Yellow Fever by Jahongir Bahrom (Jahon) - Short, Action, Adventure - Three friends discover a cave of gold and find themselves in a place from where no man has ever come out alive. 13 pages - pdf, format 8)

This was a cute story, though the writing could be a little tighter.  The opening sequence could be cut in half.  And phrases like Greedy is tired doesn't belong in a script.  Don't tell us how a character feels; show us.  

Your three characters sounded alike.  You need to give them their own voices for the story to work.  If not for their names, there would be no way to tell them apart.

Hope this helps.


Phil

Yeah, liked this.

SPOILERS

I agree that it doesn't conform to the style promoted around here but that's not too difficult to fix. Shorter paragraphs, quicker descriptions etc etc

However, what bothered me most was the predictability of it all. With those names you knew that none would survive. I wonder whether more tension would be gained by just giving them names and presenting them with those characteristics. Who is the person who says no? Could that character then be persuaded to follow? Ie there is a difference between those who just want it and those who struggle with the decision?

At it's heart it is a moral tale. The core question to me, is how to make this have more bite than others.

All the best.

Not bad...

The names kinda spoiled it for me, i thought it was a joke first, then i thought it the seven dwarfs, I was waiting for  sporty, posh, ginger oh thats the spice girls..im confused..

either way too much description, not enough dialouge and I dont think Christianinty is actually a period of time.

But for only 6 pages a good effort

Hello Jahon,

I don't know if you're a contributing member here, or not.
However, the decent reviews and the brevity of your script lured me in anyway.

I like the fable like quality the story has.
Without the adjective names, I wouldn't be able to tell these guys apart.
They sound pretty identical to each other.
Which is even more odd when you think that Fatty is supposed to be "goofy".

P. 3  He sees the gold and his mouth opens in wander.
        Typo. Should be "wonder".

Appropriate ending, I like how the pieces fit together.
Simply Scripts is a great learning resource for screenwriting.
You can learn tons on this forum about format.

I'd be interested in seeing more of your work.
Especially if you take the time to compare/contrast formatting skills here.

Peer review contributing members and they'll return the favor.
But be sure, you are reviewing ACTIVE members work.
That way, you'll get the reviews back.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
E.D.

Liked this a lot actually - minor problems here and there - story in principle was good - only thing for me was that the ending was a bit rushed - expected the two survivors to plot and come croppers with a bit more ingenuity.

Good stuff overall though.

:) Hey everybody. Thanks for the read and remarks. Now that I know, I will work on the mistakes you all have mentioned.
THANKS!!!!!!!!!!

:)Hi. Thanks for the read and comentaries.

Quoted from irish eyes Not bad... The names kinda spoiled it for me, i thought it was a joke first, then i thought it the seven dwarfs, I was waiting for  sporty, posh, ginger oh thats the spice girls..im confused.. either way too much description, not enough dialouge and I dont think Christianinty is actually a period of time. But for only 6 pages a good effort

Hey Jahon,

This felt like reading a children's book with a disturbing ending, I don't like the names of your characters at all I'm afraid.  Lines like "Greedy is very angry" are telling us instead of showing us and it reminded me of the the Mr Men books.

I also thought you had a lot of action which was broken up but still did feel very chunky in places.  I wasn't sure how Stinky got the knife either?  Greedy took it with him when he left the cave but Stinky had it when he got back but maybe I read that wrong.

In saying that I did like the ending and the fact that the crow was leading more unknowing people to their demise.  It had a nice continuing feel to it.

It was nice short but has some things, especially the names to be sorted out to make it even better.

Good luck and keep writing.

Steve.

Hi Steve.
Thanks for the read and notes. Many people had the same response to the character names. I corrected them and the fresh druft should appear in the site soon.

Thanks and regards

Jahon.

Hi Jahon

I promised you a read, then I realised I already read this... The 1st version, this is now your updated script.

Why are a lot of the words in capital letters?

Still alot of descripton for example

page 1....Captain runs towards the throne. The others go for the gold.
Crow watches them and “CAWS”
Captain reaches the throne. Crow takes off and sits on a ROCK
above.
Captain takes the CROWN off  of the skeleton, puts it on his
own head and throws the skeleton off the throne.

That`s 6 sentences.... You could write it like this for example.

The captain makes a dash for the throne, thrusting the crown off the skeleton`s head, whilst tossing the bones on the ground. The crow watches on with beady eyes.

Page 5 I think you mean small tree.

Page 6 Dead skeletons.. made me laugh

As far as spelling and grammar, your writing is very tight(which is great)


Overall you are a creative writer Jahon and I liked that you finally put proper names to your characters....and how used the crow  to flow each mini story into the next...

Still your descriptions need to flow a lot more, likes i showed above... it is definately a big improvement from the 1st time I read it.

Keep writing and reading Jahon
You`re doing great.

Mark

As I go:

Some people use the term "yellow fever" as an offensive phrase.  Just a thought.

Page 1:  The sun just...comes out all of a sudden?  And then lights up the whole room?  Seems unlikely.  If the hole's small enough for the sun to come out suddenly, it's too small too light up the room.
I really like this opening.  Establishes suspense and has strong visuals.
"There it is.  On the throne."  This is telling and showing, and is redundant.  We know it's there, on the throne.  The captain can just point and say, "There!" or something.

