Putting Me Down by Sam Thomas - Short - How much can one man take of himself? - pdf, format 8)

Hi Sam :D

First thing I noticed about this one was the logline... I think it needs a bit of work, as it doesn't really tell much about your story.

At the start you need to describe Dan more, because he is your main character. You want your audience to have a clear image in their heads. Just try to include simple things like the age of your characters.

"The shot changes (to what?) and we see a version of Dan (better or worst?) reclining on one arm next to Dan in bed" - What? Sorry, this doesn't make sense. It's only until we read further do we understand what was actually happening there. I know I'd want people to realize straight away rather than have people confused about it.

On Page 4 you say "Dan reaches into his glove box, pulls something out..." Don't hide anything from your readers. Tell them what it is straight away. That last note was more of a preference thing.

Those were the only problems I was able to pick up in this one. It turned out to be a rather good read, with some great themes going.

Keep up the writing!

-Daniel :D

I don't have a lot of hope for many comments on this because of the mass of scripts that it was released with but I hope everyone who takes a look likes it.

Thanks for the feedback Dan.

Sam

Sam, as you've acknowledged Dan's review I'll give you my thoughts on your short.

First, Dan needs a better introduction.  A brief description will do, nothing too fancy.

Drop the 'we see's' these are frowned upon.
'We see an alarm clock change to 7:00am and start to buzz'.
This can be easily changes to something like:
'An alarm clock buzzes 7:00am'.

Also drop the 'shot' descriptions too.

Dan in bed confused me, are there two Dan's?

Lose the 'ings' from your sentences. Try to write in the present tense. This again is easily fixed.
'Dan is brushing his teeth'.
becomes
'Dan brushes his teeth'.

Who is 'Figment'?  Is it an alternative Dan.  This needs to be more clear.

There are times when you over write things, here's a good example:
'Dan looks at the bill that he has to pay and hands his credit card to the man behind the counter'.
This could be shortened to something like this
'Dan checks the bill and hands over his credit card'.

Okay from the above you're probably going to think I hated this but actually I liked the story.  It has a 'Fight Club' feel...without the fighting lol.  I really think this has potential, you just need to clean this up.  I don't know if you've read many scripts here but if not, do.  You will get a good feel of what's good and what's not and what's right and what's not.

I hope this helps.

Contrary to what others have said regarding figment, I felt the story would benefit from not less but more ambiguity. How you might achieve this, though, is beyond me.

I like how Dan isn't at all responsive to figments comments, though I wonder if, at some point, his comments shouldn't excite emotion in him -- before the final scenes. A kind of slow build? Not too slow though. The story, IMO, already drags a bit.  

For a moment, I thought when Dan shot Figment, Dan would die, silencing his inner voice, taking his own life.

I'm not sure if this is your first or fifth draft, but I do think it's interesting enough to continue working on.

Nice concept and good execution.  Some of the dialogue was lacking proper punctuation but that can be easily fixed.

Also, I agree with your use of "something" when Dan pulls the handgun out of the glovebox.  If you don't want the audience to see it, it shouldn't be revealed in the script until you see want them to see it on screen.

Great job.

That was kind of funny and I'm glad Dan shot figment and not himself. That's what made it different and funny.

Maybe, at the end, as Dan rests his head on the wheel, he side arm shoots Figment, like Hulk did Thor.

Hey Sam,

I’m afraid to say that I wasn’t a massive fan of this one and I breezed through after the first page.

Technically this needs work and it was a hard read for me personally sorry to say. I’ve never seen a character’s name written so many times in the action and I found this tiresome as it went on. There were other issues like the slugs and camera directions as well as awkward sentences.

In one scene it reads like the car literally drives away on its own like Knight Rider or something as Dan wave’s good-bye.

The story, well it was okay and I think we all have that little voice in our head, maybe not to this extreme. I just found it difficult to get into this because of all the problems technically.

Give this a rewrite, clean it up and then repost. I’ll be sure to give another read and hopefully your story will come out on top.

Good luck and keep writing. :)

Steve

Took a look at this!  It wasn't bad, but there could be a lot more done with this!  Going off a lot of people's comments here, I did feel it kind of dragged a bit.  We see Dan going throughout his day with the figment breathing down his neck all the livelong day.  After several pages of this, it started to drag and I was waiting for the next thing to happen, which unfortunately doesn't occur til the very end.  I agree with another poster on here that it would be a good idea to show Dan gradually getting more and more fed up with his figment.  I think it would add some flow from the entire beginning part to the end scene where he tries to kill himself.  In terms of writing, you could definitely cut down on the passive writing, but otherwise, a solid job!

By the way, was I the only one who initially thought Dan died at the end when he slumps over the wheel and sounds the horn?  I don't know, like he shot his figment, which ended up killing himself or something? lol

Wow! Thanks for all of the feedback guys.

I do think that I need to make more clear who "Figment" is. As with many writers, I have to keep reminding myself that the reader isn't in my head :)

I will also think about having the action grow with Dan's frustration.

Also being more clear that Dan slumps over the wheel in defeat should have been more clear but I like rock. coming up with his own ending :)

Sam