Wife by Andrew O'Rourke - Short, Drama - During a day at the office Quentin is having a good day until he gets a phone call and the world comes crashing down on him.8 pages - pdf, format

I didn't really enjoy this read. The story was very dry, and I didn't care for the whole thing at all. I was sort of like eating napkins. There were a lot of typos, "uncontrollability" was my favorite. I think reading that typo made me feel better than reading the script did. Sorry mate.

I'm gonna agree with Andrew on this one. This was very boring. By the end of it, I couldn't remember the beginning... and that's never good. I also second the abundance of typos. Please use spell check.

Technically, the format is pretty good. You know how to write, for sure, now you just need to learn how to tell an interesting story.

~Zack~

Thanks for the replies. I didn't really proofread it, I just scanned through it. It was really my first attempt at writing a script. I know I have to work on telling a intresting story and take my time writing and not just rush it out.

Aside from the typos everyone mentioned, am not sure I got the twist ending. The Holly woman was someone Q was having an affair with? If so, would her picture be on his desk? Could be a nice switcheroo but is handled a bit clumsily. Sharpen up the dialogue, "my wife is dead!", well...yeah duh!

But yep you do seem to have a grip on telling a story and formatting. A first script is a first script. I give you kudos for posting it as I won't show my first script to anybody!  Keep at it!

The twist is you think the woman in the photo is his wife but it's Holly. Holly kills his wife in a traffic accident on purpose so she can have him all to herself. I need to work on the script so people really get the twist. The reason why the picture of Holly is on his desk is because he is thinking of living his wife for Holly, that's why he can't phone his wife to tell her he's cheating on her and is going to leave her but at the hospital when he sees her dead he realizes he loves her. I think I need to make that clearer.

Thanks for the feedback

Yes, making that clearer would be great. That would make the story come together so much.... It wouldn't be like eating napkins.... it may be like eating twinkies....or something of the sort.

-Andrew

Hey Charles, (or Andrew.  I don't know what to believe.)

Anyway, this story wouldn't be too bad at all if you fixed and tightened things up a little bit more.  It especially isn't bad since it's your first script.  A little bit problematic, but nothing that's too hard to fix.

You need to describe Quentin's wife a little more when we see her in emergency, so the reader knows she's not the same person in the picture.  We're going to see that she's a different person on the screen, aren't we?  So we need to see this in the script.  I know she's a mess, but at least describe her hair being dark and matted to her forehead or something to make the reader think about it.

Also, only say in the action descriptions what can be filmed.  For instance, you say 'Then the worst thing that can happen happens.'  You don't need to say that.  Just simply say that she flatlines.  Besides, there are a lot of worse things that can happen besides her just flatlining.  For instance, in my opinion, an alien coming down and sodomizing her with a three foot machete while singing a Grateful Dead song is probably the worst thing that could happen to her.  Flatlining is a miracle compared to that.  (Actually, now that I think about it, even only if a doctor starts mumbling a Grateful Dead song under his breath, that's a lot worse than flatlining.)  Anyway, it would read smoother if you just simply say she flatlines.

There is a little bit of logic missing, also, about how he would have a framed picture of his mistress in his office, especially when his co-workers and his boss know the fact that he's married.

And, backing everybody else up here, the typo's take a whole lot away from the story.  It just gets annoying to go back and have to figure out what you're trying to say while trying to stay focused on the story at the same time.

I understand you're new to the site, but if I even see one typo in the next script you post or in the re-write of this one, I swear to God I will send a petition around and have Don, the Administrator, boot your ass out of here faster than Quentin's wife got killed.

:-)  Okay, there's a slight possibility I was only joking, but typo's really are something to pay attention to.

Like I said, not too bad for a first script, Andrew.  I mean Charles.

- Mark

Since the typos have been pointed out and there are a LOT, I will make some other suggestions (please go through and search for typos- spell check does not get many of them).

Lose all the "starts" when characters do things. Use "starts" only if the action is immediately interrupted.

It also felt like there was just too much dialogue in a lot of places. Never use two words where one will do. Avoid redundancy (EX: Describing the tubes and bruises on Mrs. Morgan and then stating that she is not in good shape).

The characters felt flat. There were no personalities given to any of them.

I loved "each contain a hard working employee hard at work" in this one, I laughed out loud.

A pretty good idea, but it needs a lot of work.

James

Hi Andrew, just read this one.
The story pretty much works but apart from the typos there were a couple of moments that I found very funny.
Him having his wife's phone number stored as 'wife'.
His boss saying 'keep up the good work' as he zips up.

Keep it up though and just proof read it.

I thought this script was funny. You have like to mistakes in like the first 4 lines of your script. A lot of your dialogue is ok but then some is funny at how bad it was, for example when Tom finds out what happens to his wife. His Wife shouldn't ne named WIFE in his phone book (and if you say it is to symbolise how  little he cares for her I will laugh). Your format is ok, you got it in pdf at least but common man it's like 8 pages long, and you have so many mistakes. One bit that made me laugh when reading your script was when you say there tubes in every hole in his wife's body. I laughed because that fed me a rude image. Your twist was funny because you don't even explain why Holly is in the car with his wife, or do you, maybe I missed that. Maybe if it was a little better written and possibly longer, it would be a good script and the twist would be satisfying.

Good first attempt though, search for Goose by me if you want a laugh.

Charles85,

Just had a read through and here's my thoughts :

I'll ignore format and typo's as that's been done to death.  One thing you could do, is when Quentin is speaking with Holly, you could have holly looking across at a hospital when she says "I can do better than that".  This means you could get Quentin to mention the Hospitals name his wife works at, and when you cut to Holly in the car, you could show a Hospital sign saying the name of the Hospital where Quentins wife works.

thanks for the read. Thats not a bad idea. I am rewriting it right now and I'm almost done, I cleared a lot of things up and fixed all the errors. It's a longer which I don't think is a bad thing. I'll post it up soon.

I'll agree everything the others said. Also I think you have the basis of a chilling story. I thought the end was particularly effective. I'd also say that your writing style works so you're a lot of the way to a descent script.

I'd suggest having Holly meeting Quentin earlier in the script as a way to show us who she is. Having another woman's picture on your desk at work would be really stupid for any married man.

Philip

I think you have a great idea here. If you follow all of the advice that you have already received and do a few more rewrites, you may have something. Overall I think you need to develop your characters a little more. A cool idea for a twist could be Q's wife trying to kill Holly because she finds out about the affair. However his wife is still the one who dies. Keep working on this one. It has some potential.