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Lonesome Thunder by Jonathan Malone - Drama - Teenage Jesse Calder has been framed for his brother's murder. Now no one but his hostage can help him. 106 pages - pdf, format
Gotta break up those monster action blocks. Pretty much hit the return button after each period.
These action lines would be called "novelistic". There's a lot of emotionally descriptive material in there than can be cut out while still communicating the scene.
Afternoon sun flickers through autumn leaves above a ratty little house, which despite its poverty-stricken condition is orderly and well-maintained. Within the enclosure of a knee-high picket fence painted blue, gaudy decorations brighten up the front yard, a pink flamingo and a plastic daisy the size of a paper plate, which is designed to turn in the wind like a pinwheel. In the background, an ominous thunderhead flickers with lightning.
First, let's space it out some.
Afternoon sun flickers through autumn leaves above a ratty little house, which despite its poverty-stricken condition is orderly and well-maintained.
Within the enclosure of a knee-high picket fence painted blue, gaudy decorations brighten up the front yard, a pink flamingo and a plastic daisy the size of a paper plate, which is designed to turn in the wind like a pinwheel.
In the background, an ominous thunderhead flickers with lightning.
Then let's leave only about ten to twenty percent of your imagination. (Sux, I know!) Afternoon sun flickers through autumn leaves on a well-maintained yet ratty house.
A blue picket fence corrals a gaudy pink flamingo and spinning plastic daisy the size of a paper plate.
In the background flickers a thunderhead with lightning.
Hang out around the boards here for a while. See how some other screenplays are both formatted and composed. Review some more produced screenplays.
FWIW, you have a pretty decent opening action sequence here. I'm stopping at page thirteen. The story is moving along fine, the formatting is just making it a slog.
JESSE CALDER, a handsome though scruffy and sullen youth emerges upon the front porch, wearing a dark-colored T-shirt under a dark-green wind-breaker. Handcuffed behind his back, he is being escorted by TWO POLICEMEN (POLICEMAN 1 and POLICEMAN 2) from the porch to one of three police cars.
Same problem for me: there is too much writing going on. Would it matter if his windbreaker was light blue? Just tell what the reader needs:
Teenage JESSE CALDER (scruffy, sullen) emerges, handcuffed between two POLICEMEN.
Unless it is important that the arrest is witnessed by the shade tree mechanic, or for the reader to know about the yard decorations, or that ominous cloud, you could cut this entire sequence and open on the squad car interview from the following scene. We'd get that the main character is scruffy and sullen, and catch up on his situation without Grandmother bemoaning the fingerprint evidence, or the cops debating its legality. All it needs is for him to sit impassive while Cop 1 shakes his head. "Whole life ahead of you."
Don't worry about the credits, don't select the soundtrack. Concentrate on dialogue and events. I have no idea what a 1995 Ford Crown Victoria or a 2013 Subaru Legacy look like - all we need to know is a car swerves into oncoming traffic, and the story is away.
Pick up the pace by cutting everything you don't need; with all that jargon in the police radio exchange you manage to render even the car pile up dull.
Simultaneously, both policemen open their doors and begin to get out.
POLICEMAN 1 -- DRIVER (addressing Policeman 2) No, you stay put.
DISPATCHER 3-Baker-7.
POLICEMAN 2 -- PASSENGER SEAT 3-Baker-7.
DISPATCHER 9-01 10-77 eight minutes.
POLICEMAN 2 -- PASSENGER SEAT 10-4.
The one cop needs to get out, but he should order the other one: "Watch him." In other words, stay with Houdini. That's where your story is, not the groggy Woman with her Toddler or the Negligent Driver.
This tendency to overwrite goes on as Jesse escapes, even to the point of letting us know how the sharpened stake that stuck him got split. You ought to realize how it slows the read with something specific:
Jesse catches his breath in the comparative darkness of the crawlspace, which is three feet six inches high ...
I'm wondering if that is enough to squat or double over or have to belly-crawl, or somewhere between. I'm even about to stop reading and get a tape measure to test it out. Is three feet six a standard for building regs? Generous or stingy in the world of crawl spaces? It's that six inches that seem to make the difference. OK. It's a crawl space, big enough to hide in, and that's all we want. upstairs his putative hostage makes herself known but that's page 10 and that's where I stopped. There are loads of typo's and other stuff too, but let's see what others think.
Pretty good log line, will try to look at later. Just wanted to comment that these posts are evidence of the great advice here. Those were really useful instructions. And I laughed loud enough to disturb the dogs when I saw NW3 mention getting a tape measure!
I am new to this game myself, Ray. I liked your breakdown of his action blocks and just used it as inspiration to clean up my own for my entry to the OCW. As a new writer, I appreciate the work you guys do helping teach people how to clean up their scripts.