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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    Unproduced Screenplay Discussion    Short Scripts  ›  The Dinner Moderators: bert
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Don
Posted: August 28th, 2014, 8:41pm Report to Moderator
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So, what are you writing?

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The Dinner by Glenn Doyle - Short, Horror, Thriller - Colin brings Jessica to an annual dinner to meet his family for the first time, but there is a disturbing reason the family were so eager to have her as a guest. 12 pages - pdf, format


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IamGlenn
Posted: August 29th, 2014, 3:18am Report to Moderator
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Hey
This is my first completed piece of work.
Took time out from writing my feature to write this one.

Any thoughts are welcome.

Glenn


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DustinBowcot
Posted: August 29th, 2014, 6:00am Report to Moderator
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Code

JESSICA
I’m trying. First time meeting the
family though. Obviously I’m
nervous. It’s only been a couple of
months too. Rather soon if you ask
me.



Be wary of talking too much. This is spoon feeding information and the dialogue is unnatural as a consequence. Always look for ways to tell things visually first. If you can't, then bury the exposition beneath a dramatic moment.

Code

COLIN
We only see each other like once a
year because we all live so far
apart. This date was chosen some
time ago. I’m sorry if it came a
little too soon for you.



Again, the couple would already know this information. I know we don't, but this could be delivered in smaller bites throughout the script.

Code

It’s a large country house with a long driveway. The car
comes up the driveway. Three cars are already parked
outside.



We should already know it's a house from the slug. You've also written driveway twice in the same action block. The action block itself is also messy. It's three separate shots... and if it can be done in one, then I'm a believer in doing it in one sentence mostly. There are times for effect when stuttering sentences work great... but generally speaking we should try and write as fluidly as possible. Get inventive with your sentences... keep people interested. At the moment, your descriptive action blocks read little better than shopping lists.


I'm up to page 5 and I'm thinking now that the whole meet and greet thing was pointless. So has the whole trip in the car.

Code

FRANK
So, Jessica, Colin tells us you
have a very important job.



That should be the start of your script. That tells us everything. No need for all the exposition from earlier. Intro your characters.... good actors will be able to show a lot without saying much at all. So, during the intro, you have your couple, the parents and the sibling... and during that intro, you will cleverly impart some information that actors can use to show character.

Then that line of dialogue tells us everything we need to know in an instant. They are Colin's parents and he is bringing his gf around for the first time.

Code

The group are all now eating dinner. All have a plate of
food in front of them and there’s sides in the center of the
table.



Code

There’s flashes of
lightening in the night sky.



There are sides... there are flashes. So the contraction would be there're. Is is singular, are is plural.

So they feed her to grandpa. Why couldn't he have steak? Why is he the only cannibal and chained up in the basement? Why are they so willing to feed him?

A weird tale that leaves more questions than answers for me. A lot more pages than there needs to be too. This is a 3 pager. There isn't enough story for 11 pages, IMO.

Hopefully you get something from what I've written. If not, feel free to discard it.
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IamGlenn
Posted: August 29th, 2014, 6:28am Report to Moderator
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Thanks for the read, Dustin.

Of course I won't be discarding your remarks. I'm new and feedback like you've given is vital. Thank you for it.

I suppose I had the car scene just to show Jessica was nervous and to show they were travelling a distance.
I see what you mean about the dialogue being unnatural at times when I'm trying to get points across to the audience. It's something I'm working on.

Same with the action lines. I know at times they don't read great at all and I've got to work on that.

And yep, using the singular instead was a bad mistake. Didn't notice that.

As for the ending, because it was a short, I didn't want to go into the details of why it was happening. I just wanted to show that this family were twisted and done it before. I just wanted it to be a surprise to the audience and I am aware it leaves questions unanswered,

Really appreciate the feedback.
Thanks a million.


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bert
Posted: August 30th, 2014, 9:20am Report to Moderator
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For a first effort, you've got nothing to be ashamed of here.  Everything reads smooth and you never lost me.  You have (perhaps) too many characters, but I was able to keep track just fine, which is often harder than it sounds.

Technically, all seems fine, though I do have some broad comments on this one -- just my opinion to take or leave.

For starters, horror is my genre of choice, and for me, given the title and logline, I knew exactly where this was going before I had even opened the file.  Just saying.  You might consider changing one or both of these.

Jumping to the end now, I am generally not a fan of the ambiguous endings.  They are more common in short scripts, of course, and sometimes I can buy into it, sometimes I don't.  When I do, it is because the unanswered questions seem significant and worthy of additional pondering.  When I don't, it is because it feels a bit lazy on the part of the author.

