The Smile by Steven Drew - Short, Drama - Abe enlists the help of friend to get a beautiful stranger to smile at him. 10 pages - pdf, format 8)

Quite a few mistakes here, which didn't bother me at first, but then they became a bit grinding:
P1. Ext House, then Ext street was a little unnesessary. & 'As before it's raining' - except it wasn't....
P3 Abe (Looking round...) not too sure what this is but it belongs on your narrative line.

What's up with you margins - I'm pretty sure they weren't standard & your dialogue lines looked like they stretched across the page too much - what programme did you use to write this? The character names here are offset incorrectly - they don't line up.

The phone exchange format, I think, is your own invention.

Apart from that, the dialogue skipped along quite nicely - didn't read it all TBH. But appeared to be okay story wise, just needs the formatting scrubbed up a bit.

I did read it.

I think the main thing was, the story is blah.

It read okay but there was a dragging on type of approach.

More of a conversation between two friends that really goes nowhere.

It starts out like you had already written a back story on it (As before it's raining) (As before Abe walks down the street)
But there is no back story. No subplot. Add this into the story in the beginning, or maybe as Dialogue by one of them.

An ending that was missing any explanation or finish.

It read to me like it  needed another page or two.

All stories need some kind of conflict.

Maybe Lammy and Abe could have a friendly argument that would make us think that there might be jealousy between them, like maybe Lammy saw her first or something.

A little conflict. As it is now, It sounds like two friends sitting at a bar talking.      
My 2 cents.

Just wanted to say a quick thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. Will take this on board.

maybe this is just a personal thing, but take another look at the way you've formatted it. you'r writing is ok, but the way it's formatted did bother me.

Just to cover off the points on formatting. It was created using Google Docs so I didn't use any software. I didn't make up my own formatting, simply took advice from various quarters on margin length etc (advice on this tends to vary, I noticed). Having said all that it does need to be uniform and I will look into using some software for this next time.

Hey Steve, I liked the story, felt quirky and friendly like a sequence from Human Traffic or Inbetweeners, especially the dialogue.
It read like a quick cut montage and if i was editing/directing this I would be putting in wooshing sound fx, whip pans, quick zooms and screen wipes Edgar Wright style.

I think some conflict came across when Lammy was talking about his holiday but not much. I don't think its needed for this story personally as it is a kind of rmantic buddy buddy story and in my experience, people don't fall out with their best friends unless it is something serious so I am happy with the realtionship there.
Another character such as a love rival would fill that criteria.
The ending fell off a bit, needs something more, not sure what myself!

Formatting has to addressed - if you want a free program i recommend page2stage available at  http://www.page2stage.com.

oh yes, cut down on your use of wrylies, put character actions in the action block.

Daz

This didn't really do much for me.  I agree with 'blah' from above.  

Strengths - friendship with Lammy.  Pretty decent dialogue between them.

Weaknesses - everything else.  

I think you're playing Abe's work life as bad through Lammy's eyes only to have it pay off for Abe in the end was a decent effort, but to me you really didn't dig deep enough.  What I mean by that is this; there's really nothing at stake here.  There's no win, no lose, and what you end up with is a boring draw.  Raise the stakes somehow.  Maybe pit Lammy vs. Abe for the hot chicks's affection.  Bum vs. Corporate guy.  idk...  That's what I got.  good luck

very good dialog. it seemed very natural which to me, can be rare on this site IMO. the story was lacking but i think you have a nice foundation for something great. my one spacific note is the dialog about the "new supervisor" ruined the suprise. i instantly knew it would be her. you should remove that dialog for a bigger pay off.

I liked the story and thought the friendship was believable and humorous, I also like the ending even though you can see it coming. One thing I want to mention is on page 8 you wrote "Annoyed in a motherly way." I think annoyed would do just find and using less parenthesis might make it flow a little better IMO. As for formatting, I recommend Celtx, it's free and easy to use, overall good work.

Hi everyone. Thanks for the additional feedback, it's all good and useful stuff. I was additionally surprised and humbled by requests to do something with this script, nothing concrete as yet but it's nice to know some people have been inspired enough to contemplate it!