The Child by Mr. Breakfast - Short, Horror - After a brutal double murder, a police officer transports the only witness, a child, back to the police station. 5 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Starting your script without a proper slug is a mistake.

It doesn't ring true to me that they would put the child in a cell. She's only 9. Surely they'd put her in an office to sleep on a sofa or something.

Wouldn't there be some sort of barricade in the squad car separating Earl and the Child? She shouldn't be able to attack him.

I think you have a solid premise here, but you are not there yet.

The Child's dialog starts out well, but once she becomes menacing the dialog becomes almost cringe worthy IMO. Drag out the conversation between the two a bit more, maybe even have Earl stop through a drive-thrue and get her some food. Build some suspense and then stretch it as far as you can.

Good luck with this.

~Zack~

thanks for taking a look and the feedback! i'll definitely implement your suggestions  As far as sitting the child in the back seat opposed to the passenger seat, i figured the child wouldn't come off as a threat to the officer, so he'd naturally sit her in front.  Again, thanks for the read.

Glad I could help. And welcome to simplyscripts.

FYI, if you'd like to get more reads then you should read and review others work. You'll be surprised at how much you learn by reading other members scripts. Good luck and keep writing!

~Zack~

Hello!  So first things first, I love the concept.  Great little chiller for only 5 pages, although, I do think you could expand the conversation in the car a bit.  It would really stretch out the suspense.

Now onto some nitpicks!

Personally, I like character descriptions, but it appears you don't.  They make me more connected to characters.  In this case, I don't know anything personal about Earl until page 4, so there's little interest in whether he lives or dies.  That being said, your action is pretty lean, which I can definitely appreciate.

I'm not a fan of having your character dialogue as "THE CHILD"  Feels like it's trying too hard.  Personally, I'd do CHILD or LITTLE GIRL

As I mentioned above, I could have done with a little longer conversation in the car.  I think a touch more at the crime scene would have really ratcheted the suspense as well.

The cell thing also read weird to me.  Seems at best they'd take her to a shelter and at worst back to the an office at the police station.

Zack already mentioned it above, but I have to concur, you need a proper slugline at the beginning (i.e. INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT).  As soon as I saw the formatting, my knee jerk reaction was to not continue reading.

I had actually assumed that she was behind a barricade in the backseat and then magically appeared in the front.  I thought that kind of worked!  It would be a rad jump scare if the piece was produced.

Just my two-cents.  If you do another pass on this piece, I'd love to reread it.

Thanks!
Brian

thank you, Digitaldecayfilms, for giving it a read. And the helpful notes! I'll incorporate them as soon as I do another pass, which'll be soon :) Thanks again.