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The Broken Locker by Willy Brown (willy) - (Red Spruce) - Short, Drama - A broken locker in a post office leads to something which no one in the post office ever could believe. - pdf, format
Alright, Willy Brown...Welcome to the One Week Challenge. Anybody has the right to write; it's a craft that all you really need is a pencil and some imagination; which you have. By all means, learn the craft...And alot of the craft of screenwriting has to do with formatting. Professional readers receive thousands of scripts, and to even stand a chance, it should conform to the basic rules of the industry.
There are alot of excellent books available that cover this information (Screenwriters Bible is really good) as well as some fantastic writers here on this site. Look at those scripts, see what they do, what they look like, and do likewise. Practice. Write some shorts. Be prepared to learn...
The only formatting thing I'm gonna mention is the Capitalizations (Not that there aren't other errors-there are). You only capitalize when the character is first introduced, and that is in the Action Slug, not in the Dialogue.
Dialogue reminds me of watching a japanese movie with the English dubbed over it...Very on the nose with no subtext at all...Sometimes you can say more with a look or a sigh than with a whole block of dialogue.
Finally, the point of the excercise this time around was to incorporate the line "the guys at the post office are never going to believe this..." in the dialogue...Yeah, this was a little crime tale about a post office, but missed using that one line.
By All means, keep at it though, keep learning and good luck!
Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently - Dove Chocolate Wrapper
You didn't do too badly. I managed to get through it and I didn't once get the urge to claw my eyes out (that's a good thing).
And though you seem to have a general idea of how to write a screenplay, based on my read I would say that you still have some to learn (we all have some to learn). I could make a lots of suggestions about different aspects of screenplay writing but I don't want you to feel overwhelmed.
So, I think I'll just mention what I think is the most critical thing you need to practice. Dialogue. Before you commit to a piece of dialogue you should have at least said it aloud. A good technique for knowing how your dialogue sounds is to record it and listen to it. Dialogue is very important. You should be sparing with it but at the same time it should say more than is written on the page. It should have rythym, it should have character, it should win the lottery (well we all know the chances of winning the lottery so you can forget the last one). Work on your dialogue.
THANX Blakkwolfe and Mcornetto. All your suggestions are welcome. Thanx for reading and your suggestions and I will take care of them in my next work. Thanx once again.
To me this read like a comedy and thats why I liked it. The way the two F.B.I agents spoke("interesting, very interesting", and "bingo")It was as if you were taking the piss out of Scooby doo and Chuck Norris films with the type of dialogue you use. When Mike tells the mother "I'm sorry but your son Joseph is no more" that had me in knots, what a way to brake the news to a mother that her son has been murdered "your son is NO MORE".
In no way have I writen the above to intentional offened you in anyway, I am just giving my own personal opinion of how I read your script aloud to myself.
Can I sugest CELTEX to you, its a good screen writing programme, I use it myself, it would get rid of the "final draft demo 7" that was on every page.
I think you should read over your script when you finish to make sure everything makes sence. The F.B.I being the first on the scene of a post office robbery did not make sence to me, you should of introduced them later in the case when it went from a robbery to a murder or maybe even later when your reveal a drug syndicate being involved.
Finally I think you need to look at your action lines and use of grammer again, some of the script dosent read right.
Hey Scarlet thanks for your read. And tell me why F.B.I. agents can't speak like that. And how would you tell a mother that your son is no more. What could be the line plz suggest me. And you said that F.B.I. agents should have investigate after the case went out to murder from robbery. But who would look after the robbery case? What would F.B.I. officers do when post master calls them to inform about robbery, go to the post office after murder. Suggest me.
It should of been the Police that turned up at the post office, even if the post master personal knew one of the agents in the F.B.I that agent would have put him through to the Police Dept because it was such a small crime(someone broke into a locker). for example look at DIE HARD, the police were first on the scene and when it esculated from an officer beening shot at (Al Powell) into a hostage and terrorist situation then the F.B.I were called in. Hans Gruber: " you asked for miracles I give you the F.B.I".
"your son is no more" to me sounds like what a bad guy(cheesy bad guy) would say to another bad guy. I dont think the police can be that vague when informing family about a loved one being murdered, as hard as it is they have to be straight and tell them that there son is dead and that they believe he was murdered.
I hope you had fun with this. You know, I'm going to start with one of the supposed rules of writing anything. (Just remember that this rule doesn't really work after all is said and done because we'd be pretty stale people if we didn't work to research what we DON'T know.) The rule is: Only write what you know.
If you don't actualy know too much about how the crime guys work, then don't try and write it. You don't have to know everything, sometimes you can get away with being a bit vague, but any serious neglect will show up.
I'd like to say that I like the essential idea of this; that is the idea of the broken locker being linked to a crime. And I really loved the title which prompted me to pick this one as one of the first reads. Alas though, just titles don't cut it. Sigh.
Well, I am not going to write a book on writing in this post, but I'm going to recommend that you buy a couple of good books on writing and just keep writing. This board is excellent with lots of good information and examples to work with; so just work in the best way you know how and I promise, you WILL get better.
Here are some notes:
Scripts need to look sparse on the page. Bulky paragraphs are a sign of a script that needs help.
