All-Nighter by Ryan McFarland (ryanmcf10) - Short, Sci Fi, Fantasy - A college student pulling an all-nighter gets sucked into a dream world with his notebook, allowing him to change the laws of Physics in an attempt to escape in time for his exam. 15 pages - pdf, format

Was hoping for a re-imaging of the wonderfully acted John Terlesky film from the 80's.  He's always been, along with Trevor St John, the absolute best of the best when it comes to pure talent and conveyance.  People always look at his work and balk at it, but they seldom give them the time of day or him for that matter.

Anyways, back to topic, I'll check out your script and give a few heads up here when I'm done... But if it isn't holding my attention after 10 pages I'm tossing it in the shit can and then proceed to tell you why.

(-) 1.  You don't space your scenes.  I cannot fuggin' stand this.  Do what you want, but just know it pisses me off and it makes things more cluttered than need be.  It's almost like you're too worried about it being longer or something... Just space the damn scene, 1 time, and be done with it.  Take the step.  It's not hard.  And that's what's so strange here, your writing is very spacious and wide, Feature Loose almost, and yet you didn't do the one step that should be common place.  Go figure.

(-) 2.  You seem to be italicizing shit in your dialogue.  Is that what I'm seeing here?  It looks like shit... Stop it.

(-) 3.  LATER ?? -- Yeah, whatever man.  Waste of 4 lines total... With those lines you could've spaced some of your script.  Think about it.

(-) 4. Over writing all over the place.  "He doesn't know what he's doing"  "Someone's knocking"  Shit like this isn't nessassary.  You show the professor is disheveled, not tell us.  You list the "Knock".  We get it.  I'm pretty sure someone is knocking and it isn't a fake hand on wind up gear (al-a PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE) on the otherside of the door.  

(-) 5.  "Not their previously"  should be THERE.

(-) 6.  "A policeman turns a corner a block head of Jay"?  What the does that even mean?

(-) 7.  I didn't even get to page 10.  I stopped at 7, so I'll give you 3 points by default.

3 out of 10

Verdict -- I didn't finish it because it was boring and too many tiny mistakes took my attention off the story.  And that wasn't hard, by the way.  The story just wasn't interesting to me.

On the fence here. I can see it but I'm not excited about it. I think a wink from Rebecca might have been worth it. Then we might wonder if she really went to the party or was in the dream.

Difficult one to review.

Thought the concept was very good...which is what attracted me to it, but the story you chose to tell with it just didn't have much pop.

It tinkled along well enough and was relatively enjoyable to read, but it had no real point or depth and this wasn't overcome by making the story a completley exciting, imaginative ride.

I'd personally encourage you to have another go using the same concept, but creating a completely different story..one with a bit more bite.

Thanks for the feedback, guys.  It's my first time trying to write something so it's not the best.  I have a few questions though.

1.  What do you mean by "spacing" the scenes?
2.  What do you mean by my "wide and spacious" writing?
3.  When you say I shouldn't write someone knocks in the door, do you mean I should just write KNOCK?

-Ryan

Quoted from ryanmcf10 Thanks for the feedback, guys.  It's my first time trying to write something so it's not the best.  I have a few questions though. 1.  What do you mean by "spacing" the scenes? 2.  What do you mean by my "wide and spacious" writing? 3.  When you say I shouldn't write someone knocks in the door, do you mean I should just write KNOCK? -Ryan

1.  I mean every time you have a new scene slug

                      CUT TO:
EXT. HOUSE - DAY

You should skip one line (like below, not above) and then continue.  

                      CUT TO:


EXT. HOUSE - DAY


2.   I mean your writing is spaced wonderfully within the script.  It's wide and easy to read.  It's not cluttered.  This also pained me because the way you handled transitions and slugs were.

3.  When someone is knocking on the door simply write

A KNOCK at the door.

or

A KNOCK at the door interrupts.

or

A KNOCK interrupts.

You don't need to say someone is knocking at or on the door because we assume someone is already knocking.  Be visual, but be blunt.

Hi,
First off, this reminded me of a film called 'Paper House', watch it, it's good.

So It did have it's problems, A few things in the dialogue weren't exactly how you would expect someone to talk but overall if you omit the afore mentioned mistakes, for a first effort I thought it shows promise, a few rewrites may be in order or as Scar Tissue said earlier, re work the idea.
Anyway, more script reading and more re-writes for you and I'm sure before long you will be producing the goods
Keep at it  

The logline had me interested, the script didn't.

I must say that I was quite frankly bored most of the time. Some of it was due to poor formatting. I'm not perfect but I even think this is poor.

Re-work the idea, be a bit more visual and add more depth to the story then you'll have a great short on your hands.

Keep writing.