Developing by Steve Burton (SBurton) - Short, Drama, Crime, Family - After a man develops several old 35 mm. rolls of film, he discovers links to the past, present, and future. 8 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

This needs a lot of work, your opening page has no fade in. Your first slug, is it day or night? The first action, who is ejecting a memory card? Daron? No description, i have no image of this character, why should i care about him? After this opening, i have just scanned the rest, you need to work hard on your formatting.
I won't go into the plot because it was hard to know what that was? A guy name Ed was in prison, we have no idea why?
Read lots and lots of scripts on this site and keep writing, the best way to learn is to read and write as much as possible.

Good luck with it.

Steve

Hi Steve,

I think Coop above has pointed out some good things. Read decent short scripts, follow the format and things will improve. Not difficult just needs some work. The last thing you want is to have a decent story which is knocked because of format issues.

I have found that reading others, putting together my thoughts about those scripts and then comparing with previous comments, has been a good way to learn.

The story, as written, doesn't work for me, but I am sure it could. Old photo's which trigger memories that lead to a change in a character seems to have decent potential. I like the fact you have tried a subtle story, not a slasher style effort which so often appears around here.

To me, even most shorts should have the beginning, middle and end. Here this could be;

B - we are introduced to Daron, his life, and maybe something he is struggling with
M - the photos appear and he goes through the process of deciding to have them developed
E - the combination results in Daron doing something differently, changing his mind etc

I don't know much about the characters because you haven't told us. So here's a guess. ED did something which caused pain to Daron. Why not have that indicated early on and that he hasn't got over it. Then the story is about how the photos change this situation.

I'll stop now, but if you enjoy this and want to learn, then sign up for the discussion board and take part.

All the best

I am parroting some earlier comments, but here goes.

I would like to know a little about the characters.  Are they young or old?  Also, their actions and dialogue don't tell us much about them.  It seems they are a bit plastic, just there to relay information.  I could not relate to them.

I'm sure your main was conflicted, but you didn't show us how.  Conflict is essential.

The dialogue at the end was so on-the-nose I was turned off.  

I disagree with the flashback.  Seemed too easy of a way to relay that information.

Hi Steve

First things first. I can already predict you will get lots of comments regarding your formatting. There is a free online script writing program called CeltX. Easily downloadble from its website. Pretty easy to use. Please think about using that.

I read from start to finish to see what you were trying to achieve. I had trouble getting immersed into the story because if we were to break this story down to its core, all we get is a guy forgetting about a set of pictures that were taken from long time ago and just making small chitchat about it. I felt you could have given us something more to go on about with this angle...the whole boyfriend/girlfriend at the beach thing did not do it for me.

As well, I really wanted to know more about Daron's relationship with his brother. If this would have been expanded more, it would have added just a bit more dramatic flair to this story. Elaborate more on this "scam" that took place back then. How was Daron involved? What was going on in Ed's life that he would resort to carrying out that scam? Why did he try to involve Daron in it? Those kind of questions is what I would have liked to ask.

Plot-wise...another thing that needs improvement on. Like I said, you have something great here. Definitely use the "picture" angle to your advantage. I would suggest going in a different direction with the discovery of those rolls.

Formatting: I don't usually comment much about this, as story to me is more important, but I would work on parring down your descriptions. Currently, it reads like a shooting script. Unless you plan on directing this, I would opt to omit excessive descriptions of certain scenes.

If you do happen to make modifications, I would very much like to read the new version. Until then, keep at it. Have a good one :)

-Silva Sly-