I was really impressed with this mate. I thought the writing was really beautifully done. Yeah, it's an adaptation and I haven't read the short story, so it's difficult to comment on it. I've written a short adaptation before and have been working on a feature length one, so I know that it is a hard thing to do. It certainly isn't a case of just copying from novel to script-format.

What you do need to be aware of is the sort of words that are basically just redundant in scripts. Certain phrases that are nice and poetic in a novel or short story but in a script is just wasted space.

It would be interesting to read the short-story, because what impressed me almost as much as the dialogue was the visuals you created. I thought they were really well done, and I doubt that you were able to get them from King's book. I'm guessing these are the visuals that came into your head while reading and you put them in. That's a hard thing to do, so, again, really well done with them.

I especially liked the end, dream sequence. I thought that was a really nice, but haunting, way to finish off.

Well done with it mate and sorry if my notes above were messy. They were literally just jotted down as I read.

Ste

I have been at fault for this so don't fret. But- the over descriptive elements here weren't needed.

Sometimes what i do is, before i start writing a screenplay, i go and read a few pages from a script that already has been produced. So i can get the feel, ya know? It's alike a ten minute warm up.

To your story:

Writing as i read, first thing i notice on your frist page is it IS overly descriptive. Keep things as simple as possible but make sure that there's a style that's your own. I guess the only way that last sentence would make sense would be to read works on here. For example, My style is different than Matius Caruso's, and Sniper's can differ from mine time to time. You just have to.. i dont know, find your voice.

Pages beyond the first, structure seems tight. So, i guess you can void whatever i just said before. lol.

Overall, i did enjoy this and i responded well to your writing. However, I haven't read King's original story I have no idea how much of this is actually yours.

I guess that makes me that much more excited on reading work that is yours.

Nice Job.

Bryan

Sorry for the messy review. I literally reviewed as i read.

Hi Jon,

You certainly selected a tricky piece to adapt.  I found that your screenplay was pleasure to read.  It carried the tension well, and conveyed the sense of mournful nostalgia just right.  While the fact that it makes for a good read is great, I think this is also its biggest drawback.  I don’t feel that it will translate to the screen as satisfyingly.    Let’s take a look at the story and the visuals.

First, what’s this story about?  A sister who has unquestioning faith in her brother’s ability to save her, and his failure to live up to that expectation.  The sequence where they are kids is wonderfully visual, full of movement, tension, and drama.  But this is just the set up to the emotional center of the story.  That part of the story is entirely internal.  It’s Larry wrestling with the despair and guilt of having lost his sister, then finding out she had tried to reach out to him for help and was unable to connect with him.  He was too busy climbing the rickety corporate ladder to stay in touch with Kitty.  This has strong emotional content, but it is not visual.  There is no interaction with another character, and the external “actions” in this part of the story are subtle, and even incidental to the internal elements.

So the real question then becomes, how to translate Larry’s inner struggles onto the screen.  The solution you adopt is an extensive use of voiceover.  This works well when reading, but I don’t feel that it would work as well on screen.  I found that the story works better through the first part if the voiceovers are skipped entirely.  Most often they are telling us information we don’t need (that he moved twice, or the letter would have fit on a postcard, they lived in New York), or telling us something we can already see (Kitty is beautiful, we played in the barn, the beam was high, Kitty broke her ankle).  

The tough part is that a couple of those voiceovers contain some of King’s best turns of phrase in this story.  The change of address stickers looking like accusations works great in the short story, not so much for a film.  Try reading your screenplay without the voiceovers and I think you will find that the story comes across strong and clear – maybe even more so.  Without the voiceover we’re fully experiencing the story, rather than having it told to us.

However, when we return to the present, now there’s a problem.  Larry is alone and quietly going about the internal process of absorbing the new information he just received and sorting out what it all means.  This is a very challenging thing to film.  Here the voiceovers are almost required in order for us to know what is going on inside his head.  Unfortunately, what we’re watching is him moping around his apartment and lying in bed.  After the drama and excitement of the adventures in the barn, this is a very anticlimactic way to end things.  I think this is why some may have felt like the reveal of Kitty’s last letter didn’t pack much of a punch.

I’m not sure what it would take to fix this.  One possibility is if you move Kitty jumping off the roof to this section instead of the opener.  Right from the start we know she’s killed herself, whereas King saves this information until closer to the end of the story (after the barn incident).  I think it makes for a great image, but it may not be the best way to serve the story as a whole to give us this right up front.  I was thinking that this opener could be replaced by an image of Kitty climbing a rickety old fire escape to the roof, the wind whipping her thin white dress, to tie it in with the image of her climbing the ladder as a girl.  This might preserve (or create) some dramatic tension that you can release in the last few scenes to increase the emotional content there.

A more radical solution might be to bring in a character that wasn’t in the story.  Someone who Larry can pour out his soul to without speaking directly to the audience.  He could even simply be on the phone with someone we don’t know, with us just hearing his end of the conversation.  If you do decide to stick with the voiceover, then I would recommend trying to trim this last act down by about a page, if possible.  Just keep in mind what we’re watching happen on screen all the while that he’s talking.

If you’re willing to put more time in on this, try it a few different ways and see how it works in comparison to what you have now.  I also think that you can drop the references to Larry’s father.  They are somewhat distracting, and don’t really contribute anything to our understanding of the story.  The only aspect you might want to try to preserve is the idea that Larry was just in L.A. for the funeral.

