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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board  /  Short Scripts  /  Adele
Posted by: Don, March 1st, 2013, 5:04pm
Adele by K.M.Hurst - Short, Thriller, Revenge - A game played for high Stakes, A game of Life and Death, A game Adele can't win! 7 pages - pdf, format 8)
Posted by: Gary in Houston, March 1st, 2013, 5:45pm; Reply: 1
Oh, dear. Hmmm. Well, the best I can say is there is a story here, but it is incomplete. Don't give us a "to be continued" at the end of this. Give us the entire story.  That's a little bit frustrating to read through all that and not even have the thing wrapped up for us.

As to the story, it's too scattershot, the characters aren't really developed, we don't know what happened to the mom or why the six men are after the dad.  The formatting is all wrong in the slug lines, the dialogue is clunky and unbelievable, and you have grammatical errors everywhere.

Sorry, but this needs a lot of work and you ought to finish it after some heavy editing and then re-post. But in the meantime, take a look at a lot of well-written scripts to see how they are formatted, how plot development is used, the way dialogue is written, etc.  that will help you immensely.

Gary
Posted by: danbotha, March 1st, 2013, 7:12pm; Reply: 2
I was out by the end of page one. I'm sorry, but this really does need some serious work if you're going to get a good review.

I'll leave a few notes, despite not knowing if the writer is around.

Page 1: EXT.COUNTRYSIDE HOUSE.DAY.SEPTEMBER 1996

Outside near a riverbank and a small countryhouse cottage. a
voice from a young girl and her father can be heard, but the
bodys of the two are not to be seen.

Everything in that opening paragraph is completely redundant and not needed. We know we're by a country house from your opening slug. That much is obvious. As for the Girl and Father, both need to be CAPPED upon first introduction. Additionally, you  don't need to say that these people can't be seen... That much is identified by your use of (OFFSCREEN) next to the dialogue lines. A pointless starter, which really doesn't give us any details that we need to know.

Various amount of spelling mistakes in just the first few sentences...

-"Bodys" - should be "bodies"

-"Catched fish" - should be "caught fish"

Don't forget to start all sentences with a Capital letter. This really is basic stuff which hints that you didn't care enough to proofread your work. Any script analyst would have put this script down, already.

Don't talk about "Adele's interior" describing her character. That needs to be shown to us, instead.

Sorry if this comes across as harsh. Sometimes, writers just need a bit of a wake up call.

Good luck.

Dan
Posted by: Guest, March 3rd, 2013, 4:07pm; Reply: 3
Hmm, reminds me of A History of Violence.  Guy living out in the country, nice country house, and these thugs -- clearly from a past life -- show up to take their revenge because the guy betrayed them and the boss.  This isn’t nearly as engaging as A History of Violence, but if you read more scripts -- good and bad a-like -- learn proper formatting, character development, and work on your grammar/spelling, maybe this could be some what decent.  But as it stands, it’s a pretty sloppy mess.
Posted by: dogglebe (Guest), March 3rd, 2013, 4:59pm; Reply: 4
I'm not sure I understand what you have here, K.M..  This is  the first part of a series?  If so, you might have been better off writing several parts before submitting them.

This script is filled with unfilmable descriptions.  All your headers mention that it's September 1996.  Aside for the fact that you don't put the time down in a header, you give us no indication in the story about this point in time.  When writing a script, describe this in ways that the camera can record it, namely visually and audiolly (if that's a word).  We see the house in the country.  We hear the fish frying.  We have no way of knowing it's September 1996.

You made the same mistake when you introduced Adele, describing her as:


Quoted Text
Adele’s interior form is made up of complete innoncence, her understandings of the world are not known, she relies on her fathers doings and actions since the death of her mother.

Adele’s exterior form is in constrast to the innoncence about her. she has long black curly hair, brown eyes, and skin which is a porclain under tone. a T-shirt with an ilustartion of Gadget Boy and Heather on it.


We don't see her understanding of tyhe world or anything pertaining to her mother's all that he see is:


Quoted Text
ADELE (5) stands next to her FATHER (50).  She holds a net containing a fish still hooked to her father's line.  Her curly black hair and big brown eyes convey an innocence that she dresses up in a colorful Gadget Bot and Heather T-shirt.


If you want us to know about her relationship with her father and how her mother's death affected her, show this to us in the story.

I don't know what software you used to write this, but please use your spellcheck.  There were numerous mistakes through the script.


Hope this helps.


Phil
Posted by: dellmoeg, October 23rd, 2013, 4:24pm; Reply: 5
Fix:
-Dialogue.
-Pacing.
-Read more published screenplays.
-And DONE.
-L.G.
Posted by: SilvaSly104, October 23rd, 2013, 10:08pm; Reply: 6
Huh? This script is waaay incomplete. I have to admit, you built one hell of a suspense going in...but the story went nowhere. You went through great lengths to describe Adele, but I did not see any purpose of it when she did not have much to do in the entire story, other than whine about her food and hide in a cupboard. I warmed up to the father for getting to spend more time with his daughter, probably after years of doing "dirty" work for unscrupulous characters...but again, even with him, there was not much development for this character as well. My only critique for this script is it needs more work...better yet, needs completion. Keep at it though...like I said, hell of a suspense going in...work on that momentum :)

-Silva Sly-
Posted by: dellmoeg, October 23rd, 2013, 10:14pm; Reply: 7
Agreed, Sly.
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