Restitution by Anthony Rhody - Drama - In a dystopian future, a man wrongly imprisoned for murder for decades is proven innocent, but is told the state cannot compensate him with any money and instead will allow him to kill one person of his choosing. 113 pages - pdf, format 8)

i Haven't read this and to be honest don't have the time but...

...i feel you have an interesting log line but it reads poorly. I'm not the best at these but it could be improved. My initial thought are;

1] why - "for decades", just use- imprisoned

2] the second half is clumsy. i get the picture, so well done for that, but it has to be punchy. I have failed on this myself, so no lectures from me!!

Should i have a go..no...i've been out its late...its not advisable etc etc

Standing back you have a sentence with four parts. To me, and i'm a real amateur, i would have a sentence with three sections or two different sentences.

Ok i can't stop myself...

In the near future, a wrongly imprisoned man's only compensation is to be allowed to kill another, if he wishes.

OK still flawed (its still late here and england have won the football etc)

All the best

I read the first few pages and then skimmed to page 10 where I still was not pulled in by the story. There are also a few formatting issues for instance: no title page and big chunks of description, amongst others. If you read a few of your fav movie scripts on here it may help you see how to make yours better. Keep at it.

Renee

Quoted from Reef Dreamer (its still late here and england have won the football etc)

That's the first time browsing SS has ruined the football for me... I was going to watch this game when I got home from work tonight but what's the point now! Thanks, Bill ;D

Anthony,

As I'm here I took a look at your script but I was fearing the worse when I saw the page length and a name I'm not familiar with.

My fears were not put to rest I'm afraid upon looking at your opening page and I can now see why this is so long.

You need to tighten up the long, blocky segments of action. Try to keep the action to 4 lines max although I think a few would say 3 now to be fair.

Good luck and keep writing. :)

Steve

Anthony,

Story-wise I made this to about p.25 where I eventually got lost in the continuous back and forth dialogue and weight of characters. I kind of felt by that point you needed to be getting into the nuts and bolts of the story, but it's 25 pages of wordy exposition (courtroom scene) and idle banter between Hardy and Prane.  It's a tough premise to set-up, but the way it's presented here just falls flat and dragged out.

Also couldn't help but feel the gravity of the situation, of an innocent man having been locked up for 22 years was skirted over.  It's a huge injustice. You show him collapsing in the toilet scene, so Prane obviously feels it, but for the likes of Hardy, Lilian and Judge Wentz it just felt too lighthearted.  'Oh hey you really were innocent, here's the good news, you get to kill somebody on us...'  It also somewhat negates the fact he wasn't a murderer in the first place (or am I missing the point?).

I got the impression you're leaning towards a dystopic vision of the future, always a fan of this. But I can't help but feel there's a problem of logic with the idea of restitution and the Even Steven's law.  It's interesting, could have a great concept there, but it needs solid grounding to be believable.    

Had some nice touches with him missing the 'things that grow' p.18 and the references to the dictionary.

I think there's better ways to present this premise.  Maybe if the law permitted you to kill the person who really was guilty? As it is there's a lot of trimming to be done in those opening pages and (for me at least) a more logical take on the premise.

Steve.