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A Push Too Far by 0 - Short - When a disturbed woman kills her ex, she is given a second chance to fix things, but has to choose the right moment in time to do it. - pdf, format
I guess I wanted a darker story and this certainly delivered. I can accept the happy ending here because I really wanted the character to have one – damn did you pile up the shit on this poor girl, almost everything that could wrong, went wrong for her.
I’m pretty certain I know the author, the first page being numbered and the character intro’s are a give-away.
I have to admit that I wasn’t into this after the first few pages but it did start to grow on me as the story moved forward and who couldn’t feel sorry for Emma. That’s what is good here; you’ve created a very sympatric character in a real situation which will relate so very well done on that part.
One thing I didn’t really like was when she threw the book at Davis in the courtroom, very childish and it felt out of place to me.
Overall, a good entry and I liked the lean writing although the slugs and flashbacks were a little issue for me and I did get confused at one point – probably my fault but I do think they could be clearer.
Try to stay away from colloquialisms in action lines. Here's an example of what I mean:
Code
... she
walks dazedly along as if dosed to the max ...
The word is maximum. Also what does dosed tot he max actually mean? How does having a dose (that where I'm from means having a sexual disease) make one appear dazed. Maybe she's stupid and has unprotected sex with everyone she meets.
I know what you do mean by it, of course... it's just very sloppy, doesn't read well and can take one out of the read.
Code
INT. DAVIS’ HOUSE – HALLWAY - NIGHT
Emma enters, slow, cautious. A moaning sound comes from the
bedroom.
Bedroom is down stairs? The way you wrote that she enters, I presumed she'd entered through the front door. So this actually means she enters the scene and not the house? To save confusion here it would be best to replace 'enters' with the word 'moves'... you should also tell us in the slug that she is in the upstairs hallway as that is her actual location.
Code
DAVIS, 31, a cunningly shrewd man who loves control, always
knows how to work things to his advantage, lies in bed
straddled by SOPHIE, 28, his heavily pregnant girlfriend.
No description of Davis aside to tell us a load of things you should be showing us. What does he look like? Also, cunningly shrewd is pretty much the same thing as saying, knows how to work things to his advantage, also knowing how to work things to one's advantage is far faster told with the word, 'manipulative'. Sophie, aside from being pregnant, is also given no description. Fat, small, one leg... doesn't matter. Your job is to write images not tell us things. The viewer can't see all that from he lying in bed.
You may want to use the excuse that you've seen it in pro scripts or that actors take it as some type of cue. If you've seen it in pro scripts, they are shitty screenwriters. I don't care if they are pro's. They don't deserve it. Actors will read an entire script and learn about the character from their arc. They don't need to be told what a character is like they can figure it out for themselves... and they like doing that. It's their job.
Code
SOPHIE
Screw me like you do the
opposition.
A very unnatural line. Cheese.
Code
She holds the gun pointed at Davis.
She points the gun at Davies.
Code
Davis looks over at Emma.
Davis looks at Emma. In fact, why not spice that line up somewhat? Is he really just looking?
Code
INT. PRISON CELL - NIGHT
Emma sits on the concrete floor and stares at the wall. She
hugs her knees, rocks back and forth.
So it's just a bare concrete floor? What about lighting? Furniture? As it stands this could be a cell from any time zone or in any country.
Dialogue between Emma and Woman on page 3 is bad. Very OTN. It also doesn't feel to me as though the characters are real at this point. Almost as though the writer is writing with an aim in mind, rather than allowing the characters to speak for themselves. The dialogue is unrealistic.
Page 5 - the court scene is too much. Unnecessary.
Code
Emma biffs the ornament as hard as she can at him.
Biffs?
Blah blah blah... yes I get that the guy deserves to be shot. He's a complete asshole. This is getting repetitive.
I skipped to the end and they somehow ended up all happy. Not really buying it, but then I couldn't be bothered to trudge through. I found this one a tough read.
Writing needs work, kind of stop and go at the moment if that makes sense, doesn't read nicely.
"Screw me like you do the opposition."
"A bolt of lightning hits the building. An electrical current surges down the IV and into Emma." A lot of things wrong with this paragraph but I'll just chalk it up to the deadline.
Not bad, story felt a little manipulative and the writing was a little awkward. I liked the non-linear approach you took but I think some scenes could really be taken out as they were repeating the same thing again and again. But I think I know who wrote this. It works though so good job.
Logline - I like is. Not how a disturbed person makes a sane decision but we'll see
Read this without notes.
I think you have done well, a decent job. My comments would be;
The relationship is a little one dimensional - he's bad, she's a victim. Other than meeting a different man what did she learn, what's she doing differently!
The choice part wasn't wholly clear. I didn't mind thw intercutting you did well in making it clear what they were, but if she's waiting for the right time, that could be clearer.
A few repeated scenes - the child thing was clear at an early stage.
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Pg 1. No need to call Davis cunningly shrewd. Lets us see how he is that instead.
Pg 11. Watches children play on the equipment? This line just sounds funny. I know they're at the park, but...
Okay done. Not great, but not bad. I enjoyed the opening where you Mentioned Emma dosed to the max. I liked that line a lot, but the story just played out too simple for me to really get behind. It felt a little jumpy, and I found myself Confused at times. Wasnt crazy about your time travel Method, and most of all I found it hard to visualize this in my head, which , as far as I'm concerned, allows me to read the script without thinking, if that makes sense.
