Genesis by Dale Trett - Short, Horror, Mystery - When an infection breaks, surviving the plague is the last problem for a group of youths. - pdf, format

Hey guys,

I'm sorry for my lack of comments here, but honestly, I don't consider myself a good enough 'writer' to hand out constructive comments upon others. I still have so much to learn, and to improve on what I have learned from y'all. (countless thanks for that, by the way!) But if you could give me your opinion and advice I will try to read and comment on your own work. Will mostly be praises, of course.

Welcome to the boards Dale. One of the best ways to learn is to read other scripts: the good and the bad.

Your comments don't have to go beyond liking or not liking a script. If you read one, you're sure to like something about it, or dislike something about it. That's all feedback is about.

One of the things you'll discover when you struggle to figure feedback on a script, is that you're going through the actual learning process there and then - so don't deny yourself that process - you'll find it vital.

I'll give my feedback on yours so you'll have something in the bag, and hopefully you'll return on some work here.

Your first line begins to give the game away:
"A vast, remote town quiets down for the evening."
-- is called a car-scrash of a sentence.
Is it a remote town in a vast wilderness?
The way you have written it, makes it look like a vast town in the middle of nowhere.
Quiets down for the evening?

Sentence three:
"A pretty women, (30), walks into a grocery aisle..."
I hope she's okay, that sounds painful.

"she pushes her child, (2), in a pram."
Worra bitch. What's the child done? I guess you mean she pushes a pram, with a child in it.

"She notices a man across the aisle, he’s hunched over, facing the shelves."
You need a full stop instead of the first comma, as you're making clauses that don't have a subject.

In short, your writing needs some attention. Screenwriting is an adapted form of writing, so your basic writing needs to be fairly solid, or your script-writing will inevitably be weak.

Good luck with it, and I hope to see you posting soon.

Dale, you're not going to learn how to read/critique scripts unless you do it.  And doing it will help you get your scripts read.

Read someone's script and write down a paragrapg or two of what you think (you don't have to post it).  Then compare it to what everyone else says.  If you, generally, agree with everyone, then you're doing good.  If you disagree with everyone, figure out why.


Phil

Dale,

I can't speak for anyone, but I don't think "praises" are what fellow SSers are looking for... I mean sure who doesn't want to be praised, vindicated in their work and liked by all the cool kids... but what I think is more important is your honest (yet tasteful) feedback on what works, what doesn't, what you liked, what you didn't. I don't think you need to agree with what everyone else has said on a thread, but what you do write, good or bad, just make sure you can back it up with a "why", so that others can take your feedback back to lab and improve upon what they already finished. Just as  you are looking for... that being said, jump in, read a few scripts, speak your thoughts. Some will agree, some will disagree, but no one is going to belittle you for expressing your opinions, as long as they are given in a respectful manner IMO.

SS is a great community and they appreciate those who contribute to the community, it's a give and take relationship. Even if you feel you have little to offer, an efforts is always good.

I'll take a read when I can get some time, and try and give you feedback.

Best,
Kev

Dale,

I see what you mean about not having experience/knowledge, but really... just jump in and give your feedback. You don't have to be an expert on format to know whether or not you like a story. It's all just opinions, anyway.

I started reviewing scripts here before I really knew what I was doing. Maybe I wasn't so great at first, but hey... reviews are reviews, and everyone appreciates them. And, reviewing scripts is a good way to improve your own writing, as well as your knowledge of screenwriting.

Don't feel obligated to give just nice opinions. We don't post scripts for that. I agree with Kev, it's more helpful to get honest reviews.

Anyway, I took a look at your script, and caught some problems. FADE IN goes to the right... some redundant action lines here and there... and improper character intros. Not to mention you wrote "women" instead of "woman".

It's best not to repeat what you say in your slug, so avoid this if possible. Like for instance, your slug is "EXT. TOWN - EVENING", and your first action sentence is "A vast, remote town quiets down for the evening". Not only did you refer back to your slug (the town), but you also rehashed the time of day (evening).

Like I said, your character intros aren't right, which is weird since they're fine in the next scene. In my opinion, you should write ALL character names in CAPS when you intro them. Also, it's best to give them actual names, rather than "woman" and "man". Even "pretty woman" and "tall man" are better than generic titles.

You've got some other errors with the writing itself, primarily grammar. I saw some comma splices, which are separate sentences fused together by commas, it doesn't read well, watch out for those.

Like "she notices a man across the aisle, he’s hunched over". Two separate sentences... fused together into one awkward sentence.

Sorry, but 23 pages is a bit long for me, at least until you contribute to the boards. Hope this helps.

Will

Dale,

Okay so I read your script... I won't go into grammar or proper format, only because there are far better people on here that can point that out for you. Although, one thing I'll mention is, when you are moving from one location to another continuously, you don't need to write out the full slug...

INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT
Kelly SCREAMS. The infected turn and POUND on the basement door.
INT. BASEMENT - NIGHT
Kelly helps a limping Charlie to the door. They hold onto each other.
The infected SCRATCH and BANG on the door. The deformed family stand at the bottom of the steps.

Once you establish the loaction, ie the Interior of the house here, you could just write it like this....

INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT
Kelly SCREAMS. The infected.....

BASEMENT
Kelly helps a limping Charlie to the door....


or since you had already established the house location it could be...

HALLWAY
Kelly SCREAMS. The infected....

BASEMENT
Kelly helps a limping Charlie to the door...

It'll just save you on word count and we know it is continuous.

Okay onto the meat and potatoes.... story.

----SPOILER ALERT-----

You crammed a lot in here, it felt like you tried to tie in all the horror sub-genres - Zombies/infected, the Occult, the Inbreds, and Aliens Oh and then a religious element too. I think you forgot the paranormal aspect....

