The web is full of good advice. It's also full of bad advice.
Here's some bad screenwriting advice:
"Quite frankly, Hollywood people don't like to read; the first time they see so much as a simple metaphor in your scene description, their eyes are likely to glaze over in incomprehension and they'll slap your front cover down with a definitive 'nope.'"
That's in a book of essays giving writing advice and it's totally wrong. The first person your script will encounter is somebody who reads a lot of scripts and is grateful when they find one that's enjoyable to read. A fitting metaphor or simile can help make the images come alive, as shown by these two examples from the screenplay for Fargo, by the Coen brothers:
"A car bursts through the curtain of snow..."
"She screams, staring at her own imprisoned wrist..."
Illustrating a sense of style and humour in descriptions, this is from the screenplay for The Favourite, by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara:
"ABIGAL, an open, friendly innocent woman is crushed to the side [of the carriage]. She clutches a dirty purse and a letter in her hands. Two kids, snot streaming from their noses, cough TB into the air."
Here's an example in a character description, from The Imitation Game, by Graham Moore--it's not a metaphor or simile but it's the kind of thing that the "only the actable facts!" absolutists object to:
"DETECTIVE ROBERT NOCK, 40's, athletic, more interested in football than in being a detective, hustles past a few double-parked police cars..."
Finally, this example from Logan, screenplay by Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green:
"Logan cruises the wet El Paso streets. LCD Billboards for chemically enhanced life. Gang graffiti on self-driving buses. A kaleidoscope of moments, dark and mundane."
I doubt anybody slapped down the front covers of these screenplays with a definitive 'nope' and I feel sorry for any aspiring screenwriters who buy into the idea that employing a well-chosen metaphor is a prescription for failure in Hollywood.
Probably the best strategy for spotting dodgy advice is to keep your eyes open for absolutes. When you see phrases like, "If your screenplay is one page longer than 120...," or "If your script contains even one metaphor..." you're probably looking at bad advice.
