Headrush by Sean Halket - Short, Horror, Thriller - Kyle Anderson's dreams are haunted by a woman he has never met before. 10 pages - pdf, format 8)

Howdy Sean

Your format is largely fine.

Delete the scene numbers, CUT  TO:s and turn off your (CONTINUED) feature.

     DOUGLAS lies in a bed, fast asleep or in a coma, at this
     moment we are not sure
Don't do that.
You don't need to build mystery by being vague.
We're going to figure it out shortly, anyway, so...

Provide ages for Douglas and the young girl. Is she young like eight years old or twelve? Maybe sixteen? I dunno.

Kick that (V.O.) onto the same line as the person speaking, DOUGLAS, in this case.

Page 2
(Singing - Keane "Bedshaped") parenthetical can be placed on the action line just before it.

Page 3
     Douglas sits on a chair opposite DR. FISHER, a male
     psychologist. He has a notepad on his lap and a pen in his
     hand.
Probably don't need to identify DR. FISHER as "a male psychologist" since that's followed immediately by a "he" and a "his".
We can probably figure out that he's a male by that PDQ.

That second  INT.PSYCHIATRIST’S OFFICE - DAY can be mini-slugged with LATER.

And that was a pretty pathetic Dr Counselling session and acceptance by Doug.
                    DOUGLAS
          Thank you, Dr. Fisher
Lame.

Page 4
     Suddenly, the girl from his dreams bumps his arm and
     continues past him. Douglas looks around and realizes that
     it is her
Economize to
     Someone bumps his arm. Douglas realizes it's the girl
     from his dreams.

Same for the following part about... following.
If he's following her and she turns down a new direction then of course he also turns the new direction.
He's FOLLOWING HER, for crying out loud!  :)

It's kinda impossible to figure out the relationship between Douglas and Iris.
Peer, aunt, neighbor, what?

Dialog is pretty bad and by page 9 the story's running out of interest with Douglas' constant BS.


Alright. Done.
Just keep reading more and more of these shorts from others.
Keep writing more of your own.
The more ideas you foster the better your stories and format will get.

GL,
Ray

Hi Sean,

Looks like Ray has pretty much sorted the formatting side. There’s a lot more that could be covered, but you probably got the point.

In terms of story, I’m not too sure how to approach this one. I really think there’s something good here, it’s just difficult to make out. I’m not really sure whether the entire story was a dream, or whether only the dream was a dream (!) I will certainly agree with Ray that the dialogue isn’t hugely interesting, nor does it really advance the story.

The way I saw the main premise of this story was that Douglas was seeing a glimpse of the future in the visions of the girl who would ultimately run him over. However, I think the interesting part (and I’m not sure if this was intentional—in fact, it probably wasn’t) was the interaction between Douglas and Mike before Douglas is run over. I almost felt as though Douglas was intending this to happen, just from the clues with the smiles. However, there was nothing previously in the script to indicate this so, again, it probably wasn’t your intention. In any case, taking the story in that direction could be quite interesting.

It’s difficult for me to say much more about this one. I am the kind of person who reads into stuff way too much, and I’ve probably made this story—in my own head—much more interesting than it actually is.

Keep writing.

:)

This premise is rather old (a person is haunted in dreams by someone who causes his or her death), but your twist was new--the someone is actually remorseful for her actions.

However, the scene with the psychiatrist should have been longer.  It seems too pat for the shrink just to sum up the problem and Douglas instantly thanks him.