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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board  /  Horror Scripts  /  The Peripherals
Posted by: Don, March 25th, 2017, 9:13am
The Peripherals by Chris Ossman - Horror - A home-sick drifter discovers that mankind is no longer the apex predator on Earth as he fights to save himself and fellow travelers trapped in an old bus station.  86 pages

Treatment - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Posted by: Dreamscale (Guest), March 28th, 2017, 12:32pm; Reply: 1
Hey Chris.  I've got a refrigerator repairman here at my house, so I can't really work, can't just hang out, and can't leave...so...I thought I'd crack open a new horror script and give it a read.

I really tried to give this every chance possible and actually read to page 17, but there are so many problems here, writing-wise, structure-wise, and format-wise, but there's really 1 issue that completely destroys this - it's the dialogue.

First of all, the first 17 pages are almost all dialogue.  Secondly, it's all bad dialogue, as in dialogue that doesn't sound remotely realistic, and goes almost nowhere, even though Tim's been talking about these Peripherals for what seems like an eternity already.

Also, if you give this a real hard look, you'll see how many times you use character's names, over and over in your action/description lines.  Many passages start with a character's name, over and over.  In your intro, you have 2 unnamed characters, and you use "Elderly Driver" and "Driver's Spouse" just over and over again to the point where I knew this wasn't going to be good, but tried my best to stay in.

Hey, writing ain't easy, and writing well is downright difficult.  Don't give up, and don't despair.  Jump in on other scripts, and see what works and what doesn't. can understand what's wrong.

Best of luck.
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