Mad World by Matthew Nsubuga (majorgeneral316) - Short - A day in the life of Charles. Since the death of his wife he fights alcohol addiction and tries to patch up his relationship with his son. 14 pages - pdf, format 8)

This is a really emotional short drama and
a very good read for anyone.

My first post hope you injoy.

Hey Matthew.

Just got finished checking out 'Mad World'.  I love the song, so I figured I'd check out your script.  Lol.  And no, just because I like the song isn't the only reason I read the screenplay...  I also liked the logline for it.  (I like most things depraved.)

Anyhow, you have a pretty good, interesting, and (like you said), emotional story going on here.  But you have to do a lot of cleaning up in the script to really make it stand out.  It's pretty sloppy as it is right now and makes it difficult not only to read, but to get into the story.

An example of how you could clean this up would be to just simply let the story tell itself and not to tell us in the script what we see.  You telling us what we see brings us right away out of the script and makes us realize that we're actually reading a script.  You don't want that.  You want the story to unfold in front of us and pull us in, without making us realize that we're actually reading.

For instance...  Here is an example of some of your action blocks:



'EXT CHARLES APARTMENT -- DAY 11am

A RAGING sound BELLOWS from the T.V. - An episode of Jerry
Springer.

As you are taken through the apartment we see the garbage on
the floor and half eaten food left on the top of the T.V.

We see a cardboard box of Coco pops laid on its side
underneath a table.

The table is filled with so many things you don’t see
ANYTHING clearly. ONE thing does stand out which is a photo
of a MAN and a BOY standing side by side smiling.'



Those are your first four action blocks.  Now, to clean it up and make it easier to read and getting your reader into the story, here's how a rewrite might look:



'INT.  CHARLES' APARTMENT  -  DAY

A filthy apartment with a garbage-ridden floor, half-eaten food left on top of the T.V., and a box of Coco-Puffs laid on it's side underneath the coffee table.

An angry episode of Jerry Springer bellows from the T.V.

Filled with many miscellaneous objects and ads and beer cans, one thing that stands out on the table is a photo of a man and a boy standing side by side each other, smiling.'



Notice how your fourteen lines of description got cut down to only ten lines of description, without taking out a single thing?  It makes it much more of a smoother read.

Also notice all the 'We see', 'You see', and 'You are taken through...' phrases have been taken out?  Those are the phrases that pull the reader out of the story.

Another thing that will make the script a smoother read is to go back and fix all the typo's...  And there are a ton of them.  It was a pain to get through the whole entire script.  I had to go back and fix your typo's in my head just so I could understand the sentence.

With it being so hard to read, and all those typo's just in the first few pages, I doubt very many readers will want to finish the story.

Also, on page four, you have an action block that reads 'Some other people walked around through the park. Charles stared at them as they walked by.'  Both those sentences are in past tense.  Everything has to remain in present tense throughout the story.  'Other people walk around' and 'Charles stares at them as they walk by'.  Those are the only examples that I noticed of past tense, so I'm sure you just overlooked those lines.

Once you fix those couple things, I'm positive you'll have a much better screenplay and more people will want to finish reading it, because like I said...  it is a good story.

I liked how you had Charles celebrating his new life by going out and drinking.  I'm sure once people start reading this, they'll probably criticize you, saying that it's unrealistic that he would go out drinking to celebrate a new beginning.  I'd be lying if I said I was never in that same position and did the same exact thing, though, so I know it IS realistic and it does happen.

Anyway, I hope that once you spruce this up in the rewrite, you get a lot more reads from it.

I'll talk to you later, Matthew.

- Mark

Hey Matthew, just got through with your script and here are my thoughts.

You have a lot of WE SEEs going on in your script, which I don't have a problem with, but there are other ways to write what you are going for. The problem I do have is you then have this...

"As YOU are taken through the apartment WE SEE the garbage..."

Why the YOU then the WE? That doesn't make any sense. You mix up tense alot which is a similar sort of thing, so I'm guessing these are just errors that you need to go through and clean up.

What is the importance of the cereal under the table being Coco Pops? I didn't see any reason for that particular brand, so why not just say 'a cereal box'. That's product placement.

You need to capitalize any character when they are first introduced. With Charles I would do that through the photograph...maybe Jason too. But that's upto you, what isn't, is a proper introduction in capitals.

All of your slugs have the time in, I don't see any reason for that. For one, you aren't showing anyway that this can be shown on screen and secondly, why is the exact time important?

Another technical issue is when you break dialogue with some action you aren't putting the character title back in. Unless I'm wrong you need to do that.

I do like parts of the V.O...most of it actually, it's well written. Some of it though is very on the nose.

I liked the quick V.O of "Sometimes you have to take a risk to make things happen in your life." That kind of reminded me of Fight Club for some reason.

The main part that I thought was on the nose was on Page 13. This entire segment should (and was, pretty much) shown in your script. The last thing you should be doing is have your character have a speech that is saying everything dead on.

The story itself was pretty good. I was wondering about the whole reference to skin colour though, I mean I don't know why that was in there.

The drinking part to celebrate his 'new meaning' was okay by me, but I've never been to a bar and asked for a double and got 2 seperate shots. Maybe the barman was new in that scene? A double comes in one glass.

I think with work you can make this pretty good. There's plenty of scripts on this site that you can have a read of and get a better feel for formatting and writing style.

Best of luck with it mate.

Ste

Quoted from rc1107 Also, on page four, you have an action block that reads 'Some other people walked around through the park. Charles stared at them as they walked by.'  Both those sentences are in past tense.  Everything has to remain in present tense throughout the story.  'Other people walk around' and 'Charles stares at them as they walk by'.  Those are the only examples that I noticed of past tense, so I'm sure you just overlooked those lines.

"It was DARK; the curtains were closed"

That's one other part.

Thanks for reading. This was just my first draft and I wanted to see how people felt about the story. I know the grammer is sketchy and it needs work but for a first screenplay it aint bad. I will be looking to improve soon and post it again.

Read my other work "Twins" about twins, a boy and a girl, who have the abilities to manipulate ice and water

I just rewrit this and changed most of the mistakes.

Feel free to read it, it will be very much appreciated and I don't mind reading your work aswell.

Thanks

Matthew

Intriguing story, but do recheck your spelling.  As a Literary Studies major, I really look out for typos, even though I've made a few myself in Widow's Peek.

I would have Charles talking silently to Mary.  The voice-overs with philosophhical overtones don't seem to work when he's just thinking.  Maybe if he acted like Mary could hear them, they would ring more true.

I liked the expression covered his face with a smile.  Was he covering up his emotions, or was he about to discover a new chapter in his life?

Thanks for the read and the suggestions. Hopefully after studying english language and creative writing in university, I will of iron out the cracks in my spelling and grammer.

Can you explain how the voice-overs don't work in your opinion?

And with your last question; you've already answered it, the smile shows a new chapter in his life.

Also - question for everyone - is it just my computer or is the link on my short  going to an anime script?

When I come to the discussion board on your script, it does show the anime script listed here.  So you're not the only one.

As for voice-overs, it's kind of like when Peter Parker talks to himself in Spider-Man.  He's telling his life story, but who exactly is he telling it to?  Most likely to himself.  I never liked this kind of story-telling.

It's kind of like reading the Ghost comic book.  She is a man hater, but her dialogue panels make her seem like she's talking to a man.  At one point she says, "Like grainy movies of women being slammed around like meat.  Slammed around like meat.  Gets you a little excited, doesn't it?"

See what I mean?  It can go from reliving moments in the character's head to suddenly talking to no one in particular.  This is why I prefer characters writing in diaries or being interviewed.