Wistful Moments :: SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board

Patrick, I don't know if you're around or not since I don't recognize your name, but if you are, I hope these notes help. I don't mean to sound harsh, and I hope you don't take it that way.

I'm going to agree with Jeff here that this has many problems, just on the first page alone.

First thing, you don't need to put a copyright notice at the top of the first page. You can actually leave the copyright out altogether. In the US (and most other countries, I think), when you write something, it's immediately copyrighted to you.

All right, now onto some real issues. Your first action line is problematic because it's totally passive. In a screenplay, you should keep your action lines in active voice, and avoid passive verbiage. Which means "Nina staring" would be "Nina stares". This just takes practice to get down, and it's something I had trouble with on my first scripts.

You also need to write character names in ALL CAPS when they're first intro'd. You can also specify an age and give a brief description so we know how to picture them. Now, you do give a description of Nina's outfit here, but it's way too detailed and kind of pointless. Just say she's a flight attendent -- don't go into detail describing the whole outfit.

To be honest, you have a lot of redundant description here. Like describing Nina's hair. Or saying she's standing still. Many of these things are either already assumed by the reader, or they aren't relevant to the story. Unless her exact outfit and hair is important to the story, leave it out.

Another issue is the length of the first paragraph. It's huge. It's best to keep action lines at 4 lines or less.

And in the next paragraph, you didn't intro Michelle properly, either.

I don't think your dream sequence is formatted properly, but I'm not an expert on formatting stuff like this, so maybe some others will be able to help you out on that one.

After the dream sequence, your next scene doesn't start with any action lines or anything. You should never start a scene with just dialogue. Even a brief line to set up the scene would work, so we know what we're seeing.

And I don't know what you mean by "present day" in your slug. I'm assuming it's a continuation of the first scene, but the "present day" thing threw me for a second.

Your dialogue isn't great, either. Some of it's kind of on the nose, and sometimes it doesn't make any sense. Like "Do you want to get some help?" "No. I’m not." What? "No, I'm not want to get some help"? I think you mean "No. I don't."

You slug for "OFFICE OF DAILY LIFE ONLINE PUBLISHING" is too long. Maybe something like "PUBLISHING OFFICE" would work better.

You also have some typos throughout ("shinning" should be "shining"), so make sure you proofread before you let anybody else read your script. A typo on the first page screams "amateur" and immediately kills the read.

I'm out at page 2. Sorry man, but this needs a lot of work. Again, I don't want to sound harsh here, but I'm just speaking my mind. Read some pro scripts for a better idea of how it's done, and also read and review some scripts around here to get more reads in return. But most of all, keep writing. When it comes to many of these problems, one of the best ways to improve is to write, rewrite, and then write again.

Hope this helps.

Will