Missing by Eric Hansen (Inquiringmind) - Short, Drama - A  middle age woman handing out missing girl posters is mugged by a gang of teens. 11 pages - pdf, format 8)

Eric, this one really didn't work IMO. To start with, there are a lot of mistakes in your script and it is a tough read for only 12 pages. I think you should start by cleaning up your Sluglines and just make them more basic. You don't need to have ESTABLISHING SHOT three times in a 12 page script. You don't need to have any, in fact. It just makes things more convoluted. Also instead of having DAY or NIGHT you seem to use SAME the majority of the time. Even when it is not the same time, like Mary at her house after we have just seen her mugged. You could use LATER or NIGHT but SAME is incorrect.

Style wise, you have way too many passive verbs going on here. Let's take the instance where you introduce Mary. You have 'A tall, slender WOMAN in her mid forties her name is MARY, is walking up the sidewalk with a short stack of posters in her
arms.'

You could just have 'MARY, tall, slender, mid forties, walks up the sidewalk. A short stack of posters in her arms.'

Get rid of the ING words. 'She is listening to an IPod' should be 'she listens to an IPod'. You have countless examples of these throughout your script.

'A group of TEENS are following close behind her. As soon as Mary looks over her shoulder, and sees them, they begin to rush her.'

A group of TEENS follow close behind her. Mary sees them over her shoulder. They rush her.

After they have mugged her you have 'A few moments later Mary is sitting against a car shivering from shock.'

What happens in those few moments? Do we just have a black screen and then see her against the car? Instead you should have something like
Mary slumps down against a car. Shivers from shock.

Right? Becuase the camera is on her the whole time. You can't just have her being mugged and then a few moments later she is doing something else, we have to see her actually do it since we are watching her the whole time.

You tend to overdescribe things and tell us things we don't need to know. Like when Mary and Becca are at the table eating. There is too much detail about things that aren't relevant to the story. You also have spelling errors in this section.

How can we be inside Mary's day dream? And is it a day dream or a flashback? Reading it, it sounds like it is a flashback to events that have occurred. So you could write it as
FLASHBACK

INT. HALLWAY - DAY

and continue from there.

SPOILERS

Okay so having seen the flashback and how Leah disappeared, or rather was taken by her father, the story makes less sense to me now. If her father took her, why didn't Mary go to the cops or a lawyer to get her daughter back? Has she been hanging around for a few years handing out posters for a girl who she knew was with her father? It seems strange.

And if Becca went to Mary with the intention of telling her she knew where Leah was, why didn't she just tell her straight away. Why leave notes on the back of the posters and be so cryptic about it?

But most of all why didn't Leah just go home? She seems happy enough to be reunited with Mary, so it's not like she had run away from her. She hadn't been gone for that long, is she supposed to have forgotten where she lived? Maybe I am missing something but none of this makes any sense to me.

I think your actual story premise is good and with some rewrites you could turn this into a quality story, just at the moment there are too many technical mistakes and story holes for it to really succeed.

Cheers,
Tim.

Eric,

I stopped reading after three pages because there was no dialogue - maybe just a personal preference for me (or maybe the fact that it's 12:53 am)...

But Trojan is right - use present tense.  Also the descriptions are a bit overwritten.  And don't repeat your slug in the description:

EXT. UNDER BRIDGE

Under the bridge it is... etc.

And which of the three teens is smoking pot?  You can't have us guess.

AJR

Thanks for the read Tim, your feed back is spot on as far as the grammer is concern. This was a first draft. I am still learning to find my narative voice so I guess I have some work to do before it is clear.

As far as your other questions:

It is a little ambigious. The back story is her father abducted the daughter. That is why Mary didn't know where she was. I thought that much would be clear when she shouted. "Where are you taking her?".

I did some research and Missing children are usually abducted.

I hope this answers your question. I am sorry you didn't like it. It does need some work.

Cheers

Quoted from ajr Eric, I stopped reading after three pages because there was no dialogue - maybe just a personal preference for me (or maybe the fact that it's 12:53 am)... But Trojan is right - use present tense.  Also the descriptions are a bit overwritten.  And don't repeat your slug in the description: EXT. UNDER BRIDGE Under the bridge it is... etc. And which of the three teens is smoking pot?  You can't have us guess. AJR

I wasn't sure how to word some of the action. It needs some work. Yes there is little dialogue in the story but that was intentional. I know it isn't an easy read, but I hope you will try again when you feel like it.

Thanks for the feedback.

Eric,

I will try to read it again tomorrow.  In the meanwhile, since you say you're still looking for your narrative voice, try this:

Visualize an image, and then quickly write what you see in your mind's eye in present tense.  Try not to get lost between the image and the keyboard. And each image should be a separate line of description unless you visualize it as a continuous one.

Hope that helps - keep at it!

Hi Eric,

I struggle with the use of white space and/or too much action paragraphs.  I see that it was your intention to use limited diallouge and I felt that I was able to visualize your scenes.  Unfortunately, I think as readers we sometimes make subconcious, split second decisions from how the words are arranged on paper.  Perhaps splitting it up with a bit mroe dialouge would help.

That said, I did enjoy the overall concept, and despite the limited dialouge I was able to feel Mary's heartache, so kudos for that.

I would address some of the questions that Trojan raised.  Particularly the fact that when we first meet Becca she is mugging Mary, but ultimately she decides to do the right thing.  Perhaps some dialouge between Mary and Becca could illuminate her change of heart.

Anyway, I'm new around here, so take my suggetions with a grain of salt.  Good luck.

Thanks everyone who read my script. I will do the touch ups today and tomorrow. I think most of the feedback was on grammer and description rather than story so I will leave the story pretty much the way it is and clean up on the presentation.

Once again thank you.

Eric

Hi Eric,

I would be interested to see the new version when it's posted, as I think it could be pretty good.

As you said, there's a few mistakes to be ironed out, such as- 'Mary and Becca are sitting in front of a table filled with plats of food.' I'm guessing it should be 'plates'?, it's also misspelt as 'plait' a couple of lines later.

As regard to the descriptions etc, it might work better if the teens are sharing a joint, you know- passing it round between themselves?

I don't understand how if the girl's father abducted her, she was part of this nomadic group living so near to her mother's house. Surely she would have just gone home?

Other than that, a pretty decent effort, and I reckon this short could really work with a bit of time spent on it. Good job, though.

Craig

Craig I hate to admit it but the story doesn't make sense. I need to go back to the drawing board and try to fix it or scrap it. Thanks for the read and positive feed back.