Here, I do not buy into it.  The question, "What is Gramps?" does not feel weighty enough to support this piece, and it feels more like you do not know what ol' Gramps is, either -- so chalk it up to something for the audience to think about.

For me, this piece is too long to not deliver a decent payoff.  Like Dustin, I feel this story might benefit from a trim.  For example, everything in the car after page one can probably go.  The whole concept of "games night" does not seem to be adding much but undue length.    

But the biggest problem is that I am feeling the need for proper closure here -- we need to see Gramps -- to see what Jessica sees -- even if it is only a quick shot.  Otherwise, there is not much new going on here at your dinner table.

Again, a good first effort, though.  Really.  I would read a rewrite if Gramps is in it haha.


Hey, it's my tiny, little IMDb!
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IamGlenn
Posted: August 31st, 2014, 4:08am Report to Moderator
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Thanks Bert, for the read and your thoughts.

I agree with what you're saying about the title and logline. All seems pretty obvious but for the life of me, I couldn't think of a better one.

I see what your saying about the length as well. I think this is mainly due to this being my first completed piece, I wanted as much dialogue as possible, almost as if practicing.

As for the payoff, I chose not to show anything because I'm working on something else at the moment with a similar premise. In this one you'll see a lot more and everything will be explained and I suppose I didn't want the two to be too similar.
However, I do think I could have shown, at least, a glimpse of "gramps" as I think the end does read weak.

Thanks a million for your thoughts. Proper criticism like this will only help. Also, thanks for the positives. It's nice to know I'm not failing miserably at this stage.

Cheers.


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Gum
Posted: September 2nd, 2014, 7:58pm Report to Moderator
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Hey Glenn,

Ya, this was creepy. Left me with a big ol’ knot in my stomach… therefore, well done.

I see Dustin and Bert have chimed in with some (very) useful feedback so I really can’t bang on without being a mimic. I will say, however, that the takedown scene (of Jessica) was a little light with respect to the genre you’re trying to push.  I mean, if the ‘Fam’ really IS a gaggle of ‘Sick F*cks’ (as Jessica so eloquently states), then why not make them a bunch of really, really sick f*cks…

I dunno, maybe something gritty and urbane like;

Colin
Hey Jess… is it just me, or does this rag smell like chloroform?

Jessica
Scuse’ me?!

As she beelines it for the door; Colin trips her… then Grandma cracks her upside the head with the butt end of a 17 ounce pool cue.

… just an afterthought really, but I did get a kick out of what you got here. Best of luck!
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Colkurtz8
Posted: September 3rd, 2014, 7:07am Report to Moderator
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Glenn
  
“EXT. COUNTRY ROAD (NIGHT)”

- I’m not a stickler for format, I believe you should take what makes sense to you, to make the script more readable, and discard what doesn't. However, the common format for sluglines is EXT. LOCATION – TIME. In other words, no brackets. I don’t care but others will point it out, maybe some have already.

“A car drives down the straight country road.”

- No need to say “country road” as it’s in the slugline, saves space to always adhere by that rule.

"The window wipers dash furiously back and forth to beat the
heavy rain off the windshield."

- That scene opening, man and woman in a car, wipers going ninety reminds me of “Blood Simple” Not a bad thing of course, although I’ve no idea what genre this script is as I always read scripts on here totally blindsided. I'm waiting to hear the noise of muffled shouts from the boot

JESSICA
I’m trying. First time meeting the
family though. Obviously I’m
nervous. It’s only been a couple of
months too. Rather soon if you ask
me.

- Decent dialogue so far but this does feel a bit like exposition, that Jessica is telling us the information rather than it being realistic conversation these two people would have in this particular situation. How about shortening it to:

“Hey, I’m nervous. This is all happening…so soon, you know” Or something to that effect. The “hey” suggests she’s a bit on edge while the pause before “too soon” shows she’s aware that it could come off as undermining their nascent relationship. Ok, maybe I’m reading too much into here but there is definitely no need for Jessica to say “First time meeting the family though” as we’ve already gathered that from the preceding conversation.

COLIN
We only see each other like once a
year because we all live so far
apart. This date was chosen some
time ago. I’m sorry if it came a
little too soon for you.

- I appreciate you’re wrestling between giving us the information without, again, being, expository, finding that balance is fundamental to good dialogue...but this can be streamlined to something less informative. We don’t need all that detail anyway, this would have been discussed between them before now. Just give us enough to get the impression that this dinner is an occasion in Colin’s family, its important.

“INT. HALLWAY/ COLIN’S FAMILY’S HOUSE (MOMENTS LATER)”

- Its custom, and make more sense, to put the primary location first and specify whereabouts within that location second i.e. INT. COLIN’S FAMILY’S HOUSE -  HALLWAY – MOMENTS LATER

“Jessica is visibly embarrassed by the remark.”

