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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    One Week Challenge    February 2015 One Week Challenge  ›  The Wandering Bus - OWC Moderators: Mr. Blonde
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  Author    The Wandering Bus - OWC  (currently 3365 views)
Don
Posted: February 15th, 2015, 10:04am Report to Moderator
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So, what are you writing?

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The Wandering Bus by Robert Quarles - Short - A young girl learns about the wandering bus from a stranger after she runs away from home. - pdf, format


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Reef Dreamer
Posted: February 15th, 2015, 2:44pm Report to Moderator
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Wandering bus

like the idea already. the longline works for me as well.

SPOILERS

Five characters in the first half page - bit too many for my taste

always like sounds like SCREECH - on a very wet road! - in reality they probably would use this sound effect

Now that they die, i think you could avoid the number of characters and their intro's

EXT. COBBLED STREET - how many of those are there? brit writer?

wow - now 1969 - this is a time traveller -not that thats bad, just saying

There is something predictable in the concept, but i liked it. I like the party bus for the lost soul, the person running away. A kind of false dawn for those seeking to escape from a real hell. But, can you get away in time? Can you call it a day when you need to?

Liked it.


My scripts  HERE

The Elevator Most Belonging To Alice - Semi Final Bluecat, Runner Up Nashville
Inner Journey - Page Awards Finalist - Bluecat semi final
Grieving Spell - winner - London Film Awards.  Third - Honolulu
Ultimate Weapon - Fresh Voices - second place
IMDb link... http://www.imdb.com/name/nm7062725/?ref_=tt_ov_wr
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Dreamscale
Posted: February 15th, 2015, 6:37pm Report to Moderator
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As I go...

Opening Slug is poor - LARGE HOUSE?  Really?  So many better ways to start...

Opening passage is cliche and using "house" in your opening line is another poor choice.

No ages whatsoever for these 5 Revellers?  Absolutely no reason not to give some indication as to how old these folks are.

Last passage, starting with Claude is not correctly broken up...not even close.  Probably should be 3 separate passages, in reality.

"Claude, brushes..." - why is there a comma here?  Really?

Page 2 - Hmmm, you use "LARGE HOUSE" again as your Slug, and your action line is, "The bus roars down the road." - How is this even remotely set within that Slug?

Comma use throughout is very, very poor.  Another writer who needs to read up on punctuation.  No excuse for some of these mistakes...

Page 3 - "MODERN HOUSE" - Really?

"It's now present day." - And I'm now gone.  C'mon...seriously?  You used a SUPER correctly in your intro, why now would you write this and not use another SUPER?

Seriously...unreal.

Sorry, I'm out and irritated.
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nawazm11
Posted: February 16th, 2015, 4:32am Report to Moderator
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A lot of characters introduced at once, separate them into their own paragraphs starting with their names, a lot better than what you have right now.

Not entirely sure if I can back Jen on the ending. In what way does it sound like a fairy tale? Sounds like a nightmare really. There was this script on the last Black List where a woman finds she can go to this sitcom-like world at will, where everything's right and it pales in comparison to her real shitty life. I think you were trying to do something similar here but it just didn't work. There's a good idea here, but the audience needs be behind the character decisions and understand their reasoning. Not bad, could be better.
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wonkavite
Posted: February 16th, 2015, 9:36am Report to Moderator
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Oooo.  I rather like this one.  

IMHO, it does need a bit of tightening.  At first, the date of the original bus threw me for a loop: were there buses and cars back then?  (Answer per Wikipedia - yes, there were.)  But that's my own historical ignorance, and not a negative against the script.

The number of characters and vantage point switches threw me as well.  IE: from the bus, to Olivia to Jenna.  But as everything merged, the story made sense and it wasn't as much as issue.

Since it's an OWC, the writing could do with a bit of a polish to bring it to full potential.  Get rid of passive sentences, etc.  But definitely nice job. Haunting.
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khamanna
Posted: February 16th, 2015, 11:34am Report to Moderator
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This is a nice story. It's easy to folow, to understand. It's got a great ending.

I iked the way you moved from Olivia to Jenna and then back to Jenna again.

Maybe you could tell us more about Jenna and her probem. A bit more to make us root for her.

You kept me glued to the screen. The only thing is - you introduced far too many characters at the beginning at once. Actually the only ones you need are Hilda, Claude and Olivia at the beginning. There are more than that. Marcella and Dean... - do you need these two.

You can say there are five but introduce only the ones that we see at the end as well - Hilda and Claude. And Olivia of course.

