Room 12 by Jime - Short, Fantasy - A  tenant's landlord seems a little fishy. 5 pages - pdf, format

Uh, what was this about?  The fish was the landlord?  There's gotta be more than that, right?  I must have missed something.  You need to tell some kind of story here.

You've got several formatting issues.  First, your character's name is Aaron. That's what you should call him.  Not "the man."  Capitalize Aaron the first time we see him, but not after that.

No need for "cut to" between the scenes.

Your action paragraphs are way, way too big.  They should be 3-4 sentences, tops.

I'd really like to know the idea behind this.

Wow, something special there.
Cam pretty much covered your issues about formatting and paragraph size.
'easily brings the fish to his mouth?'  Is it usually hard?
Definately was expecting something a little more to the story, especially since you went into so much detail with him wandering around and looking at pictures and such. Kind of left with vague disappointment at the end.

I must say I was intriqued by the fish bowl and the box for the cheques, and that a tenant could simply chose any of the vacant rooms.

It had a dreamlike feel to it but the story did not get resolved at all, as there were a lot of loose ends. Why, for example, was the guy in the limo mentioned? Was the landlord a fish? Was this some sort of metaphor?

This felt more like the start to something longer. Despite the overwriting and the things already mentioned, I really wanted to read on.

Best,
H

I haven't read the other comments so I might repeat what others have said.

There are lots of formatting issues. The first thing I noticed is the huge block of text in the first paragraph. My heart sank right from there on.

You could've introduce the man as AARON right from the start. You switched between the man and Aaron back and forth several times. Try to keep it consistent. I'd prefer Aaron more than "the man".

The main problem of your writing is too detail. You wrote in things that are superfluous to the story. For example, Aaron eating a plate of fish, Aaron watches as a limo passes by, a prostitute walks past him, etc.

You also wrote in things that actors will do intuitively. For example, Aaron drops his fork and pulls out a red pen. Does Aaron have to drop his fork before fishing out the pen? Will a black or blue pen make any difference?

My advice is: LESS IS MORE.

Now the story. Sorry, I didn't quite get what your intention is. It seems like Aaron is trapped in a maze, and then the story ends. There is no resolution and I don't feel satisfied.

James

I won't go over the technical issues which are both numerous and distracting since they've been already covered above. Fortunately, these “rules” can be easily  remedied and implemented with practice over time should you choose to heed the helpful advice.

However, on the basis of this crazy (but I must admit enjoyable) little script you come across as someone who does things their own way, via your own vision and random thoughts without any regard for story set up, plot coherence and progression, character development, pay off, etc.

But what can I say, for a four pager it was quite the interesting trip into some weird, cyclical alternative universe this apartment seemed to embody. Check out Jarmusch’s “The Limits of Control” for the same kind of minimalistic repetitious surrealism. This too is a case of either you put reality to the back of your mind for a time and allow yourself to be swept away in this dream like world or you say hold on “What the fu?k is this, I want an explanation” Ironically I’m between the two here, I enjoyed the ride (maybe since it was only 4 pages, thus not taking up too much time…any longer would have surely stretched my tolerance) but yeah I’d also like the authors interpretation of what this is really about or what he is trying to say…or not say.

For the record though, I’ll second Cam’s “The fish was the landlord?” hypothesis and I too hope there is more to it then that.

Col.    

An odd tale James.

I too think this fish is suppose to be the landlord, but why?

You need to sort out your format.  No more than 4 lines per paragraph.  You also have the dreaded we see.  Name your character from the start and not 'Man'.  You also constantly write Aaron in capitals when only the first time is necessary.  You don't need to number the scenes.  No need to number the first page.

That should be enough for now.

Overall, I'm not a fan of this script but the thinking behind this script could lead to a decent script in the future.

All the best,


Javier