Motherless Town by Fabio Cristi - Thriller - A serial murderer brutally kills pregnant women. A group of LAPD detectives, everyone with lots of issues about his personal life, has to discover what lies between these terrible murders. 130 pages - pdf, format

Oh, great! My script has been posted. Just wanted to know if anyone read it and what are their thoughts about that.

If you're about to read it, please note a few things.
1) It's my first script, I wrote it six years ago, in 2001, revising just a few parts a couple of years later.
2) I'm Italian, so English is not my native language.
3) My goal was not to be original, but just to write a compelling and thrilling story, very classic plot-wise.

So that's it. Just have a good read, if you're going to do it.

Bye
Fabio

Hi Fabio -

Well, I read the first 10 pages...  I must say, this is my first experience reading work by someone who's first language isn't English.  Because of this, I wasn't quite sure how to look upon the script.  My natural instinct is to be very forgiving when it comes to the narrative portions of the script, but not so forgiving in the dialogue.  My thought is this: if  I'm a producer and I see that your narrative needs work, but your dialogue is spot-on, I can work around that. But, if the dialogue also suffers from the language barrier (which is the case with this script) then the script basically requires a full rewrite.

If I were you I would change Los Angeles to Roma or Napoli and write it in Italian.  Sorry I can't offer you and more advice.  Good luck.

Eric

Ciao, Fabio.

I'll be happy to review your script for you if you're willing to check out one of ours (I write with a partner).  Since you wrote a thriller, do you want to check out our thriller, Peephole?  The link is below -- please let me know.

Aimee

Hey, hey!  Read mine first.  I read yours (well, 10 pages of it, at least)!  

Quoted from IBEJohnson If I were you I would change Los Angeles to Roma or Napoli and write it in Italian.  Sorry I can't offer you and more advice.  Good luck.

The problem is that writing it in Italian I wouldn't probably have market, because here in Italy thrillers are not seen very well by the producers. Our cinema produces mostly comedies and really heavy dramas.

I must say that I was sure there would have been a problem with dialogues, because I'm the first to say they're not so good. As soon as I find a native speaker who can give me a hand with a rewrite, I'll give it a try. If you have time, maybe read some pages further on, I'd like to know if you think my writing improved in the next pages (but I'm not so sure it has).

I promise I will read both of your screenplays as soon as my day job leaves me a few hours free (I also started to write a romantic comedy, but I can't find time to go on).

I haven't looked at the script yet, but just happened to notice some of the comments.

I would personally suggest that you transfer the action to Italy, but have it that the women killed are tourists and there is such an outcry about the murders that U.S detectives head over to Italy. Or find another reason they have to go e.g one of the victims was a Senator's daughter or something.

Even someone whose first language is English would struggle to get the dialogue right if they didn't happen to come from L.A themselves.

You have a valid point about the marketability of the film if it is set in English, but your Italian chappies can speak in English to their American counterparts. That way the dialogue would be more believable, because in a sense it is authentic as you are an Italian translating into English.

Just my twopenneth anyway.

Rick.

Well, that's a good idea. I just have to find a way to retain the main elements of the plot (I constructed it as a puzzle, every scene and every action characters do has a meaning) and find a plausible way to make people interact in two different languages. It would be difficult, but it could also work.

Thanks for your two cents.