But a good effort anyway. Congrats on getting this done.
Opening Slug coun't be much more generic and dull.
Opening passage is very poorly written, way too long, way too detailed, and a complete run-on sentence. And please, do tell, how is a street, an "urban footpath"?
Davis; intro is very, very poorly done.
Sorry, but the entire first page is poorly written and oddly structured.
Page 2 - Very odd...Emma is now in a prison cell, then an execution chamber? Really? Who's inserting this lethal injection IV? A bolt of lightning hits the building in this INT scene? Really? Very poorly done. I'm about to bale here...
The dialogue between Emma and this "WOMAN" is not remotely well done and it's causing me to want to go fix breakfast, or take a dump, or do anything other than continue reading. I think I have to agree with my inner thoughts and bale at this point, as I have zero interst in continuing on. Sorry about that.
Congrats on completing a script for this difficult challenge.
This was a dark one for sure but it kept me reading and wanting to read to the end. Nicely written. The time jumps were a little confusing but not terribly so, I kind of got when we went forward and when we went back for the most part. That’s hard to do.
I’m glad she settled down with Tim but if all she needed to do was go back to before she met Davis and meet Tim instead did we really need the full history in that much depressing detail?
Sometimes we need to learn hard lessons to move on. Emma seems to be a chronic people pleaser and a bad relationship with Davis may have helped her realise that. It may have been more interesting if Emma had to pick one moment in time to change and given three chances instead of one. The first, the obvious one, not meeting Tim at all. However because she didn’t learn anything from not being with Davis she becomes a people pleaser for Tim and he takes advantage of that. She gets a second chance and again tries to pick a path for a perfect happy ending with no pain but that fails also.
In the end Emma realises in life we need some pain so we can pick ourselves up and move on so she picks an appropriate but not obvious choice.
Anyway, that’s just suggestions. It’s good to get the OWC under your belt and completed so congratulations for achieving that and putting together a good read that covers complex time jumps and relationship issues.
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Things start out well, moving right along at a good clip. There are awkward bits, but I was never at a loss for what you were saying.
The way the Woman in the clouds phrases her questions struck me as somebody trying to sell something. Like the woman was about to offer redemption at a discount rate. Maybe if she used more declarative statements, or if the scene played more surreal. Emma doesn’t seem to have a choice anyway, so why ask her anything. I also don’t like the lightning bolt thing. Considering the way this plays out there’s no reason I can see to offer an explanation.
I thought the jumps would be shorter. I kept expecting her to ‘land’ in her moment and for the story to resume. Instead it kinda turned into an episode of ‘This is Your Shitty Life’. There were both good and bad things about that. I think there was more in those sequences than there needed to be. (Once you’ve seen one divorce court scene you’ve seen them all). I also think it would’ve had more power if the whole thing had gone backwards. Let us see them getting happier and happier. And don’t show us the cracks at the beginning of the relationship until we know what chasms they’ve turned into.
I also wish that she had spent more time in her ‘moment’ so we could get a sense of what, if anything, she’s learned. This mostly works for me, though. Polish the writing, tweek the structure and it’d be very good indeed.
In certain ways, this one is similar to another of this month's entries: Second Chances. In both cases, it's more of a supernatural time travel tale, as opposed to straight SF.
The good part: as a slice of life, psychological introspective piece, this has its moments. IE: as pure drama.
Other points:
Details - there's a weren't typo on page three. And the opening description of Davis as a 'cunningly shrewd man' is far too into the realm of unfilmable to work in a script. (Small asides are fine, but this one goes a tad too far.)
Summary: Overall, this didn't work for me... at least as an entry in this OWC. Davis is WAY too over the top evil. And the ending. Too quick, obvious and flat. Not a bad script. But not one that captures you, either...
Sorry, writer. I don't like the script. I have especially a problem with the fact that there are flashbacks with the old normal Emma and there were some of the traveling Emma seeing herself. Why?
The old woman in the clouds… The meeting with Tom by knocking her old self… I don't know.
I expected that it will end up in the shooting scenario again. I searched for some rhythm.
Nicely written for 10 days. I thought the opening scene was great but things became a bit confusing once Emma landed in Prison. I wasn't a fan of the time travel method you choose but in this case, I guess it worked. For me personally, the story felt repetitve after awhile between Davis & Emma. Possible a rewrite could reduce a page or two and still get your point across. I did however like the happy ending that you went for and I thought your character development was good. Overall, great job!
Certainly moved fairly fast. At first I thought this was going somewhere. Then it went to lots of different places. I began to wonder if it was going somewhere worth going to.
I doubt Sophie Vice was the right name to choose for a character. It made me smile, but I don't think I was supposed to there.
THere were quite a few scenes that I thought were rather good. Overall though it felt as if there were loads of flashbacks. I may have missed something but it could have been done quicker to get where it was going. During the middle it might have been more effective if Emma struggled to get her old self away from him, if you follow me.
You've got the makings of a good story but to me it reads less like a screenplay and more like a comic book; the characters seem forced rather than presented. I do like the ending and the title, they work well together.