Page 2:  I'm sure the crew member has a fairly good idea of how the Captain acts, generally.  I think it's pretty clear that he's in trouble when the captain asks for a hug; it would be neat to see him react as such.  As is, this moment plays a little bit cliche.  Did he really not see that coming?
How the hell did these guys ever manage to get any work done together if they get set off that easily?  Besides, everyone knows you're supposed to load the gold first, then kill the others.  On the other hand, this was an unexpected twist.  I think it's a little bit unbelievable in that it happens so incredibly quickly, though.  It might be to your benefit to throw just a couple lines in there to show that the Captain killing this particular guy caused existing conflicts to flare up which created a fight, rather than them just...fighting.  Y'know?

Page 6: "Dead skeletons."  Great line.

Page 7:  The modern-day dialogue is a bit clunky in general.  

Thoughts:

Alright.  A great little cautionary fairy tale on greed.  Nothing too original, but I think a well executed story, and the inclusion of the crow as a character on its own is a nice touch.

I think the main problem that you're facing here is that our three main guys are as staggeringly uninteresting as can be.  Each is so devoid of any specific character that there's really nothing to keep us all that interested through the middle; after all, we know how things are going to play out from the start.  So we get this one dynamic, that the other two are always freeloading off Henry while simultaneously accusing him of being cheap.  That's kinda funny, but we understand it in your first couple lines, and then there's really nothing else to find out about the characters.  I think you have a great chance to really get inside these guys' heads during the scene where they sit on their piles of gold and day-dream about what they're gonna do with it.  But even before then, I think it's necessary that we understand a bit more about them in order to identify with them.  All of this is a long-winded way of saying that the characters are one-dimensional and basically operate only on the one dynamic mentioned above (Henry vs. the other two), and on greed.  One thing, for example, would be to find out why the money is so important to each of them.

I think you strike a nice tonal balance for the most part here between playful fairytale and violent cautionary tale; that said, the violence between the three guys seems over the top and overly serious, probably at least partly due to the fact that we don't identify with them as characters.  In order to sell the harder violence, it's going to be necessary for us to understand them and why they're motivated towards violence.

Thanks!  Enjoyed this one; a good read.

Hi Heretic.
Thanks for the read and the notes. You are right on the most parts of your comments if not all. But I've got them all panicked when seing the gold, because that is the Yellow Fever. No matter who they (we) are seing the gold we change. And the sckeletons of former generations there would be proof of that. The first group came, saw the skeletons ignored the sign and paid the price. The secong group the same fate. And in the end crow  brings more unknowing people to their demise. That is the reason I didn't want the reader to relate too much to any charracter, but Crow. She is the only one who uses her brain and takes adventage of the situation. And the other point is we come and go, but gold stays where it is.

Thanks for your read and notes one more time. If you have any works posted in SS I would love to read them.

Regards
Jahongir.

This is a nice fable of sorts you have imagined here, Jahongir.  I have not read the previous comments, so forgive any repetition.  Most of my thoughts are technical in nature.

You open wrong right out of the gate, with BLACK OUT.  For just sounds, try the slug OVER BLACK, and then, do not forget to give us the INT. CAVE slug once the segment in black has ended.

And you are overusing your CAPS.  Some do not use them at all, but sounds and points of specific interest are fine, really.  But you have them everywhere.

You need to tell us how many pirates are in your group, and you can give them generic names, like EYE PATCH or something like that if you wish to avoid formal names.  But things like PIRATE #1 for actual characters with a good bit of dialogue strikes some readers as a bit lazy.

The violence amongst the pirates is a bit sudden.  You might want to build to it, or at least foreshadow a bit, or it will look odd if played out exactly as written.  "Everybody fights" is not as visual as it could be.

All of this -- the introduction of characters and the lead-in to violence -- is handled much better with the second trio of victims.  And the conclusion is appropriate, but I wonder if you cannot add some sort of clue for the viewer that some time has passed.  Maybe have the men dressed in futuristic clothes or something.

You have a good voice here.  A few grammar snafus here and there, but nothing that really impairs the read.  A cautionary tale that bookends well -- if a bit familiar -- but I liked it just the same.

Hi Bert
Thanks for the read and notes. It is appriciated. Yeh I think you are right like others. I need to work more on my charracters. But the thing with time. I put many clues in there. Like skeletones; young crow; old crow; pirats; bottles of beer.
I guess I should be more specific. Anyway, don't let my mistakes to keep you away from my stories they are good ones. We will not know we have mistakes untill somebody points them out, and I thank you for pointing out my mistakes.
I will return the favor. I will work hard to find your mistakes even though I know my chances are close to 0. LOL.


Ragards
Jahon.

Jahon,

Returning the read.  Ironic, I have a feature with the same title, but unfortunately I think I'll have to change it.  Your visuals were pretty good, a bit long for sure. The Crow was a nice touch.  This is a short, so I didn't have a problem not being able to identify with your characters, but for your features, I think it's important that the audience be able to with atleast one of them.  JMHO.

But for me, this piece was just too predictable, but I'm pretty sure that's what you were going for... but a little twist never hurts.

Despite some mistakes I thought your overall story was good.

Good Luck

Ghostie

Hi Ghostie.
Thanks for the read and notes. The original story was 6-pages, but somebody asked me to make it longer, then said he can't make it because of the crow. Difficult to find tamed ones and animated is too expensive.
Anyway thanks again and I will check out your work The Time Guardian as well and write what I think.


Thanks Reagrds
Jahon.