Lurch's Friends by Larry Boodry - Drama - We first meet Erin as a child in elementary school, where she meets a boy with a limp, Kevin.  Erin connects with him and they become close.   In high school, their friendship blossoms into romance.  This causes problems, as Erin’s divorced mother is against her relationship with Kevin due to his disability, and Kevin’s mother views it as a distraction to his search for a job. Meanwhile, she and Kevin must also deal with bullying from Erin’s cousin Dewey.  Erin goes to work for her father at his diner, and learns the truth about her parents’ divorce.  Then tragedy strikes, and Kevin dies after being hit by a van driven by one of Dewey's friends.  Erin is devastated, but in the end, after final confrontations with Dewey and her mother, she finds the will to go on and pursue her dream of escape. 99 pages - pdf, format 8)

I'm only 27 pages into it right now, and it's pretty good so far. your character development is very good, and your dialogue is top notch. And there have been a couple pretty funny parts as well. But what I don't like so far is that the scenes end too abruptly. I think there should be more conversation between parties before the next scene. Like, when we meet Kevin at 18 for the first time in the study hall, he comes in says a couple lines and a quip at Dewey and Sheila and then it's over. Then, we don't get that well introduced to the grown up Dewey either. That's a pretty important scene I think, and a great opportunity to get introduced to the characters as well as we were introduced to Erin in the scenes before. I think Kevin should talk more with Erin. And then the next scene, Sheila and Erin have the falling out, and then all of a sudden they're on the way to school again. and I think the period when the kids are younger should be longer too, and have more interactions with eachother, and not just that one day. And I think having it more around the time of middle school would make more sense rather than starting them out so young, because at 8-15 I don't think Sheila would have been friends with her that long if she's been friends with Kevin all that time, and have such similar personalities. Maybe more like a 3 or 4 year difference would make more sense rather than 8 years. The story is good and you convey the information and characters really well, I just think the scenes should be elaborated on more. Give us a chance to find out more of who these people are. It's like we're rushed off to the next scene too quickly, and don't get a chance to breath and get familiar with the characters. I think we need to see as much of Kevin as we do of Erin.

Hi. I loved your script. It was a great character study. Although, I was quite surprised to find that Kevin/Lurch and Dewey had only bear supporting roles because reading your synopsis I thought different. In my opinion, the heart of the story really isn't Kevin and Erin, but more Erin and her mother, Which was kind of strange, but then that's just what I thought when reading it.

Anyways, I haven't got anything bad to say about your script, except: you should work on the ending. It doesn't feel like an ending. I think maybe it's because Kevin dies too soon. Or maybe you should tie up loose ends with the Dewey story. Or maybe we could see Erin as an adult, and dating Vince (I thought they were gonna get together) and her leaving town to go to college, and her finally working out her relationship with her mother, or something. Either way, the ending definitley needs more punch.

Another small little criticism is that you overuse LATER in a lot of scenes to get in and out quickly.

Anyways, your script was really good, really enjoyable aswell. Your characters were great, I could understand where Kevin and Erin were coming from. The dialogue was great too. In my head they had thick south country accents, I hope they were supposed to. So, work on the ending, and you'll have an even better script. Good luck!

You write very well, and the story is good, I just think the execution of it could be a lot better. You need to put more thought into your scene transitions, especially in the first 60 pages. The story moves TOO quickly. There needs to be more dialogue and conversation, we need to see more of Kevin and have him e more of a main character. Hell, there was as much chemistry between vince and Erin as there was Kevin and Erin, so we need to see more interaction between them. Sometimes, you end scenes with too much sarcasm at the wrong spots. I also think you should watch some of the things that seemed excessive, like when she broke his arm with the crow bar, the attack on Erin after we just been hit with the death of Kevin, Paco becoming friends with Kevin after that one little incident, the broken bottle giving Dewey stitches, etc. Paco and Kevin should become friends through some other means. But your emphasis is just in the wrong places. You have a lot of good characters, but don't spend a lot of time on any of them in particular, besides Erin. You spread it out too equally. You introduce new characters and forget about other ones. There also is very little resolution at the end. What happened with Dewey and everybody??? You need to go more in depth with the important scenes and forget about less important ones, like when Vince was drinking and the bar maid took off her bra, that whole conversation didn't have much to do with anything. You're a very good writer, you just need to focus more, put in more dialogue at the important parts, emphasize the characters more, and transition better. Some scenes were really REALLY good and others were really REALLY weak, so you just have to find the balance. But I really liked the story, just not the execution of it so much.