Gyroscope by David Clatworthy - Action, Adventure, Children, Teen -  With the help of a gyroscope, Bobby learns to astral travel across the 7 plains to try and save his sister's kidnapped soul before she's lost forever.  90 pages - pdf, format

Action doesn't nerd capitalized only main words and first character intro.

When char speaks and you add childish ext. Its a pathetical use () umder char name.

When splitting dialogue always re- add char name (cont'd)

Ages seem to young to be believeable maybe 13 Dillon and 12 bobby.

No camera directons or we sees. This should be left for shooting script.

I will give you a detailed report of all thw errors I find asap. These were just things I seen the first five pages.

Scenes headings or suglimes are not labeled by number in spec scripts EXT. is exterior INT. Is interior.

I suggest
http://www.screenwriting.info/
For format help.

Pg. 1

EXT. SCHOOL - DAY

Action nor capatalizes. No bold names just caps during first char intro.

Line bobby helping up use () under char name parenthical. Or just add it to previous line as action.

Just FLASHBACK:

Pg. 2

EXT. SCHOOL - EARLIER - DAY

No action caps

Can change to Amy V.O. instead of seperae (voice over) line

DILONN (cont'd) middle dialogue after action.

DILONN (cont'd) botom dialogue

Pg. 3

EXT. SCHOOL - PRESENT - DAY

Bobby parenhical looking at knuckles

I am going to finish reading then tell opinion of story and other errors. I'm not gonna list sugline, action, or parenthical errors as they are every page and I already addresses them plus examples how to fix.

There is clearly an element of a story here, and the character appear to be quite distinct, so this is worth working on.

The main issue here is the formatting - it's not been completed in a way that I recognise.

Have you done shorts before?

Maybe you could try posting a couple of shorts so that you get some good feedback on your formatting (and practice getting it right), before you seriously look to complete a feature length.

SPOILERS***

Overall it was a decent story, several misspells and fragments. Hard on the eyes all bold. A lot of format issues I already addressed.

The storyline was slow evolving. Bobby doesn't enter the plains fully till past mid way. That's roughly 40 min screen time with no action.

I think more of beginning plains should be shown with Bobby and Joshua. It would make Joshua's death more meaningful... So less family and more plains.

BOBBY's dialogue was a bit off for a child IMHO "jeepers creepers"? Not in a modern age vocabulary.

At the end 3 months later write- SUPER: 3 MONTHS LATER to superimpose on screen.

End when cardiac arrest you have nurses come in and then later have Micheal run out and get nurses, so one or the other.

Definitely worth a re-write with proper format and some story changes. Good luck and pm me later if you want another review.

I'll review your script as I have read it:

1) Your formatting is off by a mile, the first lines on the first page (after title page) are almost halfway down and everything is centered.

2) Dialogue problems. When Dilonn is talking to Amy he "SHOVES HER" and then continues talking, when there's a break in dialogue, or an action, add either (SHOVES HER) and the next line. Or break it apart and continue the dialogue with DILONN (cont'd).

3) All of the action is CAPITALIZED which makes it quite unreadable. Action and dialogue should be written the same way, using normal lettering and wording, not using a CAPS on every word, only use CAPS if it's an action, for example: Dilonn WAVES his hand, just using that as an example of course.

4) SCENE underlined. Never have this, if it's a new scene just add EXT. YARD or INT. HALLWAY rather than what you have down, this is a frequent in this script and it's rather annoying.

5) PAGE 3: Your "BOBBY (Mutters)" is off a little. The bracket part is supposed to be over the dialogue part.

6) SARAH'S introduction is off. Her name shouldn't be in dialogue format and have a description underneath. The description should be clear when you first see the character, not before and/or after the dialogue sequence.

7) Some of the other parts of the dialogue are awkward too. Such as on page 82 when "CHANGER" is talking. There's a (HE WHISPERS) part in line with the wording. Always make sure to break this onto the next line when writing dialogue as it helps the actor/actress reading it to get a better feel for their lines.

More dialogue errors occur when you have a character's name at the bottom of the page and continue his dialogue on the next one. If you can't get all of their dialogue onto the page, split it with (MORE) at the last possible line on the page and carry it on with NAME (cont'd) on the next.

9) CAMERA DIRECTIONS. As a relatively new writer here at simplyscripts, I found that adding in camera directions isn't necessary to your spec script. That's for when you meet with the director and the two of you work on a shooting script that can be used to direct camera angles. Never tell a director what to do in a spec-script, always leave camera angles out. You can have OFF SCREEN: Loud thud!; moments but no ANGLE ON or Camera goes up.

Characters can of course move towards camera in a spec-script. But try to leave most of the camera directions out of the spec-script as a director will not pick a script if he has to follow its direction, a director likes to be free to use the angles he wants to.

END OF REVIEW.

All in all it's not a bad script, but the formatting, dialogue issues and action capitalization is off and needs improving. A rewrite is definitely on the cards. Hope that helps.