The Box by Glenn J. Devlin - Short, Sci Fi, Fantasy - While hunting for quail, one of the men vanishes after the discovery of his footprints stop in the middle of the beach. 14 pages - pdf, format

Glenn: - IMO, well written. You have a nice clean and crisp style.

SPOILERS

I like the story - didn't care for the ending as there no indication on how it happened and no resolution of the protag's plight. Is just struck me as the first part of a feature rather than the end of a Short.

Anyway - there is talent on display here IMO.

Thanks so much for your feedback - much appreciated!  

Well, after Dave's glowing praise, and against my better judgement, since the logline is so poorly written, I decided to give this a go.

Sorry to say, but I stopped before finishing Page 1.

Opening Slug is weak.  You never want to repeat your Slug in the line that follows it, but you've taken this to the nth degree by literally repeating the Slug and not even adding anything to it.  You follow this up with an orphan.

Your nest passage also ends in a totally unnecessary orphan and contains passive verbiage.

The dialogue exchange is where I decided to stop, as it's incredibly wooden and unrealistic.

Sorry, but not for me.

Quoted from Dreamscale Well, after Dave's glowing praise, and against my better judgement, since the logline is so poorly written, I decided to give this a go. Sorry to say, but I stopped before finishing Page 1. Opening Slug is weak.  You never want to repeat your Slug in the line that follows it, but you've taken this to the nth degree by literally repeating the Slug and not even adding anything to it.  You follow this up with an orphan. Your nest passage also ends in a totally unnecessary orphan and contains passive verbiage. The dialogue exchange is where I decided to stop, as it's incredibly wooden and unrealistic. Sorry, but not for me.

Thanks for your input!

You say nest. Do you mean next?

Glenn: despite Jeff not getting past page 1 - stick with it - there are many solid passages here.

He is right about the opening slug. Never repeat it and you also have an opportunity to expand it by telling us a little about the house. e.g.,

INT. VICTORIAN HOUSE - DAY

In term of orphans - I am only going to address it here since when I first joined the site and folks mentioned orphans I had no clue what they were talking about. Basically, it is when a line in your script is taken up by a single word. e.g.,

Quoted Text A pickup truck rolls into the driveway. Two men are in the cab.

You can get rid of the extra line by changing the line to be shorter:

e.g.,

A pickup truck rolls into the driveway. Two men are inside.

Or - by combining it with the next line:

e.g., ]
A pickup truck rolls into the driveway and parks in front of
a large pile of antique junk. Two men are in the cab.

I agree with Jeff to eliminate the orphans where it makes for a better script.  I do not follow the rule religiously.  If I like the description as is - orphan's notwithstanding, I'll keep it.  You need to decide for yourself on a case by case basis. However - in all cases it makes sense to look at the orphans and ask yourself - did I really write this the best way possible.

Sorry to go on about this - it's just I didn't know what they were and added this just in case you didn't.

Quoted from Glenn Thanks for your input! You say nest. Do you mean next?

LOL...yes..."next".  Sorry...for some odd reason, my spellchecker doesn't work when posting here.

I didn't mean to be a dick, either, and I apologize if I came off that way.  Just trying to throw out some simple help that you may not be aware of.

Dave's a good writer, so if he says your writing shows talent or the like, I believe it.  Problem is that your opening page is so important and when you have glaring problems right out of the gate, you're unlikely to get readers to continue on.

Hope you read and comment on some scripts here at SS.  It's a great place to learn, to help, to engage.  Don't be shy and jump in.  You'll be surprised at how quickly you can become an "active member".

Cool?  Cool.  Enjoy the weekend, bro.

I do get irked when folks comment and don't back up as to why they dislike or parts of the script isn't good etc. Too often I come across those who dismiss other people's scripts and put them down. When I come across such folks I tend to check out their writing and sometimes it just floors me when they don't follow their own rules.

But I'm cool.

Eldave1 best summed it up and explained the why's and hows. Sometimes as writers we don't see our mistakes and he gave great examples of orphans.

Check out my other script Alien Diaries which is here in sci-fi section.

I plan to get around reading others soon.

Eldave1 - thanks and Dreamscale - no hard feelings. Enjoy your weekend, too.