Just A Dream by Matthias Pentke - Short, Scary - A young girl alone in the woods. Or isn't she alone? Who are these other girls? And wherefrom comes this noise? Is this all just a dream? 7 pages - doc, format 8)

Hey Matthias,

I just finished reading your short script.




SPOILERS WITHIN




First I'm going to talk about formatting.
What is up with the red and blue?
It should all be in black.
You shouldn't number scenes either...
and the page numbers should be flush to the right of the page, not in the center.
blocks of description should only be four lines long, and you should show not tell.

About the girls. You should give them names since they have speaking parts.
What are their ages? You should have that in there, too.

A few things sort of hit me like "what"?

Like these lines:
To what place do I go in this direction?
Tina exactly looks at the 3 girls.
Suddenly, the scales fall from her eyes.
Suddenly a CRACKLE is to hear.

Might be better to say:
Where does the path lead?
Tina looks at the three girls.
for the last one I think you meant she falls to sleep, not that she has snake eyes or has a scale dangling from her eye.
So just say something like: She closes her eyes.
And for the last one, maybe something like: A CRACKLE forces her turn her head, and search the area.

How was it that the girls knew her, but she didn't know them? Were they all killed the same day or different days? Were they all together when they were killed, like at a pajama party? Or are they older?
Maybe show a real fast flashback of each of the girls as they come to her, and she says she thinks she knows them. If it's at the pajama party, maybe show the girl swatting someone with a pillow, watching t.v. or maybe eating popcorn, but just a real quick glimpse that clouds over quickly.

And finally the title... a lot of people will not read it if they think it is all just a dream. I did one like that my first script, and I heard about it right away. I'd change the title if I were you to maybe something about the monster or the forest.

Now to the story itself. It's kind of rough, but there is a story in there, and I think with some polish it could be very good, and creepy.
Are you going to do a rewrite on this one?

Just my two cents. I hope it helped in some way.

Cindy

Hi Matthias,

I can see by your title page you are from Germany and that English is probably your second language.

If this is the case then I can understand why some of the dialogue and actions are a little askew.

I would have like to have seen names for each of the characters and maybe a litlle bit more personality. I know this is only a short but you can tell so much more in such a small story.

I was very confused as to the actual plot and I couldn't figure out the sequence in which the girls were killed.
Flush out the story a bit more and relate the girls a bit better.

The story has promise but needs to be rewritten; firstly, in a more fluent English and secondly, with a bit more horror if it is to be a scary script.

Do a rewrite and I will gladly read it again. :)
Cheers
Elis