The English Teacher by Kevin Brown - Romance - John and Melissa went to college together and are best friends.  Over the years the stay friends but date other people briefly but only seem to happy when they are with each other.  Will love win? 105 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hi Kevin

Let me first say that I am a rank amateur at this screenwriting thing, so please take the following merely as one person's subjective, but honest, reaction....

I admire your effort, but you lost me by around page 21. The big reason was believability. I had trouble believing a lot of what you wrote, and as a result I started expecting flaws and questioning details that I would otherwise accept.

For example, I don't know if people with no teacher training can teach high school in the US, but I doubted that Melissa with her MA could go straight into such a job.

The specific points that cumulatively made me put your screenplay down:

- I didn't think Melissa and John would be graduating together if he was in a law program and she was doing a master's in literature. (I also can't imagine them studying together very often in the library.)
- John passed the BAR exam before graduating from law school?
- Isn't English 101 a college-level course?
- John gets a $60,000 bonus and talk of partnership so soon?
- It's common knowledge why Juliet's parents don't like Romeo (wrong family).
- Romeo is not an anagram for "Rome" (nor Juliet for "Jewish").
- I don't believe anybody with an MA in lit would suggest that Juliet is Jewish.

My impression is that these details and this story just kind of flowed out of your head. A lot of it reads like a high school student's dream life, with the fast-track careers, jet-set vacations, etc.

I hope this helps you in your efforts to improve as a screenwriter. I don't know if others have the same issue with the believability of your story, but I suspect they would.

Respectfully,
khed