- It’s a fairly innocuous comment to be fair on Frank’s part but it’s funny how its only Jessica that’s made uncomfortable by it and not the family, not even Colin. A good and subtle indicator or what this family is going to like.

“The group are all now eating dinner. All have a plate of
food in front of them and there’s sides in the center of the
table.”

- To your credit, you've kept the prose pretty sparse so far but just taking the above as an example, you could probably tighten this up to something like:

“The group eat dinner. Each have plates before them with sides along the table’s centre”

- You can see that the information is retained it’s just presented in a more lean way.

“Karen hands over a bowl of potatoes to her son, wearing a
grin on her face.”

- I’m liking the outwardly overt friendliness of the family, they almost seem like robots, its unsettling in a good way. I’m thinking there is something more sinister lurking underneath…or not and I’m reading it all wrong, they are just nice Anyway, reading on…

TOM
Oh, thank you.

KAREN
That’s it. Jessica probably thinks
I raised my children without
manners.

- Cool, this was the weird undercurrent I was talking about, they’re all a bit too chirpy aren’t they…

“Colin puts a hand on Jessica’s shoulder, as if to thank her.”

- Ha, that made me laugh, I’m digging the tone you are going for here.

JESSICA
NO!! PLEASE! YOU SICK FUCK’S!!

- Drop the comma in “f?cks”

Although I could a twist of some sort going, that is the nature of these scenarios, I didn't really respond to the direction in which you took it, seen it before, nothing new. From my page by page notes you’ll notice I loved the veneer of cleanliness and friendliness with the family, it gave things that underlying creepiness. There was some humour in there too so you weren't sure if they were just too nice and willing to please or if it were all an act to obscure something darker…When it was revealed to be the latter it fell a bit flat as its territory we've all entered before, the most obvious conclusion given the premise.

Like many a haunted house/cabin the woods films, once the scare is revealed, it all becomes infinitely less intriguing. This suffered from a similar problem in my opinion.

I wonder would you consider going to other way and playing with the idea of the family being desperate for Colin to find Ms. Right? Perhaps we find out he has some debilitating feature, a deformity, that totally turns woman off which Jessica only learns about at this annual family dinner. This is what the occasion is for, to see if she will stick around in spite of this unpleasant revelation.

It could be played for laughs as well as horror. Colin seems nice, handsome, rich, etc. His family seem friendly…almost too friendly but Jessica is willing to play along and appease them because she realises she’s snagged a winner. As the dinner goes on, Colin’s deformity or whatever is revealed and Jessica’s moral character is put to the test. The family confront her as one, seeing whether she’ll crack and flee like the rest of them or stick by Colin despite what she now knows. Maybe you could direct some of the family’s conversation towards Jessica to topics of shallowness and what Jessica likes in people, what kind of a person she see herself as being, etc. We think they're just sussing her out in a very blatant manner, which they are, but for a much more specific reason that we find out later. Of course Jessica gives all the right answers, talks herself up but is clearly horrified by whatever the secret about Colin is when it’s shown/explained. The family then repeat her previous answers back to her as if to say “Well, you said you were this, that and the other” “Beauty is only skin deep” “it’s the person inside that counts” etc “so what are you going to do now?” Again, this could be all played for laughs, like the ultimate boyfriend’s family-from-Hell type thing. How Jessica reacts I’ll leave up to you.

You see, everyone is going to be expecting you go dark and bloody, that’s where we’re at in the culture. To be honest, that where it’s always been, we have a morbid fascination with violence, nothing revelatory there. Which is why it would be cool for you to put a twist on the old cliché, venture down a path less traveled, cos they all have, to some degree, by this point.

Anyway, just throwing some ideas out there, I realise I’m suggesting you change the whole tone of your script which is probably something you don’t want to do.

In your defense, the writing is pretty solid and focused, not too much extraneous detail and you structured the story nicely, built it to its conclusion.

Overall, not bad, clear potential here, just maybe look to working in some extra twists and surprises as most people will see the reveal coming long before it does.

Col.


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IamGlenn
Posted: September 3rd, 2014, 8:14am Report to Moderator
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AsfarasSiam,
Thanks for the read. Much appreciated.

Glad to hear you thought it was creepy as that was definitely the vibe I was trying to put across.

I agree with the ending too. Reading back, the ending just reads too light and after the build up it's not rewarding enough. Maybe a re-write is in order.

Thanks for your thoughts

Col,
Thank you for the read and all of your thoughts.

I'm glad you found the family to be weirdly too nice as I was trying to portray their unsettling creepiness through that, especially the mother.

