For You, My Love by David Seguin (oz) - Short - The story of a suicide pact between a teenaged couple gone wrong, told by the point of view of the boy to a psychiatrist after the fact. 4 pages - pdf, format

David,

Conceptually there is definitely something worthwhile here - an attempted dissection on the inability to forge through the daily grind of life - but it's wildly underdeveloped. The whole thing reminded me of the closing scene in 'All The Boys Love Mandy Lane' - was this an inspiration? Or were you more 'Romeo and Juliet'?

A real problem is that we have no reason to care for the protagonist, and as such, there is no glue for me to stick to your story. This is a shame, 'cos I think you have something very good in mind - but with a further draft, you could turn this one around.

The main issue you have with the script is that a lot of unnecessary description fills up your action lines:

Quoted Text The boy doesn’t respond. He is reflecting on what happened very emotionally.

Quoted Text Stops speaking and retreats into his thoughts. The room goes silent again.

Quoted Text The room is filled with a heavy atmosphere.

Quoted Text During all of this the boy is narrating.

You can lose these examples for a start, and the rule to remember is - "Show, don't tell". If, for example, the boy is retreating into his thoughts - show him doing something that allows the reader to delve into the scene, as opposed to just telling the reader.

There are also a couple of camera suggestions that are largely redundant:

Quoted Text the image dissolves to the next scene.

Quoted Text Close ups of boy looking nervous

There are a couple of small issues e.g. you use it's when you should use its.

I really think you could have something, 'cos the idea resonates with me, but your execution needs a tidy.

Best of luck with it.

Andrew

The voice over started out way beyond boy, then we get in and have teenager in the dialogue. Why not have teenager, or better yet, specific in age. How is a room filled with a heavy atmosphere? All the room goes silent again stuff, I think you can ditch all that.

Well, with all-the-verbage-you-can-ditch aside, why in the world shouldn't I reload that pistol with good bullets and shoot that little fucker myself? Maybe take the aluminum bat out of my closet and beat him with it. What motivation does he have as a boy, as a teenager, besides over wrought emotions, to do this? He's a thoughtless, selfish human being. That shrink should be shot. "Somethimes I wonder if what I did is wrong", if that, then I should put three good bullets in the pistol and shoot mom and dad, then the boy.

I couldn't not get into the characters.  Part of the reason is that you don't describe them well enough.  For starters, you should give your characters names; 'Boy,' 'Girl' and 'Psychiatrist are not enough.  Not including any descriptions hurts. too.  When I saw the 'name' Boy, I immediately thought of a six year old.

The disalog was extremely phony, IMHO, or as John Valby would sing, "It's philosophical bullshit."  The speech at the beginning was forced.  The rest of the dialog seemed forced.

You tried to pack a lot of emotion into a few pages.  I don't think it worked because the characters weren't developed.  Work on them some more; make them more believable.


Phil

I thought you said the gun had two bullets?  The Boy seemed to give up really easily after he clicked the trigger two times.  Guess he didn't want to follow her into the afterlife that bad.  

Give the characters names.  Also, cut down on the voice overs.  You maybe have the glimmer of a good story here, but this is a really, really rough draft.  Just explore the characters more so we care whether they live or die.

Hi David,

It is apparent that you’re shooting for a very emotional and existential film here.  When done right, these are usually the kinds of stories that stick with us, resonating long after we’re done reading (or viewing) them.  It also requires that you hit every note pitch perfect.  There is a lot of tuning needed to get this piece up to its full potential.  The bad news is that you may need to depart from your source material more than you might have expected.  The good news is that you’ll end up with a much stronger and more affecting screenplay if you are willing to risk this.

Let’s take your screenplay apart and see what’s going on in the guts of this story.  You’ve got 4 scenes, 1 main character, and 2 supporting characters.

Scene 1: A teenaged boy walks through a series of city scenes ending up at a cemetery.  While we’re watching this, the boy narrates in voice over.  He wonders if what he’s done is wrong.  This sets up a couple of dramatic questions.  First, what did he do? And, was what he did wrong?  Next we learn that he must have put someone out of their suffering.  Perhaps he pulled someone’s plug?  He’s attempting to justify his actions.  Then we learn it has something to do with another teenager (so probably not euthanasia), the idea of a suicide pact is hinted at – but he’s still here, and his presence at a cemetery indicates that she probably is not.  

Though not a terribly exciting way to open a film (watching someone walk around while his voice over is talking at us), you’ve given us the main question – was what he did wrong?  This is intriguing enough to pull us forward despite the fact that it is a very static and expository scene with no conflict or dramatic action.  What does he want in this scene?  To justify his actions.  What is keeping from getting what he wants?  His own doubts.  This is all internal conflict; great for a story or novel, not so great for film.

