Vindicate :: SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board

Hey Chris, wow you wrote and posted 4 scripts in a row, huh?  I'd recommend taking a little more time in editing them before posting them as there are lots of mistakes that should have been caught on display here.

Writing-wise, you're showing the same mistakes as you did in My Inferno, however, since this is twice as long, you've got alot more room to make mistakes.

Everything I brought up before still stands...way too much information, too much description, unnecessary description and details, missing punctuation, run-on sentences, poor Slugs, awkward lines, etc.  But again, I can see that you definitely have a talent for writing, and it does show through in places.

As before, you really killed yourself right out of the gate again.  Your opening Slug isn't good, and has problems.  First of all, when you have multiple levels of description in a Slug (which is totally fine and even encouraged by me), you need to start wit the "biggest" (which you did) and then break it down with dashes (which you didn't do).  You also don't want to put a date in your Slug, as it doesn't transfer to film.  You'd need a SUPER, if it's important to you to let the audience know.

And part of the reason I bring this up in this level of detail, is because you want to make sure all your Slugs are consistent with each other, 100% of the time.  For instance, your first and third Slug are exactly the same location but they sure don't read the same, do they?  The only reason they should read differently is if you're using Mini Slugs (and you should have been throughout here, especially since a trailer-home is basically a single open room.  If you have questions on Mini Slugs, what they are and when to use them,, let me know.

The other killer going on is your first passage...a 7 line whopper (don't ever go over 4 lines!) that is made up of 2 awkward sentences containing way too much meaningless detail.

I have to ask...WTF is "the SAP"?  What does that mean?  I don't get it at all.

Story-wise, this is quite brutal...very dark in tone, yet warm and real though the 2 kid's eyes.  It's very sad, yet feels "real" which is a good thing.  I think the eyeball popping out thing is a bit over the top and actually takes away from the power here.

I think you could easily cut an entire page of wasted detail, and add in some better, character building dialogue between the 2 kids, and add to this greatly.

Your final (V.O.) dialogue is a prefect example of what's right and wrong with your writing.  What's right is that you've now grounded this script in reality and even brought in a little sarcasm and cynicism with the National Anthem thing. What's wrong is that you took 8 lines to do it with way too much detail that doesn't need to be told and retold (look how many words are repeated).

IMO, this has potential and is much better than the other script of yours I read, but you need to keep at it and get the basics down, get rid of all the fluff, and let your strong writing breath and stand out.

Good work.