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Nice story here, it circles back to itself rather nicely. Some of the dialogue between Olivia and Jenna didn't quite ring true for me, but that could be fixed in a rewrite.
A couple of places as well where the action seemed a little clunk: e.g., "A car battles towards them." Not sure how a car battles.
Those are minor things, and easily fixed. This was a breeze of a read and kept me engaged the entire time, so great job here.
Gary
Some of my scripts:
Bounty (TV Pilot) -- Top 1% of discoverable screenplays on Coverfly I'll Be Seeing You (short) - OWC winner The Gambler (short) - OWC winner Skip (short) - filmed Country Road 12 (short) - filmed The Family Man (short) - filmed The Journeyers (feature) - optioned
Needs a little work, as mentioned by most, but I actually really liked the story.
The image of the rusted bus was very eerie, even to read.
I don't know why but I can't visualise 1920's youth's as 'revellers'. I see revellers as 1990's kids in tracksuits and bad hair lol. Probably my own memory tainting my imagination.
Anyway, I enjoyed this greatly.
Check out my scripts...if you want to, no pressure.
Nice bit of nostalgia. A bus that picks people up at their lowest... I like the mental image of all the folks on the bus at the beginning. Kind of reminded me of Owen Wilson stepping back in time in "Midnight in Paris." Betcha it'd look great onscreen.
Once again, we have a story that fails to mine the potential of its great concept. A party bus that picks up despondent, down on their luck people, only to be revealed as a hellbound greyhound.
There's too much time travelling going on for such a short tale. IMO, there was no need for the Olivia character. All of those flashbacks she recollects are events that should actually be happening to Jenna. Olivia's an "explainer" character who exists only to deliver expositional dialogue about the bus' backstory. As a result, Jenna just sort of hangs around with not much to do but listen. Jenna's troubles at home could've used more detail, also.
I didn't like that Olivia escapes this bus just by walking off. Felt like this story needed a darker, more sinister ending. Like once you step on the bus, you've sealed your fate.
Interesting story, nice execution, and in the short span I made the connections. Many tech issues with the writing (too wordy - and how does one gulp down a bottle of wine and there is more) but the story is still there so I read it. Not sure how the first bunch relates to the happy bus, so maybe it's the beginning of the wandering ghost bus?
A lot of flashbacks in such a short time made it a challenging read.
I liked the concept of the party bus and your descriptions were great particularly :
A skeleton sits in his place. She stares into his black, hollow eyes and screams. She jumps to her feet, scared. The bus is covered in rust and weeds and everyone else has turned to bone.
Olivia passing over the ticket to Jenna at the end was a nice touch. Could do with a rewrite but not much.
I do like the idea here. The execution...not so much. I like how you opened but I think you named too many characters. You can have a full bus, but only focus on two people. That would make it way less confusing. And IMO that scene went on a little long.
Pg. 3 - "present day" should not be in the narrative. It should be on it's own as a SUPER or maybe even at the end of a slug.
Telling us what Jenna is wearing doesn't help us picture her at all. Why is her outfit important to the story? Is she a 500 lb red head dressed casually? A petite Asian girl? Unless it's somehow important to the story, we don't need to know what people are wearing. it doesn't help us conjure up a mental image of the character.
"Yelling can be heard" -- not necessary. And how does Jenna feel about this yelling? She seems completely indifferent. So far, you're doing nothing to create any depth in this character. She's cardboard.
So the idea was interesting, but it needs some work in several areas.
I'm not a big fan of ghost stories but this had a nice creepy feel to it.
The writing itself could use a little work but the story worked well for me. I could picture everything clearly and the scene in the ditch really stood out. Out of the twenty odd scripts I've read, this easily makes the top five.
Character: We didn't get much of a chance to know what the characters are like. None of them.
Story: I didn't appreciate the jumping back and forth in the timeline, but it didn't confuse me at all. There was an opportunity for drama or suspense here and it was missed. Either she should have struggled to find out who she is, or she could have struggled to get out of the car. You can't build a story simply on reveals. You need conflicts. You need the characters to want different things and you need to make them struggle for it.
Overall: Your writing is good, you just need to make your stories provoke more emotions. Fright, desperation, sadness. You have to make us feel something. No conflict, no drama. No drama, no story.