Monkey by Kent Krogman - Short, Sci Fi - There’s nothing that 27 year-old Steve Burns wants more than to get up early and take his son fishing.  But things get a little complicated.  Images from a recent nightmare bombard Burns’ sense of reality as he helplessly grasps for an explanation, anything that would explain this living hell. 9 pages - doc, format 8)

Okay, your format on the title page is wrong, so is the format for the rest of your script. Only 5 lines on your action paragraphs, and show it, don't tell it. "who doesn't want to hear anything at this hour of the day" is an example of telling it. Which is wrong. Show it in the character's actions.

Over to your story.

Yeah, okay, I'll be honest, I didn't get half of the stuff going on in this script, mainly because it's so hard to read. Break up your paragraphs! I liked the opening scene though. Spooky.

Dan and I do not normally agree on formatting but, in this case, we do.

You are extremely wordy in what you describe and most of it is written incorrectly.  The general rule is to describe things that the camera can record.  This means only what you see and hear (in general).

Your opening sequence:

STEVE BURNS is an average and ordinary 27-year-old father and husband, who doesn’t want to hear anything at this hour of the day (6:30 A.M.), especially his alarm clock, but that’s exactly what wakes him up, and he reflexively reaches over to shut it off.  He looks over at his wife, who doesn’t have to get up early on this particular day so Burns crawls out of bed and heads for the door to the hallway.

would be better written as:

An alarm clock BUZZES.  STEVE BURNS (27) stares at it for several second--

6:30

-- before he reaches for it.  He fiddles with the buttons before the noise stops.

He forces himself out of bed and staggers from the room like a George A Romero zombie.  His wife remains asleep in the bed.

You don't need to describe what's going on in his head or how he feels.  You also don't need to describe him as 'average and ordinary.'  Unless there's something special about him, that pertains to the story, leave it out.  Would it matter if he weighed 400 pounds?  No.  Would it matter if he had a very long beard?  No.  If it matters, put it in.  If it doesn't, then don't.

If you were to tighten this script up, it would probably be about five pages long instead of nine.  That's something to consider.

SPOILER SPACE....

Why does the monkey attack him?  You can't just have a stuffed toy become animated and kill someone without a reason.  The story fell flat because of this.


Phil