Since writing this I've changed my sluglines to be bracket-less. Which I prefer, as brackets are a bit of a pain.

At the start I know I over cooked the dialogue to push information out. 2nd draft will be trimmed. Promise

Some action lines will also be trimmed.

I appreciate your thoughts on the twist and it's really just down to me wanting to tell a story of a twisted family. I get what you mean though, that it's not really anything new and been seen before. I'll just have to work on my twists because I do like a good twist.

Also, the style of ending you just thought of there has probably given me an idea for another story. Would be interesting and weird. Thanks.

Thanks for all the comments and your kind words. Very much appreciated.
Cheers


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AnthonyCawood
Posted: September 3rd, 2014, 10:21am Report to Moderator
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Hi Glenn

I'll try and not repeat what's already come up, but I'm sure I will at some point

All just my opinion of course.

Formatting.
Pretty decent for a first effort, certainly better than my first effort. Personally I'd lose some of the Continuous, think it's implied in the way the script is constructed.

I think you can review the use of 'the' in the script and what follows it, here's a couple of examples where things could be changed to make the script a bit snappier.
Pg 3 'The car parks. Colin...' Could be 'Colin parks and the pair get out'
Pg 2 'The rain continues to batter...' Could just be 'Rain continues..'

Some of the sluglines can be tightened, e.g.
INT. DINING ROOM/ COLIN’S FAMILY’S HOUSE (CONTINUOUS)
could be
INT. FAMILY DINING ROOM
I think the fact that it's in Colin's family home is implied.

(Pause) is normally (Beat) in a screenplay... but these days largely unused...

Story.
I like the build up, though as mentioned, I think there's a little too much exposition in first few pages. I think some of the elements can be introduced later, e.g. the fact that they only get together once year can be in dialogue when they get there. "God, has it been a year already" type of thing.

I think there's definitely something clearly going on and an unsettling undertone that is established well.

But there were occasions where I was confused as to where the events take place, is this UK or US? E.g. you use slacks and Mom implying US, but the house feels English and they're going to play Cluedo (just called Clue in the US). I think the story works in either setting but worthwhile tidying it so everything is consistent with one place.

The ending for me is where I think you can enhance the story. It's fairly clear that this is where it's going fairly early on, but, as you said above, you wanted to take it this way. Fair play... BUT I still think there's room to enhance... e.g. earlier in the script you make a point of referencing that they only meet once a year and the date was set well in advance... could this be for a date related reason? Or maybe there's no 'main course' initially served... because she's it... you get the idea... same ending but with a more specific twist.

All in all, enjoyable and interesting read... great for a first script too.

Anthony


Anthony Cawood - Award winning screenwriter
Available Short screenplays - http://www.anthonycawood.co.uk/short-scripts
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JimiLamp
Posted: September 3rd, 2014, 5:04pm Report to Moderator
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Glenn,

Nice job on this. You have some good notes here. Most of what I could add we probably be a re-hash. I do really agree that between the title and log you are giving too much away. Maybe try to add a bit more mystery there.

Also agree the payoff isn't quite there. Overall, I like the idea a lot but seems out of balance on a whole. I also think the slow burn/prolonged opening could work if not only the end was ramped up but if things got progressively creepier and crazier until we are smacked with the end. I like the nonchalant nature of the family but what if they kept that vibe and but maybe tied her down at dinner. Add some some different elements that gives more info or a sense of what grandpa is? Who the family is?

I get the idea of playing it cool and the vague ending. Sometimes that works but I'm not sure it does here. At least for me. I want more.

It might be interesting if you really pushed the limits with this idea. Took it to some really strange places. Really squeezed the horror out of it.

Apologies if these weren't the most cogent notes. In a bit of a hurry. But fantastic job on a first script. I'd like to read rewrite. Good luck.
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IamGlenn
Posted: September 4th, 2014, 5:25am Report to Moderator
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Jimi and Anthony,
Thank you both for the read.

Anthony,

I'm working hard on tightening up those action lines. Too bulky for my liking, definitely!

As for the UK/USA thing- I wrote this to be as universal as possible. I'm from Ireland and wrote Mom because it's used in the US but everyone know's what it means and I really didn't know Cluedo was Clue in the States. Thanks for that.

And yep, the ending definitely needs work. I'll be looking into that.

Jimi,

The title and logline are problems and I'll try fix them up.

I see what you mean about the end and I am thinking of an idea to rev it up a bit.

Thank you both for the read and thoughts
Appreciated



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Martymcnugget1971
Posted: September 28th, 2023, 8:12pm Report to Moderator
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Stumbled upon this script.  

Dialogue was hit or miss well mostly miss sad to say.
in my opinion it got a little better toward the end.  
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