Its an ambitious idea, but I don't think it was executed all that well. It gets confusing, it gets repetitive and it gets a bit silly... Adam and Eve, a bit on the nose with the names, and aren't they Brother and Sister? They're going to repopulate the species, is this what you are saying? Haven't we just learned how ugly and unhealthy inbreeding is? LOL Oops I just remembered they are suppose to be adopted... scratch that last thought.

Honestly I think you need to go back and stick to one idea and sub-genera and then add something new to it. Perhaps stick with one couple too, all their backstories got a little confusing... there is talk about going for the mother but then nothing happens, talk about getting a gun but then he gets caught up looking as some bones, when the infected are just outside the door... It all had a sense of being forced together.

What could be funny if you wanted to go in that direction, is have one couple go through all these various situations just to end up being taken by Aliens as breeders. I would think it funny 'cause that sounds like one messed up town, and they keep running into the most F'd up situation while trying to escape a town of Infected. Well it would be funny to me.

The characters seem a little too two dimensional (but that could be because you have too many characters here). Their emotional, last moments together feel off and forced, melodramatic, making it corny to read. Not that you can't have these moments but they need to be rewritten.

Again, this is a short story, I think you need to lean it down, you cram too much in and the story and character's gets lost in all the mess. You just need to focus it a bit more. Or perhaps expand this into a feature length script where you can flesh out the characters a little better.

But I would think about rewriting the ending... What if as the infected are about to get Adam and Eve, they are killed by the Aliens/Humans, have the explanation take place there, they look out the window again and see the space craft, maybe they weren't suppose to run from the house but they did. Now that all is cleared up Adam and Eve board the ship hand in hand as the world burns down in chaos.... something to think about, at the moment the ending isn't working for me. They wake up in their house but its not their house its a spaceship and the Alien/human guy in black is like "actually this is my house biatch" Ok I'm paraphrasing a bit. But I mean he comes in and says oh you weren't suppose to see that, but they just thought it was a dream, the Aliens were in the clear, why bother spoiling the ruse now? The point is, it comes off a little silly.

-----END SPOILER ALERT---------

I hope some of this helps. At the end of the day, this was a good effort, and with some retooling, it could be a fun little short.

Best of luck, keep writing.
Kev

Thank you for giving it a chance!   Kev, you were ridiculesly helpful, so thank you ecpecially.  I've just started your 'Vampires in Sunland' will get back to you when I finish!

I have a lot to learn, and a hell of a lot of scripts to read.  Thanks again.


"Yes, that's right.  I had the lazane."

Hey Dale,

if you want to read Vampires in Sunland this is my updated version:

http://kevenalbers.com/scripts/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Vampires-in-Sunland-20DEC12.pdf

and we're all still learning, that's why we are here...

Best,
Kev

Will and Kev covered most of the big issues. I didn't read much because I saw that the first characters you introduced weren't capitalized, however you did capitalize the next group of characters you introduced. Gotta keep it consistent.

The dialogue seemed a little stilted. Having the characters each discuss their relationship to one another in the first two lines of dialogue is usually not a good sign. See if you can add some subtleties to the way to convey information without saying it outright.

Keep writing.

- Kurt

Hey Dale,

I gave this a quick read, I’ll be honest and say that I skimmed a lot of it due to some clumsy opening pages which need to be cleaned up.

I didn’t mind the ending, a nice little twist although I could see if offend certain people. It actually saved this one from being a total disaster I’m afraid. As soon as they woke up on the couch, I thought you were going down the old “it was all a dream” scenario and I was about to give you some heat about it but then those last couple of pages added a new spin. So for that, good work! I guess when thinking about it that I shouldn’t have been surprised when you consider the names.

The major problem here is the opening 22 pages which tell the exact same story I’ve seen time over.

SPOLIER!

Some twenty something guys and girls getting killed in the same cliché locations by the infected (zombies) in gruesome ways and that’s the problem. You spend so long on the deaths of characters that don’t matter to give the actual characters that do matter like 4 pages to shine right at the end.

Also keep an eye on the dialogue, try to keep it realistic and not change the tone – there is one scene (I think it was Charlie & Kelly’s?) when the girl tells him it’s a bad idea to be down in the basement. The guy kinda puffs at the statement before the inevitable happens and he gets stabbed but his response of “you were right” straight afterwards didn’t bode well with me in the context of the situation. It came across very comedic.

I’ve just read through the comments and see that you’re a bit apprehensive about leaving feedback. There really is no reason to be like that, I think you’ll find that reading and reviewing other scripts really will help you improve as a writer.

I wish you the best with this, cut a lot of the superfluous details and concentrate on the characters that matter – who are these people and why should I care or want to follow their story?

Good luck and keep writing.

Steve

Dale, this piece is a little long for a short, so I just read the log line and the first page to see if anything jumped out at me.  Let's start with the Log Line:

When an infection breaks, surviving the plague is the last problem for a group of youths.

I think you mean "When an infection breaks out..."  When a fever breaks, for example, the fever is typically ending.

"Surviving the plague is the last problem for a group of youths."  The last problem?  Does this mean there are a lot of other problems before this plague even spreads?  I don't know if you mean it's the least of their problems or it really is the last problem after a series of problems.  This needs some re-working, because I really don't know what it means.

Page 1:
A pretty women, (30), walks into a grocery aisle.   That should be a singular woman.  You do it again two lines down.  And then again three lines down.

Further down:
Five attractive young adults, (22-24), drink beers.  Beers should be singular, just like popcorn and pizza.

KELLY lays over the arm’s of a chair;  s/b arms since it's not possessing anything.

I stopped after that...it's not that you have a bad story.  You just need a lot of editing work to be done here.  I would re-edit and re-post and we'll take another look at it.

Gary