Trials by Nate Zegue - Thriller, Mystery - A private investigator is tasked with finding a missing girl but soon realizes that the person who hired him has secrets of their own. 53 pages - pdf format

New writer interested in feedback on this work, please be nice

Hey, Nate.

Read the first few pages and flipped through the rest of the script. The good thing IMO, good spacing, no big blocks of dialogue and action.

53 pages is too short for a feature length script, maybe too long for a short. Try to aim for 90+ if you do a re-write/update if this is suppose to be a feature.

FADE IN: is missing on the 1st page.

Character descriptions are non-existent in the first few pages. Joseph, Martha, Journalist need descriptions.
When the man in the beginning removes the mask, why not give him a name, his face is exposed I assume? What's the secret.

Good luck with your script.

Some of the action, you're telling me, instead of showing me. Using "is" in a sentence indicates more telling than showing. How do I know that Martha is Joseph's sister. You tell me she is. This could be brought out in dialogue or maybe looking at photos etc., show it to us.

I would disable CONT'D in your software, not really used that much anymore.

Remember, don't repeat in action what already has been established in a slug-line/headline.

My advice is to read a lot of Spec scripts (available on this site). Read dialogue out load, that helps, to get a feel for how it sounds. Like when you read out load the JOURNALIST dialogue in your script, do you hear/feel that sounds like a Journalist.

Good luck with your script.

Frank