Vortex by Kevin Doy Burton - Short, Sci Fi, Fantasy - Four friends on a sailboat encounters a phenomenon while on a fishing trip. 30 pages - pdf, format

New writer interested in feedback on this work

Hey, Kevin.

I'm not the greatest with fonts, but I think that you're using Times New Roman font for yours.  In any case, scripts should be done in Courier New font.  

In the first scene heading you have "Night" as the time of day, then in the action paragraph you write "Night falls".  We already know it's night from the heading, so you don't need to put that in there.  Same thing with "Daylight arrives" in the next action paragraph.  

When you introduce characters, make sure their names are in all caps for their introduction.  After that, you don't have to bother with capitalizing their names.  

Try to avoid passive writing, ie; "Bill and his wife Janet is settling on the boat while Fred, and his wife are unpacking their clothes down below".  The passive part I'm referring to is "settling" and "unpacking".  Generally, and this is not a hard fast rule, words ending with "ing" should be avoided.  That line could have gone more like "BILL and his wife JANET settle on the boat, while FRED and his wife (name?) unpack their clothes below".  The using of "ing" can be done, however.  For the most part I'd try to stay away from it.  Sometimes it flows better using "ing", and in that case there's not much wrong with it.  Some may disagree with that and say no "ing" at all, but to each their own.  

As I'm reading on I feel like I'm reading a novel more than I'm reading a script.  You're writing a lot of things in past tense.  Try to write things in the present.  For instance, on page 2, "Fred jumped off the boat to untie the ropes.  He tossed the ropes to Bill, who caught them.  Then Fred climbed back on board."  Try something more like "Fred jumps off the boat and unties the ropes.  He tosses them to Bill then climbs back on board".  Write it as it's happening, because to readers and actors, it is happening.

I'm five pages in, and the dialogue is totally on the nose.  It doesn't seem natural.  it's like they're reading lines from a book to each other.  You want to have dialogue that flows.  What they're saying is so literal, it doesn't sound like a conversation that people would have.  Like, when Bill says "Hey I got a bite.  It feels like a big one".  Then Fred says "Pull it in, Fred" (page 6).  That to me doesn't sound natural at all.  If you write your action lines you can paint the picture.  For instance 'Fred's fishing pole bends to brink of snapping'.  So now as a reader, we know he's got something on his line, then his dialogue could be something along the lines of "I've got a big one here", or whatever you want to say.

There was a ton of dialogue, and not a lot of descriptions at all.  All the characters seemed the same to me, as in they didn't have their own personalities.  I didn't really care about them at all, they were just there.  You need to give each of them their own voice, their own personality.  As it is, if you took the names away from the dialogue I would have no clue who was talking.  If they each had their own distinct voice and personality that came through, it would be easy to figure out who was saying what, without their names above the dialogue.

What I'd suggest is to take a look at some of the other short stories on here.  See how they format things, how they bring the characters to life, and how they make their stories stick out.  There are a lot of great writers on here who you can learn a lot from.  I'm sorry to say, but as this is right now, it's not very interesting and I just read through it for the sake of trying to give some pointers.  I think you'll find that people will pass right by this just due to the font alone.  

Good luck.

Nolan