One Less Story To Be Told

Dan,

Yeah, I didn't get very far into this. I think the CAPS have already been brought up. I've seen TV scripts formatted like this before... no idea why.

Don't number your first page.

Screenplays start with FADE IN:, right aligned, then the slugline.

Your slug, by the way, is not good at all. It should be:

INT. HOUSE - DAY

Or better yet, JOHNSON HOUSE or whatever the family name is, if you want to be specific. In slugs, it pays to be specific... but not too specific. There's no need to tell us the city/state/etc. (Manchester).

"Two characters already sat down watching television."

It's a screenplay, so write in present tense, not past. So:

"Two characters sit watching television."

And why call them "characters" in the first sentence and introduce them in the next? In scripts, you should properly introduce characters the FIRST time we see them.

So, it would be:

"MUM and DAD sit, watching television."

But later, you tell us DAD is BARRY and MUM is really PAM. So, it should be:

"BARRY and PAM sit watching television. STEVE enters."

You don't have to tell us they're parents, since that's telling, not showing. So maybe give us an age, i.e., "BARRY and PAM (40s)..." If that's not enough, maybe they're having a conversation that lets us know they're married.

And that brings us to the next line... "STEVE WALKS IN TO THE ROOM TO BREAK SOME NEWS."

Like I said, you need to show, not tell in screenplays. You tell us Steve enters to break some news, but on screen, all we see is him walking in the room.

So, a better, but not great way to write this:

PAM and BARRY (40s) sit watching television. STEVE (16) enters.

Like I said, not great, but in a simple rewrite like this, you can reduce a four-line monster paragraph to one line.

Onto the dialogue... it's not good at all. It's too on the nose, and there's very little conflict most of the time. Basically, you want to cut out all the "hi, Mum." "Oh, hi, Steve, how's it going?" "Good."

Not to mention you started the scene too early. It's best to start scenes a late as possible, then end then as early as possible while still making sense. How does showing Steven enter the room serve the story? You could start it at "Come on Steve, spit it out!"

Also, don't write character names like this: "PAM:" It's just "PAM."

A ten second awkward silence? Look at a clock and wait ten seconds. That's a pretty long awkward silence, especially for something like "I finally got a girlfriend."

Don't center your action lines. They're always right aligned, all the time.

Also, there are some typos. Dialogue uses the same punctuation as action lines. Which means "whats" should still be "what's", "Ill" is still "I'll", and you still need to use question marks and commas.

And get rid of CONTINUED at the top of the page. Don't put it on the bottom, either.

And don't write CUT or SCENE 2. To start a new scene, just put a new slugline.

Besides, the proper format for CUT is CUT TO:, in a new paragraph left aligned. There's no rule against CUT TO: but most of the time it's redundant and takes me out of the story.

Not to mention this is pretty long for a short. I assumed, according to the format, it was a TV script, but I doubt it. For a short, 40 pages is pretty long, but if you don't type IT IN ALL CAPS and remove/reduce redundant lines, this could easily be shortened to a better length.

I'm not sure what you're formatting this with, but I recommend you download Celtx, free script formatting software.

Anyway, I hope some of this helps. I don't mean to be harsh, and if I come across that way I apologize.

Well, I didn't intend to make my review this long, but hopefully you're on the boards.

Read scripts, and contribute to the boards. You'll get more reads and be surprised at how quickly you improve.

Will

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