Answers by James Asher - Comedy, Experimental - An unhappy person learns 'how'. 120 pages - pdf, format

I just read ANSWERS – it took two sittings - and was blown away by your topic and writing. You kept switching my common understanding of things around.  The 2013 prophecy was a nice touch. Well done.

Very intensive dialogue for about 120 pages was both an accomplishment and a distraction. Too many words! Verged on preaching – or should I say prophesying.  I’d suggest cutting out the part of the Muslim cab driver. It may read a bit easier or at least shorter. Master #1 and Master #2 were very similar but I did understand why you needed both for synergy.  Poindexter was my favorite character.

Didn't get this at all. Had to give up after 10 pages. I just wasn't hooked. The opening was, well, like so many films I'ev seen and I'm guessing, films you've seen too, The Matrix, Wanted & Fight Club. The benal, mundane office life was a mirror of the office scenes in these films. Skimmed down throught it after that. Your script is FAR too dialouge focused. The narrative is far too loose and weak to hold a reader or audience captive. You explain far too much instead of SHOWING us. I think you need to go through the whole script with a red pen and do some highlighting.

A screenplay is not photographing people talking. Use dialogue sparingly. The Screenwriters’ Mantra is: SHOW, don’t Tell.

• Avoid all on-the-nose dialogue – eg, long expositions, explaining in words what’s happening. Get that crucial information across through dramatic means.

• Characters should DO more than they SAY.

• Avoid characters giving long speeches explaining their feelings and motives, and characters explaining what is happening to another character who already know this information.

Ok I just tried to read this but it was difficult. I agree with the poster above, there was nothing here that hooked me and made me want to read on. I also thought of the opening scene of Wanted when I read your opening scene. Try something more original.

But the thing that really bothered me the most was you don't call anyone by their actual names. You keep referring to master#1 and master#2 despite them both being introduced and their real names given. Makes it harder to follow and a lot less personal. You want the characters to stand out and be recognisable but you have instead made them lifeless and two-dimensional. The same with Poindexter, this is not his actual name so why keep referring to him as such? Once you state what his name is then you should refer to him as such in the script.

At the party you have hen#1 through 3, why not name some of them and actually create some characters? It is quite painful to read to be honest. There is nothing happening at all just about 20 pages of two guys spouting some half-assed pick-up theory. This will not translate well at all to the screen.

I think what you are lacking is a story. I read the first 30 pages, skimmed the next ten waiting for something to happen. By now you are a third of the way through the script and nothing has been set up. You really need something to happen in the first act that will kick things into gear for the second act. Also this is supposed to be a comedy but I did not find anything funny in this at all. Sorry to be harsh but in 40 pages I found nothing to laugh at.

It just comes across as a bit of a mess and like you aren't really sure where you are going with it. Too much time is spent on the two guys trying to teach him about women, and the info is not coherent or funny. You could cut twenty pages down to 5 max in my opinion, by knowing what you want to say and getting it out there clearly.

The rest of the script might be fantastic, but if you can't capture the interest in the first ten to twenty pages (and I gave you double this) then people won't even bother to read the rest. Honestly I think this needs a massive overhaul of the beginning or else it isn't going to go anywhere.