Firefly by Derek Neville - Thriller - A suspense thriller with supernatural overtones that revolves around a young girl who learns something extraordinary about herself after a devastating accident. 119 pages - pdf, format 8)

I like the dialogue, but you've gone way overboard with the action. Hardly any of it can be filmed.

You write well, but stuff like this, "Even though he appears to be in his late fifties, DR. REGAN stills looks like the guy you’d want in your corner if you needed emergency spinal surgery." isn't necessary.

Thanks for reading my script. I appreciate the comments. Could you elaborate on what you mean by too much action? And that none of it could be filmed? What would you suggest?

It's a little general, but comparatives shouldn't be in a screenplay. They can't be filmed, meaning, shot on camera. It's nice for the reader, but all they do is make a bloated script.

If you cut all that out, your script would be a lot shorter.

The line in my previous post doesn't belong in a screenplay. There isn't any action. Try and fit your descriptions with action lines, so the script will be moving.

Unfortunately, in the five pages I did read, there was too much of it. I can only guess how the last 100 pages are.

I'm sure the story is good, and like I said, you write well, but a reader doesn't want to be bogged down with useless information. This script needs a serious rewrite. I suggest you print it out, find a red pen, and get to work.

I agree with absteel. I looked it over and You have alot of unfilmable action written and "we follow a row" etc, DO NOT talk about camera angles

I liked your intro, very simple, but effective at the same time.

On page 13, you have a bit where you reference an action out of the green mile. But a lot people have never seen the green mile, including myself, and have no idea what that means. Maybe you should be more specific. On the next page you do the same thing by saying someone could be “Ralph Maccios Brother.” Really, just leave the pop culture references out of the descriptions at least. In the dialogue it can work sometimes, especially if it is fitting in with the culture at the time, but in the descriptions it just does not work.

Out of curiosity, why are you underlining certain phrases all the time? We’ll get the importance of a certain action, you don’t need to stress it for our sake.

You use holy shit and “oh shit” a lot. It got kind of annoying by the fiftieth page. Oh, and holy shit isn’t an emotion or an adjective to use for dialogue.

On page 69, you wrote a thunderclap with no sound. What does that mean?

There are too many flashbacks. It really started to make the script disjointed at some point.

You have a similar problem to myself where you add too many extraneous thoughts and unnecessary details to the script. You post a lot of times “and its fucking scary” or “and its fucking crazy.” Don’t need that stuff. Because what you are doing is telling the audience what they are feeling, and they obviously might not feel that way and if they do feel that way then they don’t need to read you telling them that. If the detail is not necessary or we cant figure it out watching on the screen, then don’t say it.

The dialogue is fine most of the time. You do have one problem which is that you have your characters saying exactly what their emotions are quite a lot. Real life isn’t like that. You have to be more subtle otherwise it comes across as telegraphing emotion. When you get angry at someone you don’t say “Im angry!” Maybe you start insulting them, or act bitter, or act in illogical ways but you never or at least rarely come out and say it that way.

I didn’t like Grant. The rest of the characters were fine, although Darren’s actions and friendship with Jeremy were a bit hard to swallow, but I guess I have known friends who were that different, so it is understandable. Grant though, his anger never feels explained in a proper way that makes his anger towards Sarah understandable. I mean he goes from loving father to a man who beats his daughter because his wife died? Even though Sarah had nothing to do with it? Doesn’t ring true for me.

The concept of the story is neat. I love the idea that she gets to play God in a way. The problem is that the script never builds towards anything. Like the revelation about her brother and her real mother feels like a substory instead of a real story. Same thing with Jeremy’s death. And with her cancer. I would suggest making something the main storyline, and make it fairly obvious. Sarah’s character suffers because there is no main storyline, since she has no character arc and that is a very harmful thing to your script. Keep the concept, but make a main storyline that has a point, some sort of antagonist to Sarah, and something ot build towards and I think your screenplay will benefit from it tremendously.

Thank you very much for reading my script. It means a lot.

I appreciate all your constructive criticisms and I thank you for taking time out of you day to read my work.

I have gone over all your notes and will begin to apply them to a new draft.

I haven't forgotten about your script, I'm finishing it up as we speak and I should have notes for you soon.

Thanks again.

Hi Derek,

The basic concept - that Sarah heals what's wrong with people, not just healing wounds but giving them a second chance, fixing what is "broken inside" , is good. It's the basis for a solid supernatural, emotional drama. The main story issues seem to be:

Grant ( as noted above) takes a drastic, unrealistic turn - he needs a gradual slide into his despair, instead here it's like a light switch flipped on or off.

The main story arc is vague, it seems to wander a bit and although there is a payoff in  the end, it's a long path to get there. As the previous guy said - get a clear goal of where to begin and where to end. I think if Sarah's overall arc is stronger then the flashbacks/subplots will work better. The flashback with Jeremy's fate was good, I liked that he had no second chance, it offset the other incidents well. Darren's incident as well at the gas station was well done.

The twists at the end with her mother/brother being revealed seemed to be a bit convoluted - I just don't see her giving up the baby then and there to the couple, although yes, stranger things have happened. It doesn't work well as is here due to the way it's presented.

In the birth scene at the beginning, the waitress has to be prompted to mention she saw a blinding orange light...that's something that might be mentioned right away...how about as the Dr. or Sophe is holding the baby, the orange light dancing about then might be the only incident .

Also in the beginning, the playground scene goes on too long, I think close to 17 pages. Lots here could be trimmed without harming the story. There's cross cutting, Diane / Vanessa/ Jeremy - it's a bit much and I think what you need to communicate there can be done in less time and less talk. Same with the homeless man encounter in the woods - aside from the opening and closing "help me" 's - too much talk - it would play better as a slient scene, except maybe keeping the "are you an angel" question. Also remember the EMT's ( again they go on too long) mention he has head wounds but too much blood - but scalp wounds in fact do produce LOTS of blood.

The above highlights what for me is the main thing I'd recommend to work on ,the dialogue itself. In many cases it's too on-the-nose; people say what they are feeling instead of showing us. In most evey case there is a core bit of dialogue where the characters DO sum it all up - but they there's more and more dialogue.

Overall it IS a strong story and can be one well worth telling. It's there it just needs to be pared down and re-structured a bit. Even the last reveals/twists can work if they're maybe re-worked and re-written. I don't want to sound like I'm coming down too hard on the script , because for me there is LOTS there that's very good, I can almost hear James Newton Howard's score behind it now lol.

Mike,

Thanks again for the rewiew. I think you got a lot of valid points here. Thanks for taking time to read my script and I hope you enjoyed it.

Derek