A Good Man is Hard to Find by Evan Jones - Short - A disfunctional family goes on vacation while a serial killer known as "The Misfit" is on the loose. 24 pages - pdf, format

Hey Evan.

Hmm.  I don't really know about this one.

For one, the entire scene with Red Sam could probably be omitted, as it doesn't really drive the story forward in any way, except that it just repeats The Misfit is on the loose, which we had already received that information in the first scene.  It kind of just gets in the way and will probably just bore most readers and, infinitely worse, future viewers.

It may have worked well as a short story, but I don't think it'll translate to film as well unless you tinker with the story a little bit.

It was fine and had my interest peaked (minus the Red Sam scene) as to what was going to happen in the house with the secret panel, but the ending just tore down that whole set up.  I think it was long-winded and the, err, what should I call it, twist?, was very anti-climactic.

There are little hints of a great screenplay here, but the story needs a lot of tweaking.

And, just for the record, you might want to review a few of the action blocks also.  The formatting was good and most of it was in the present tense, but there were also times (and I'm guessing you had copied those parts of the short story word-for-word,) when you used past-tense verbs in the action or description blocks.

- Mark

I remember reading this short a few years back in a Short Story course I took.

I think there is good reason why many adaptations are "based on" books and stories. On the page everything has to be spoken but on the screen anything that can be shown instead of spoken should at least be considered. Any time the characters are describing scenery should be thrown out, as we will be seeing it on the screen.

I agree with Mark about the Red Sam scene. We learn about The Misfit in the first scene, no need to reiterate.

Your script was very true to the story, but it could use some finessing. It moves along slowly for how much actually happens. True to the story, but needs some work before getting to the screen.

"A" for effort, though, brother.

James