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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board  /  Sci Fi and Fantasy Scripts  /  Morgan
Posted by: Don, August 4th, 2017, 4:27pm
Morgan by Mark Mc Quown - Sci Fi, Fantasy - Morgan is a modern-day teenage Witch who lives with her family, goes to school and unknown to almost all, fights against ISIS and ISIL using a power that goes back to 6th Century King Arthur and his half sister Morgause who comes out of the past to help Morgan in this ancient fight between good and evil. 88 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Posted by: JC Cleveland, August 28th, 2017, 3:29am; Reply: 1
Way too much flowery description in the first several pages, and a lot of sentences that are too long.  Your descriptions should give the reader the bare minimum needed to fill in the scene with their own imagination.  You can use sentence fragments and single word sentences to make things read faster, too.  Your whole opening sequence with the wolves should take maybe one page, not three.

The first two paragraphs come off a little creepy.  The reader doesn't need to be informed about a nude teenager's, "feminine treasures" on page 1.  You could replace the first two paragraphs with something like...

A young girl strolls through a mountain meadow.  She is-
MORGAN, teenager, stunningly beautiful, and right now she's completely nude.

That's it.  You don't need to talk about the color of her hair, (unless it's important to the story), and you don't need to talk about how it moves across her "perfect body".  The more trivial physical description you give to a lead character, the harder it is for a reader to visualize different actors in that role.  

You've got a lot of words that have the first letter capitalized that shouldn't be.  Mountain Meadow, Wolf Pack, Meadow Grass, etc. - There's no reason those should be written like that.

Cut out everything where you're telling what sort of music is playing.  You should only mention the music in a screenplay if it's something VERY specific that's a critical part of the story.  The director picks the music, not the screen writer.  The way you describe a scene on your page should set the tone enough for a director to have an idea what sort of music is appropriate for the scene.

Cut out everything that isn't describing something visually.  How will the audience know the difference on screen between "soft meadow grass" and regular meadow grass.

Cut out everything that describes what Morgan or the wolves or anyone else is feeling or hearing.  The audience can't see what a character feels.  We can only see what a character conveys through action and dialogue.  We also can't see what a character is hearing unless that character reacts.  If it's important to the story that the audience knows a character is hearing something, then set it up through action.  If it's not important, then just tell us what important sound is happening in the scene, and just let the reader assume that the characters in that scene are aware of it.

Does it matter that there's western and butterscotch pines in the forest?  Are most readers even going to know the difference?  Are you expecting the director to find a location to shoot the scene that has those two specific trees?  If it doesn't matter what type of trees are there, just call it a forest and leave it at that.
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