They say the same thing for the first 3 pages - "what a night" "shame it's over" "we should continue" "night last forever" - maybe they could say something concrete instead. Like they still have several bottles to keep them going or something
Jenna on p4 could say something concrete about her parents perhaps to make the read more interesting.

It's a really good choice and I'm glad you kept this simple. A really good read!
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bert
Posted: February 16th, 2015, 12:49pm Report to Moderator
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This is a very nice concept you've got here.  Not one I have heard before, but ripe with potential.

Once I got to the end, however, I decided that Olivia's story was way more interesting than Jenna's.

For me, I would streamline this, and just tell Olivia's story without shoe-horning in a bunch of flashbacks for Jenna's sake.  My opinion, anyway.  But I also like what you've got.  Has a nice vibe to it.

The argument between Mother and Father was pretty lame, though.  If you keep that, it really needs more meat to it.


Hey, it's my tiny, little IMDb!
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stevie
Posted: February 16th, 2015, 7:27pm Report to Moderator
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Dug this one. Ok it needs a really good rewrite to fix the grammar and formatting probs but the cool concept - very Stephen Kingish - shines through.

I didn't Google to see what the urban legend is/was as I can't be bothered. But this stands alone anyway as a neat story.

Fix it up, tighten a few nuts and bolts and its a gem



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Iancou
Posted: February 16th, 2015, 9:54pm Report to Moderator
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Not to be repetitive, there is potential here. Kind of reminds me of some of the old pulp fiction shorts from Weird Tales. The hardest part would be filming the old bus... not many around now that run and are in decent shape. Finding one overgrown and in the middle of the woods would be fairly easy... and probably inhabited by somebody that's homeless.


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EWall433
Posted: February 17th, 2015, 1:11am Report to Moderator
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I liked this one a lot, if only because it feels very complete. There may be room for a little more tension. Olivia discovering what’s going on by reaching into her pocket isn’t the most imaginative choice, but overall this works well. I like the emotionally ambiguous ending (I also think it ends at the exact right moment). Should we feel happy or sad for Jenna? Should we want her to go or stay? To that end you could probably make the parents more unpleasant. Not insane, just mean enough that we wouldn’t want her to be around them any more than she would.

Lastly, I think this could work better without the first two pages. Everyone always says show don’t tell, but I think this section would work better as a story told to Olivia. The day the bus “almost” crashed. Then the end would reveal what really happened. It could come as a surprise rather than something shown way before the fact. Three time jumps can also be disorienting.

Other than that, nice job.
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DustinBowcot
Posted: February 17th, 2015, 3:44am Report to Moderator
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The first two pages are pointless. Most of the time, films that do that (place a high action moment at the beginning) do so because the first act is going to be boring as hell. Yours isn't, so you don't need it. This is also just a short.

The rest of the story is pretty good though.
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RichardR
Posted: February 17th, 2015, 10:05am Report to Moderator
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This one works for me, but it could be tighter.  And it might need a reason why the magic bus becomes the magic bus.  Did these folks do something that condemns them to an eternity of mindless partying.  Is Claude some demon they make a pact with?  But I accept it for what it is. And why would Olivia give Jenna the ticket when Olivia knows what it will do?  Lost decades?  

Best
Richard
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Stumpzian
Posted: February 17th, 2015, 3:01pm Report to Moderator
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One of the better titles. Makes me want to read.

I like the idea, too, although it's been around a long time, usually involving other modes of transportation.

This version? A little too wandering/meandering to be effective. A sharper focus, zeroing in on Olivia or Jenna (not both) would help.

I like the image of a busload of skeletons sitting for decades, undiscovered, in the brush.



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AnthonyCawood
Posted: February 18th, 2015, 4:55pm Report to Moderator
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In like this one, needs a polish and tightening but I think tit builds well and has a good tone to it.

Can see this being filmed

Good effort

Anthony

(and I think that's my last OWC review done!)


Anthony Cawood - Award winning screenwriter
Available Short screenplays - http://www.anthonycawood.co.uk/short-scripts
Available Feature screenplays - http://www.anthonycawood.co.uk/feature-film-scripts/
Screenwriting articles - http://www.anthonycawood.co.uk/articles
IMDB Link - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm6495672/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
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PrussianMosby
Posted: February 19th, 2015, 4:35am Report to Moderator
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The Wandering Bus

You could have made it a bit shorter imo.

The ending was a nice, moody picture with the bus waiting for its next victim but I wished there would have been another punch before.

The band playing was a subtle, entertaining point, interesting to characterize those 1920 youth.

Decent effort, but a bit too long, partly too repetitive for my taste.



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