Format/Mechanical Notes:
General: I’d recommend dropping the CONTD.’s (most modern style guides advise this).  If you do keep them, I’d put them in their own set of parentheses and use the standard spelling.
LARRY (V.O.) (CONT’D)
General: You like to do double intros, which you might want to clean up.  Instead of, “A MAN walks down the hallway...” just let us know it’s Larry right from the start.  You do the same when you intro them as kids.
Pg. 1: “Larry's reaction to what he reads is widened eyes, opened mouth.”  This is very awkward.  Get rid of the passive voice and make this line active.  “Larry’s eyes widen as he reads the letter, his mouth falls open.”
Pg 2: “shock and horror” – This doesn’t seem like the right reaction.  Despair and guilt seem more appropriate.  Would the contents of the letter actually shock him after the shock he must have received upon learning that his sister had killed herself?
Pg. 2: You tell us “20 years” in the scene heading, then again in the action block.
Pg. 3: “old. tall” should be “old, tall”
Pg. 5: “startied” should be “started”
Pg. 11: “knew you’d take...” should be “I knew you’d take...”

Once again, I think you did a great job with this overall.  The real trick to making an adaptation work is to make sure you tailor the story to fit a totally different media.  Whatever changes need to be made for this story to work on the screen must be made.  This is what makes it an adaptation rather than a translation.  You’re most of the way there, I think you just need to be willing to let go of some more of King’s prose, and rely on your own instincts and abilities as a writer.

I very much look forward to reading your original work!

-RayB

Ste, Bryan, Ray, thanks for the reads.

Ste - I've gone through and cleared up all the points you raised. I'm glad you enjoyed it overall. I'm still ironing out the 'novel-bits'...hopefully I'll eventually learn not to include them at all. While the original story is King's, things like the opening match cut were my own ideas. I initially thought of this as a writing exercise, a way to learn the format, but I've found I can do more with it, which is nice.

Bryan - yep, the opening page is over-descriptive. It was even worse on the first draft! I've trimmed the hallway description right down and cut the double-intro. I'm happy you found the rest of the script better. Once we get into the flashback, I think I can just sit back and let things unfold. I found the beginning trickier - I cut a whole scene in the new draft that used to be page 2 - but think it's getting there.

Hopefully both of you will read my two original shorts (which I'm close to finishing) when they're posted! They're called Back Soon and Ambush. More on those soon...

Ray - firstly, thank you for the format notes. I found the CONTD.s annoying even as I was writing them but thought for some reason they were necessary...it's a relief to be able to go through and cut them out! All of the other notes have been taken on board, too.

As to your other points...well, that made me see the script from a whole new angle. I'd never thought of this as a tricky piece to adapt - it's a sweet but painful, short, self-contained story that reaches a (sort of) satisfying resolution. But I realise now that, as you said, it's not actually that easy a story to transfer over.

The original story is, ultimately, an internal monologue. A man speaking to us about his thoughts and his experiences. As you say, to preserve some of King's excellent bits of writing I decided simply to insert them as voiceovers. But on reflection, that may have been too simple. The ending probably IS anti-climactic, given what's gone before. It's painfully emotional, but not very cinematic, or visual.

At the moment I'm trying to finish my first two original shorts, but I will come back to this, because just when I thought I'd reached the end you've opened up this whole new way to go. Here's my thought of what I might do: instead of cutting out the father, I might bring him properly.

I don't want to lose the opening image of Kitty swan-diving off the roof since that was the image I had in my head that made me want to write this in the first place (and I really like the envelope match-cut). But perhaps the envelope could fall into an empty corridor, and meanwhile Larry and his father could arrive in a taxi from the airport, having literally just come back from L.A. Larry can find the letter, have his memory, and the two of them can talk about Kitty. I think that might work. Who knows? I'll give it a try. I might ask Don to post it as a separate script on the thread (since this one will be a different take on the story), since this'll essentially be a whole new script. But it'll probably be a while before I can start on it. Damn you for your helpful comments! Just when I thought I had this one sorted, you show me how much more I could do with it...

Thanks all. Keep an eye out for my new shorts! If I ever finish them...

Jon

I've never read any of Stephen King's shorts or novels. The only book I've read in the past five years was "Porno" by Irvine Welsh (would love to see someone try to adapt that!) and that was only because I was a school boy curious about the title. I will look for the short and compare them sometime this weekend hopefully.

I really enjoyed this. I kept thinking what is on that damn letter the whole script, kept me waiting but it was worth it. I got the meaning of her letter, how she wished she had died as her life went south after the accident. Great way of revealing the Call girl part too.

Lots of people go on about doing original work, and they're right to an extent. I've read up on lots of screenwriters blogs and many of them say adaptions are much harder than writing a story from your own head so adaptions are probably a great place to start. Again, I haven't read the short but my early impression is that you have done this very well.

I see lots of people have already pointed out that your visuals are outstanding. It really makes reading the script a whole lot easier when you can see every scene in your head.

I liked the ending the way it was, and thought the voiceover worked very well in the story. I know lots of people detest voiceovers but I don't know how this would work without one.

I really did enjoy this. Your writing is great, I'll be sure to check out more of your work in the future.

Brian

Quoted from Brian M The only book I've read in the past five years was "Porno" by Irvine Welsh (would love to see someone try to adapt that!) and that was only because I was a school boy curious about the title. Brian

I imagine the screenplay is written as Danny Boyle was lined up to direct. The problem was that him and Ewen McGregor don't get on now due to Boyle going for Leo Di Caprio for 'The Beach'. As it is a sequel to trainspotting and has Renton in, I doubt it would ever get made unless another director is chosen.

Great book though.