one just showed up in my feed. Here's my additional centavos: Will the commentary in the action description create an emotional response in the reader (not the viewer, who won't see these comments of course)?

To make a fairly accurate assessment, the writer has to anticipate what a studio reader will think. (If the writer is also the director or producer, then the issue is whether or not the actor--not the studio reader--will benefit from the elaboration.) It's not the emotional state of the character that counts, it's the emotional state of the reader.

So we're on shaky ground. The writer won't know the reader, and even so, the response of the reader may vary from minute to minute.

The question, then, is "Am I creating an interesting / complex character and does my action description enhance the reader's appreciation for the complexity of that character? Obviously the Little Miss Sunshine writers have pondered this problem and made a decision that worked well (not just because the script sold, but because it's a damn good read). I've read some bad unrepresented scripts in which the writer wanted to imitate a Shane Black or Quentin Tarantino moment but didn't succeed. The problem, I think, was that the STORY, not the action description, was lacking. In other words, write the best story you can--with complex characters caught up in interesting but not complex conflicts--and the technical problems should be negligible).