As usual, I enjoyed Tanis' character. The premise is good and whenever I think of coins I think of superposition. I also think that if we had sheer luck, life would be very boring.

I feel that Emily comes off as a bit harsh, with her cigarette stomping etc. It just seems to me like she has no sympathy for Charlie at all. I'm just kind of wondering why. What was their relationship like before?

What I think that I'm getting is undeveloped and kind of stereotypical characters here, but I guess that's OK though because this series isn't so much about character development as it is the stereotypical character types that all have some kind of vice or other. Kind of like the vice becomes the character. Charlie's the gambler, but Emily is the poor victim wife.

***Note correction: I've been informed Soul Shadows is meant to be an anthology and thus, the individual works may necessarily vary.

For some reason, I feel like this particular script kind of loses itself.

To me, right around the time Charlie winds up going to the game with Daniel, that's the time I felt we're kind of in a bit of a nowhere land. It felt like the script was already over. I think it needs something to pzazz it up. Charlie's a gambler. We get it. But what's keeping us reading?

Why'd he buy something (that pie) that he thought his son wouldn't like?

Here:

>He climbs onto the wall of the bridge. Jumps.

This was supposed to be an IMPORTANT SCENE. Then why? Did you just write: Jumps.

I felt that this scene should have lingered. We should have been inside the mind of Charlie as he felt. Or something else. This was a sign to me that there's a bit missing. That sounds weird for me to say that because I feel like this script was too long for itself.

Well written, but for some reason you leave me wanting,

Sandra

Quoted from Dreamscale Hey Ste, for some reason, I'm unable to open your script up now, so I can't verify anything, but I wanted to try and explain what I meant about there not being much text... I was referring to why I felt that the characters and story were undeveloped.  You've got roughly 25 pages here I think, and only 5 real characters, meaning that one would think you've got more than enough room to fully develop the characters and story. I'm not saying in any way that what you've done is incorrect or wrong, but I bet if you do a word count, you'll find that you're average is quite low, on a page by page basis, meaning that although it's 25 pages, it reads and plays out more like it's 20 or so. And with the Tanis parts, it's probably closer to 15 or so. I agree 100% that scripts should be bare bones, etc., but in a short, you've got to utilize your pages as efficiently as possible, because you only have so many to work with. Obviously, word count varies greatly, based on writing style, amount of action/description lines, dialogue (especially how long the dialogue lines are), and many other things.  I doubt there’s a “norm” out there, but I think you should probably average around 200 words per page, when you look at the entire script.  I did a quick check and looked at a few scripts, and found word counts per page from a low of 165 to a high of 320, but the majority fell into the 175-225 range. Check yours out and see if I’m right.  Maybe I’m way off base here.  Should be interesting at least. See ya.

Is there a formula here that we can employ? There is for novels. There must be one that you are using and I'm excited to learn it.

I'd appreciate it if you or someone else can work out what the count is in "Thief" right now.

I know that if I worked it, I could really trim, but add a lot of substance to it. The trouble with thief is that we're dealing with 8 characters. And I, by my green-nish developed too full of a character in all my mind towards all of them. ... Resulting in:

A complex problem: Where do we settle? We settle within the story itself. Gawdamn! The ring. Right? ...

Trouble is, that for me, it's not just the ring, but all of what the ring denotes. And that leads me into a heap of trouble because I can't think on a standard level.

What's the standard level? I can't tell you. That's why I can't write on the standard level.

It's very interesting for me to work from a perspective where I try and fill in every conceivable response both internally and externally that a character might elicit ... AND at the same time, work on narrowing it down to its BARE BONES.

THAT, is reductionism at its finest. It's beauty at its height. It's pure and simple and good.

It's apparent to me that some of the best works have conjoined the simplicity with the complexity.  It's not easy to do although it sounds like it might be a breeze.

Anyways, back to the word counts:

Go for it and deduce this one further. I'd love to hear more!

Sandra

Ste,

Good Job on this one. I liked it and agreed that it felt realistic in terms of the relationship of the characters and how gambling has made it difficult for them to relate on the same level as they used to.

I do agree with a point mentioned earlier that the script feels like it starts a bit too late for such a short story, but I did like that you took the time to develop the relationships of the characters for the pay off in the end.

I wasn't too fond of the burn woulds healing up like that so fast at the end, I feel like it would have been a more powerful ending if they did have the wounds to show that this did happen. I also would have liked to have seen how Charlie died. Idk, that's just my preference. Even if it is just a quick scene where we are left to ASSUME that he had died until it was mentioned a page later.

I agree with Pia's statement about continuing the evil of the coin. A good choice indeed.

All in all though I think you did a good job with keeping with the idea of the problems the coin can cause, but also taking this character who used to think that gambling was bad and caused all his problems, to gambling being the answer to all his problems. I just wished there was more closure to Charlie's character, that's my only real criticism.

I liked the story here, and agree with Tonka's post (which I just caught a glimpse of) that it's not as supernatural as some of the other entries.

For what it is though, I think it works.  Having read some of your other dramas, I can see that style here, and it helped to make for a good entry while straying a little bit from the path.

My one beef is that Daniel ended up with the coin.  I prefer to see things left in some random spot where it seems inevitable for Tanis to find it.  That's just a personal thing though.

Anyway, nice work.

Thanks everyone for reading or listening to this.

Over the past few months I've been struggling with my writing a little. Ideas aren't really coming naturally and everything's just a bit forced. If it wasn't for this series I probably wouldn't have written anything during that time, so for that at least I'm happy.

There's areas I'm happy with in this script but I just feel I had the premise right in my head but couldn't quite develop the story to make it work quite right.

Anyway, I appreciate the comments and agree with the critiques. I'm going to develop my other idea that I didn't feel fitted the series too much. Hopefully, without the constraints of Soulshadows I can get it sorted.

Ste

Hey Stephen. I'll keep this review brief as I'm sure you don't want to hear the whole same-old same-old. I enjoyed the general premise. Very classic. You did try to put your own spin on it with the gambling although that could easily have been done before. In fact, it probably was but I've never seen it and in any case, it's a good, natural theme for a story like this. I do think you could've gone further though. You don't necessarily have to get to the story sooner. I didn't mind the slow burn too much. Although the whole situation could've been more out there, more bizarre. It's a little too cut and dry at this point although highly realistic and pretty well developed. As for the end, I liked that Daniel got the coin. I would like to have seen him use it though just so you know he's got something coming to him. The way it ends now, he could easily have tossed it in a drawer and left it to collect dust.

Overall, a decent entry.

Hey Stephen, I think you did a pretty good job with this entry, I think most of my thoughts have already been said other than I wish it were a few pages longer.  I would have liked to have seen a bit more of Charlie and his struggle with gambling before he gets ahold of the coin, even if it was little things like at the beginning with Daniel in the car listening to music, maybe if it were a sporting event of some sort that he wish he put money down on or something, just a thought.  I did think you did a good job with the story and like the others has a different tone and feel to it.  Good work.

Thanks for the read folks.

Pleased you both enjoyed it.