Scene 2a: We discover that this speech was for the benefit of a psychiatrist. The scene is full of discomfort and awkwardness.  What does the boy want in this scene?  To convince the doc he’s not insane, a criminal, or justified?  We’re not sure.  What does the doc want?  Again, we’re not sure – at the moment he’s just looking for facts of the event.  There seems to be tension here, but we don’t know exactly what the source is, or what’s at stake.

Scene 3: Boy and Girl executing their suicide pact.  Girl can’t shoot boy.  He shoots her, then discovers there was only one bullet, so he lives.  This is where the story goes off the rails.  For one, your dramatic question is answered here.  Yes, what he did was wrong.  All we have to go on is his argument that suffering animals are put out of their misery.  We don’t have any sense that the Girl was suffering beyond the fact that the boy says she was.  Yes, animals are put out of their misery if the conditions of that misery are permanent and there is no other way of alleviating it.  If an animal becomes sick, and is suffering, but we can provide it medicine to make it better, we generally don’t kill them.

The girl is not described as appearing to be suffering with a terminal medical affliction, or some other condition one might not be able to bear living with.  With no firsthand knowledge of the Girl’s situation it is does not appear to an audience that she was suffering from anything other than a transient emotional state – most likely one overblown by dramatic teenage sensitivities.  So it appears the boy was acting out of a rash sense of tragic romanticism.  This is where you lose audience sympathy for your main character.

Scene 2b: Back in the doc’s office where he asks the boy if he feels responsible.  His hesitation seems to indicate he hasn’t yet accepted responsibility for his incredibly bad choice.

Scene 4: At her grave site and he’s still wondering if he was wrong.  The audience has made up its mind, but he still hasn’t?  But, he tells us he’s learned something – the payoff revelation: Suicide hurts those left behind.  Okay.  Not incredibly profound, but valid.  The big problem here is that he includes himself as one of the sufferers.  He caused the suffering, but still doesn’t seem to be taking any responsibility.  The boy has just lost anyone still pulling for him.  

So, to step back, we’ve got a tragic story here – not because the girl died, but because our main character hasn’t really learned what he needs to learn.  He doesn’t come to discover that what he did was unquestionably wrong.  Kids do stupid things.  Their brains aren’t developed to the point they can fully appreciate the consequences of their actions.  So it isn’t entirely unrealistic that this is the arc (or rather non-arc) for your character, but the problem is that it is incredibly unsatisfying, or even frustrating.  If instead, this incident propelled him to a more mature insight into himself and his view of life, and he then stepped up and took responsibility, now we’ve got a story that takes us somewhere.

The biggest technical problem I see is that there appear to be no consequences for him killing the girl.  At the very least he would be up on charges of First Degree Murder.  Maybe he’s out on bail, but this is a big hole that you could fix with a tiny patch.  Is the psychiatrist evaluating him to determine if he is competent to stand trial?  If so, knowing this would really ground the scene with more definitive stakes.  

With only 3 characters you need to be sure that they each live and breathe.  You could replace the doc with a stranger on a bus, or a stuffed animal, and it wouldn’t change the course of the story.  You need to make it significant that he is a psychiatrist within the context of the screenplay.  And since the entire dramatic question revolves around the girl, we really need to know more about her, unless your intention is that we see the boy as irresponsible monster that he is presented as.  Even though the audience will never hear their names, you should name them for the benefit of the reader.  Otherwise your telling us that these characters are too generic and unimportant to waste time giving them names.

Before you tackle a rewrite, my suggestion would be to focus in on these characters with laser precision.  Make sure you know exactly what you want us to take away from this story.  I don’t think you hit your target with this version (but I’ve been known to be wrong).  Think about how you can externalize the boy’s inner conflict.  This might require that you change, or go beyond, what was in your original short story.   Don’t limit yourself, try different approaches and see if there’s more to this story and these characters than you originally thought.

You have a definite mood in mind for this piece, and it is loaded with emotional potential.  With some serious work, which might mean several rewrites trying different ideas out, you should be able to mold this into a much more powerful story.  

Feel free to contact me with any questions.  Good luck!

-Ray

some thoughts:
'It?s misery' should be 'its misery' in first VO
Kinda hard to believe they were strongly in love and still wanted to end their lives, which would effectively end their relationship.  i would make clear that their relationship was unhealthy, and based more on a sense of shared pain than any deep love.
Dialogue's pretty awkward.  'then use the other bullet on yourself, if you think you must.'  sounds kinda antiquated for a depressed teenager.
He 'gets even more emotional' as her body falls to the floor. Kind of a trite description for just killing someone.

It seems like the whole story depends heavily on us feeling any sympathy for the guy. I don't think theres much romantic about killing a young girl, then not having the balls to finish yourself off.  The reason it works for romeo and juliet (since someone brought it up) is the whole play is them trying to make it work, with huge odds stacked against them, until they finally submit to the impossibility.  For your characters all we have is a general sense of angst without any real problems.  so instead of sympathy for mr 'not sure i did anything wrong' im more inclined to agree with clorox that he deserves a second chance with a loaded gun