The Fittest by Max Wilson - Thriller - The patriarch of a small family must throw in with unscrupulous raiders in order to provide for his family in a post-apocalyptic world. 91 pages - pdf, format

Quoted from Don by Max Wilson - Thriller - Living in a post apocalyptic world a father and husband of two joins a group of marauders to ensure his families survival, this decision puts his morals to the test as he has to choose between the well being of his family or the well being of potentially innocent survivors. 90 pages - pdf, format

A father and husband of two???  Polygamist???  Probably meant "a husband and father of two."  You'll want to fix this logline because it's the first thing people see.

Many mistakes in the logline.  It reads very poorly, and missing punctuation, apostrophes, etc.

Not even going to open it, as I know what I'll find.

Hey Max,

I open your script. These are some of the issues that I found on your 1st page, IMO.

FADE IN: -- not Fade in:
Your first slug, is there a reason for FAMILY HOUSE instead of just HOUSE?
In action, avoid using "is/are" and words ending with -ing, passive writing.
Simplify your action lines, too many details and lines per block of action (split up your action blocks, max 4 lines).
Slug (PATH) is repeated in action, redundant.
Telling, not showing. (ex: How do we know the two kids are brothers?).

I flipped through a few more pages. Action and also dialogue blocks need to be trimmed, IMO.

If you show up, I'll read some more.

Frank

Hi Frank.

I am completely new to this world and have no training which is probably quite obvious haha and I pretty much failed English in high school so I appreciate any feedback.

I am aware that it should be in FADE IN: I just over looked that first one so thanks for pointing it out. I have also split my action lines, I thought I uploaded the version where I had updated that but must be the one before.

I thought it was better to be slightly more specific with my slug lines as there are more generic houses in the script so just said family house as not to confuse. I'll also remove the bit about the brothers.

I am currently working on a much needed overhaul of this script as it has received generally bad reviews so feel free to read more and tell me what needs fixing.

Max

Max, when I started writing about three years ago, my first script looked similiar. Trust me, it will soon get better if you're willing to learn. All you need is google. You'll find ANYTHING you need to know about formatting, pacing and screenwriting in general...

Plus you need to get rid of the typos. If you don't, the rest doesn't even matter anymore because it will be so hard to read and understand everything right away...

I suggest to read some other scripts to see how they are written.

Quoted from BenL Max, when I started writing about three years ago, my first script looked similiar. Trust me, it will soon get better if you're willing to learn. All you need is google. You'll find ANYTHING you need to know about formatting, pacing and screenwriting in general... Plus you need to get rid of the typos. If you don't, the rest doesn't even matter anymore because it will be so hard to read and understand everything right away... I suggest to read some other scripts to see how they are written.

Agree with this Max. I was pretty much in your situation when I started. Then I read a bunch and googled a bunch and learned. It is an evolving process - stick with it. Here are a couple of examples to illustrate what Ben was referencing.

Quoted Text INT. FAMILY HOUSE/KITCHEN - DAY LISA, mid 30's, is standing in the kitchen grasping the counter top's edge. She stares blankly at the closed kitchen cupboards in silence. Her body is as still as a mannequin.

Reads better as:

INT. FAMILY HOUSE/KITCHEN - DAY

LISA, mid 30's, as still as a mannequin stands at  the counter top's edge. She stares at the closed kitchen cupboards.

This gets rid of the ing words - it's crisper and to the point. You don't need unnecessary words (e.g., kitchen - already in the slug, silence, etc.).

Quoted Text EXT. CABIN - DAY JAMES, late 30's, unshaven and bundled in clothes, is removing boards from the side of a cabin in the woods with a crowbar and throwing them in a pile behind him. After he removes a couple of boards he turns around and looks at the pile then he looks at a house off in the distance. He inhales deeply then exhales hard revealing a cold breath. He then puts his tools in a backpack and puts the pack over his shoulders. He starts bundling up the planks of wood in rope and hoists it over his shoulder and starts to head off in the direction of the house in the distance.

Reads better as:

EXT. CABIN IN THE WOODS - DAY

JAMES, late 30's, unshaven, bundled in clothes, removes boards from
the side of the cabin with a crowbar. Throws  them in a pile behind him.

James turns around and looks at a HOUSE in the distance. He
exhales hard. His cold breath mists in the air.

James bundles up the planks of wood with rope
and hoists it over his shoulder. He heads off towards the
house in the distance.

Or something like that.

Again - the point being - you can be more efficient with the action/description. It is very tempting to get "novelish" while writing scripts. I used to. It's not a hard habit to break Read a few scripts and it will become more obvious. Best of luck.

Hi Max,

I recently posted my first script, "Inconceivable Pain", a thriller.

English is not even my native languish (I'm a Viking, well, not quite, but born in Norway, I got to have some Viking blood), so I have to work a little harder with sentence structures and vocabulary and mostly everything else.

BenLewis had a great point, read more scripts. That's what I did, learned a lot.

I'll flip through some more pages and give you my opinions. Not trying to me harsh, just want to help.

Frank

Hey Max,

I read through to page 15. Kind of slow, but interesting.

The basic formatting looks good.

Some of the dialogue between Lisa and James is okay.

P1: EXT. FAMILY HOUSE/BEDROOM - DAY -- probably INT. ....

I would've like to see a little more character descriptions initially of Zack and John.
(ex: P7: "The boys already look like they would blow away in a gust of wind.")
This might have been more appropriate on P1 when Zack and John are introduced.

P5: Typo, "Heres your lobster" -- (a couple of lines below you got it right)
P7: "With two sets or eyes' -- another typo.

I don't believe CONT'D are necessary. If you use Final Draft, you can disable the function, I did.

P11: They walk down the road for a few metres until they come across a car in the middle of the road.
Its doors are wide open as is the boot of the car. -- or something like, "up ahead, a car sits in the middle of the road, doors and trunk/boot open."

P14: INT. WAREHOUSE - DAY
IMO, this scene is overwritten. A two to three sentence description of the warehouse might have been sufficient.
I can understand you want to really show us how bad it is by having James and Zack sharing the drinks/foods, but
again, I would compress this more.

I like the concept/premise, so I'll check in when you get a new version posted.

Keep writing. Try to keep it visual. Less is more. Good luck.

Frank

Thanks everyone for the great feedback. Learning a lot. I will definitely implement the changes suggested and will be reading a lot more scripts to improve my craft. Think it will take a bit longer then I thought to overhaul this.

Max

Don't worry about the time, writing is an ongoing process.

As long as you don't quit, you'll get there sooner or later.