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"Pity for us." Why do people feel the need to explain things in dialog. Try this with action, it's always more entertaining. I mean seriously you just told us the whole tale. Is it really needed?
Don't let your dialog cross the page and if you need to use a MORE and CONTD.
Gore doesn't make a horror and try mystery it can really ramp up tension.
Orren and Sig, for whatever reason, manage to rob the wrong guy...who is married to a sea witch? Is that why Mrs. Worthington is expecting Barber? Dialogue is a bit flat...Watch out for unfilmables; things like "the warm, wet spot." We can see its wet, but warm takes a bit more thought. Perhaps a little steam or vapor rises from it. Keep it visual. We can't see his mind churning, either, with the possibilities. Demonstrate it, have him act it out. Would have liked a little bit more action on the boat. These guys are tough sailors...They should at least put up a fight! Smash the glass on the wheelhouse! Break stuff! These guys are too passive. Give them more to do.
Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently - Dove Chocolate Wrapper
This is written more like a short story than a short screenplay. Passive language, past tense, unfilmable descriptions. What's worse, we never really get to see your characters do anything. The entire backstory is given in dialogue between two men sitting on a slowly drifting boat. There's not enough substance to the story, nothing to really get your audience thinking, because it's all right there in plain black and white. This is what happened, this is what we fear might happen... then it happens. That formula doesn't really make for good drama as it is just too straight forward.
The biggest difference between screenwriting and writing a short story is showing rather than telling... In a book, overly descriptive passages are the norm because we're never going to see them, except in the images created in our own minds. A screenplay is basically a blue print for a film. Your action should be short and sweet and get the point across as visually as possible using as few words as possible. Give us the essentials, what we NEED to see. If you insist on giving the backstory of the robbery in dialogue, rather than showing the robbery itself, make the dialogue between the characters realistic, tense, dramatic, interesting. As it currently reads, it's two men having a peaceful conversation. I think it'd be more interesting if there were more conflict... maybe the fog rolls in on them as they're fighting over the events that just transpired instead of just sitting around chatting. They go from being at each other's throats, to fearful of what's about to happen, to protective of each other in survival mode. Give your characters a range of emotions to go through so they're not flat and one dimensional. Your actors will appreciate the challenge...
This is the second story i thought I'd left comments on. WTH? Anyway, "Sorry!" Read this when it was first posted. Whatever.
FADE IN left justified needed. Same for right justified FADE OUT: at end.
Where'd your page numbers go?
"A sudden flush of utter vulnerability courses through his body." Um... that's called an unfilmable, I believe. "He shudders" will suffice.
"In the tense darkness, he seems to lose all sense of time and distance." Okay, you can't keep doing this. No one can put that on film. Quit it.
" The rumble of the motor has become disorienting." OMG. Stop. Please.
Story-wise, though, this is a pretty decent seafaring story. Creepy, spooky, all that good stuff.
Honestly, hang around here, pick up some more formatting and style techniques and you'll be good to go before the next OWC. My first was a disaster. LOL! I'll show you the scars, but then i'll have to slit your throat. Your call.
Can really picture it on screen...the moonlight on the sea, the rocking of the boat...the way the mist rolls in.
The story is creepy and the atmosphere creepy.
Cons
As others have said...it would have helped to have seen the scene the brothers were discussing. Always better to show than tell.
I also didn't fully understand the importance of the coins..that idea needs stiffening and expanding upon. Take that and use it to create a stronger ending with a real twist that we didn't see coming.
There's a good conflict brewing here with the brothers, and I thought for a while everything was flowing fine including pace and dialogue. But once it went to two pages of description (much of which could be significantly trimmed. Putting that Orren is hoping the wet stuff is from his brother losing is bladder wouldn't translate at all to camera and there's a lot of those types of descriptions) for Orren to basically walk around the boat, discover his dead brother, and then die, there was pretty much nothing left but an anticlimactic ending.
I think there's a lot of potential for this one. Rework the final action and ending and you'd have something special here.
I didn't get to all of these during the challenge, but you read and commented on mine, so I wanted to return the favor.
This is very wordy and rife with unfilmables... yet it didn't seem to bother me quite as much as usual. It slowed things down a bit, but I still followed along.
I didn't buy into the dialog between the brothers. It seemed very expository and forced.
Some of the imagery with the weather and the lights is awesome! Those were the most memorable parts for me. You have a way of painting a picture.
I think the story seemed to suffer from your focus on what everything looked like, though. There wasn't an explanation how the Sea Witch was tied to the Old Man they murdered, that, to me, seems rather important.