Notice the redundancy:
>They are in their late twenties.
>They have nameplates...
>They read Mike...
>They are officers
Vary your sentences.
You only need to give the character introduction once unless the character in question undergoes some drastic change that requires a new actor, like plastic surgery or they magically transform somehow.
In this case it needs to be written up.
>Then after a pause he speaks.
For this, just use script lingo which is:
Beat.
I think it's unlikely that the FBI are going to be used to investigate a broken locker and even a regular run-of-the-mill-murder. If there's a reason why specifically they've been called to this broken locker investigation, then it needs to be clear or it seems silly.
Why is the officer, Mike Johnson reacting: "Oh Jesus! It's Joseph Martin. He's dead!"
The officer is a big boy and this kind of work isn't abnormal for him. He's used to it. Unless he knows Joseph, I don't think he would be freaking out.
They wouldn't move the body without the crime scene being investigated first and also, it's not their job to move the body.
What I think you should do is forget about watching a lot of TV shows and crime dramas. Sorry, maybe that's bad advice. If you are interested in writing them, learn and study crime in general and importantly, motive and character. What I mean regarding not watching them so much is that JUST watching them probably won't help you to write them. You need to assimilate the intricacies of plot and character in order to write well.
I know you're not supposed to comment on grammar but for me the story was impossible to follow because of how off the dialogue was. Redundancies, fragmented sentences and odd word choice.
On the other hand, the idea of a broken locker in a post office escalating to a murder, then exposing a drug ring was a pretty good idea, and I loved how the title was the last line in the script.
I'd say keep writing, grammar can be taught and anyone can learn how to do that and format scripts. What can't be taught is imagination and good ideas, and it looks like you've got a few, so you're off to a good start.
Obviously, this one needs a whole lot of attention but others have given you good advice so soak it all up my friend.
Congrats for giving this a try. Don't get discouraged. You gotta crawl before you walk. Just keep practicing and reading. You have certainly come to the right website. Take a look at all the free material available to you and read how the professionals do it.
On a good note, the story has some imagination and you were able to piece together a beginning, middle and end. A simple little investigative crime story. Now, once you get up to speed on how to execute it properly, I think you'll be off and running.
Anyway, I'm sure you've got enough suggestions flying at you off these boards so I wont jam anything else into your head. Just keep at it and props for taking the first step and throwing your stuff out there to face the music.
Most of the advice I was gonna offer you has already been given. The best advice I can give you is to read over a few shorts from some of the more established writers here and you'll pick up plenty of pointers on how to write strong dialogue that doesn't sound unnatural. Also it will give you a good insight on how to write your action and descriptions. Keep at it and you'll be surprised how quickly you improve.
I found the story a little hard to follow because of the language didn't always flow too well and the dialogue sometimes didn't seem to follow from one character to the next. Also I found the number of characters to be a bit overwhelming too. Sorry to be so negative but keep at it.
Check out my scripts...if you want to, no pressure.
As this is your first attempt, I'll accept the errors as a natural step in your development. I have a friend who's a writer and when I showed him my first script, he butchered it and destroyed three quarteres of what I wrote. I felt I had made a decent effort but soon realised that my first effort had a story but I was unable to deliver it in a way that I intended.
From my part, I read three pages and couldn't go on, I felt the errors were too much. I agree with Scarlet101 with regards to the Die Hard reference.
One bit of advice given to me was, to write what you know. And if you know Kevin Smith & Clerks. Watch the extras and you'll realise that for his first effort, he wrote what he knew. Other than that, research what you don't know.
Take onboard what everybody has mentioned above, and takecare for the future.
As this is your first attempt, I'll accept the errors as a natural step in your development.
One bit of advice given to me was, to write what you know. And if you know Kevin Smith & Clerks. Watch the extras and you'll realise that for his first effort, he wrote what he knew. Other than that, research what you don't know.
Take onboard what everybody has mentioned above, and takecare for the future.
This is good advice for all of us no matter how green or advanced we are.
I'm brought to thinking about a conversation my son and I just had the other day. We were talking about his career path. He just finished getting his Bachelor of Science in Engineering Technology last year and we all know what it's like infiltrating into "Big Time" positions.
Even the "Little Time" of "The Big Time" is hard to break into. A lot of the companies want a masters degree PLUS TEN YEARS EXPERIENCE.
Anyways, Richard's lucky because he has a whole track of experience in Army Cadets and finished in high ranks and with high test grades. This experience has helped him a lot. He finished all the preliminaries last year and was accepted for the Aerospace Engineering side of the military. He leaves for entrance this month.
But back to our conversation:
We were talking about GETTING EXPERIENCE. And the whole idea of "How can you get experience if no one will hire you?" And I thought of that movie: Secret of my Success.
I loved that movie. I've always loved Michael J. Fox a great deal too.
But this movie is a great example of a guy taking matters into his own hands and "getting experience" by hook-or-by-crook.
In life, people are often stuck in theory, but theory only gets you so far.
For Richard, the military gives him the opportunity to be working from both sides-- theory and practical and although it isn't for everyone, it's a good career choice for some.
With respect to writing, the same is true. We need to study the theory, we need to read other works, but besides that, the thing that advances us is THE EXPERIENCE.
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