Our Little Cupids by Hodan Ahmed - Drama, Family, Romance - When Johnny (11 years old) lost his parents, his mission to honor his father, is to take care of his aunts. Cassie and Cathy Cooper are estranged twins. For the women, Life changed drastically, when they adopt little Johnny.  135 pages - pdf, format 8)

Heads up, Don.  135 pages is never a short lol.

135 pages 'aint a short...

... and Alffy beat me to it!

Quoted from alffy Heads up, Don.  135 pages is never a short lol.

;D ;D

Poor Don. This probably isn't even his fault. The writer probably clicked the wrong section or something.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Bite me.

Don

p.s. updated genre and slotted correctly.

Hodan,

Not sure if you're around or not, so I won't read very far until you show up.

There are lots of problems here, sorry to say. Bad slug (don't say "summer day"), passive verbiage, grammar errors, unfilmables, and not to mention the names are CAPPED throughout the entire script. And get rid of "CONTINUED" at the top and bottom of the page.

"CUT TO" isn't necessary. While there aren't really and rules against it, it interrupts the flow of the story. You can use it occasionally for effect, but I wouldn't use it every time you change scenes.

Keep verbs active. Rather than "Rebecca is walking" write "Rebecca walks". "Johnny is sitting" should be "Johnny sits".

Like I said, lots of unfilmables. "He just turned 11", "She's a retired model", "She's a business planner". There is no way to film this information, therefore it doesn't belong. Write it in a visual way, or use dialogue... just make sure the info you provide in your action lines is actually something we can see on screen.

Also-- 135 pages is too long. Keep it at 120 max, but 100-110 is best, IMO. When you rework some of the writing, I think the length will definitely change.

Hope this is enough to get you started. If you contribute to the boards, you'll get some more reads in return.

Will

Hello,

I would like to apologize for this late post. I was having a hard time registering to this site. Now that I am registered, i will check daily and try to respond your post as well as read a script every other day. Besides writing, I have a full-time job and I am a student as well. I am really excited to be on this site and getting reviews from people with the same interest as mine. I didn’t think it was hard to find people to read my script, so finding this site, makes me so happy.
Now that I am finally here, I have to check your reviews and apply to my script. I knew that the script was too long, but I thought better long than short. LOL
Will, Thank you for great feedback. I was expecting all the notes you gave to me and I will take it as I go back to the script.

Hodan, first of all, welcome.  I hope you will take the time to read a lot of scripts on here, as well as the review of those scripts, because that (along with actually writing and re-writing), is the best way to learn.  

Second, don't take criticism too negatively.  It is meant to help you hone your craft, not destroy your interest in writing.

So, on to the review:

I won't rehash what Will has already gone over.  He makes a lot of valid points, especially on the formatting.

I will note that your title page does not include any contact information, which will be important in the future if someone wanted to get in touch with you regarding your work.

Your log line needs a lot of work.  Changing tense in the log line is never a good idea.

"When Johnny (11 years old) lost his parents, his mission to honor his father, is to take care of his aunts. Cassie and Cathy Cooper are estranged twins. For the women, Life changed drastically, when they adopt little Johnny."

Maybe try:  Eleven year old Johnny loses his parents unexpectedly, and the lives of his aunts are dramatically changed when they take him in.    Probably no need to expand beyond that.

Most of the errors I found had to do with grammar, unfilmables, etc.  The dialogue at times for me was a little clunky because it didn't feel natural.  With a re-write, some of this can be cleaned up.  Try reading it out loud to see if it sounds right--you'll also catch a lot of errors that way.

For example, let's just look at the first page.  You describe Cassie this way: "CASSIE is tall, blond, tall and beautiful."  You've used "tall" twice in your description.  Then you go on to say: "She is a retired model, with a fabulous outfit and an expensive channel sunglasses."  As Will noted, there is no way for us to know that she is a retired model, so you need to drop that.  "and an expensive channel sunglasses" is not only grammatically incorrect, it makes reference to a designer, which is spelled incorrectly.   So instead Cassie's full description could be simplified to read as follows:

Cassie is blond, tall and beautiful. She wears a fabulous outfit and Chanel sunglasses.

As Will noted (and which I demonstrate in the re-write above), don't capitalize the names after the first time you identify the character.

Don't provide a direction for Johnny when he responds to his aunts.  We already know that he is talking to them.

The last three action paragraphs are filled with tense changes.  

For example: "As they entered their cars, they waved to their brother, who was standing at the door with his wife, REBBECCA."

This should be written like this:

"They wave goodbye to their brother and get in their cars."

Less is more in most cases when it comes to writing action sequences.

I won't get in to further details beyond that first page, even though I read about 12-13 pages.  Certainly you have an idea for a story in your head.  You just need to heavily edit this with a critical eye as to what stays and what goes.

Sorry if this comes across as harsh, but it is meant to help you as you go forward.  Best of luck!

Gary

Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate the time you took and I am not taking criticism negatively. As matter of fact, I need the feedback. This is something I really wanted. I have no idea where I got the idea to write the names in capital, but I will change it. It is funny as many times I read the story I never noticed this “"CASSIE is tall, blond, tall and beautiful."  I have noticed that sometimes when I read the story, I read what is in my head rather what is on the paper.
I will take your notes as I rewrite my script. Please send me your script as well, so I can repay the favor.

Thank you again.