The writer may not accept this, however. Many months of hard work usually go into the preparation of a screenplay, and the result is often finely crafted. But the fact that a screenplay reads well does not mean that it will easily translate to the screen. In fact, many of the techniques used in writing to make ideas clear undermine the construction of a successful film sequence. Expository dialogue, for example, where characters describe what the audience is able to see slows a film's dramatic progress. This unnatural device can distance an audience from the action. It will not necessarily seem awkward on the page, but audiences expect a greater verisimilitude or "realness on screen, at least from the performances and the dialogue. This is not to say that the writer should attempt to describe shots. Many directors would probably ignore their suggestions in any case. What writers have to learn early in their careers is that what appears on the page is not sacred. The director will naturally be interested in what is written, and once having accepted a writer and a script will probably use the greater part of what is there. But the director ultimately must decide what succeeds cinematically, and so sometimes alters the script because another method makes the point better.