Pixie by Genevi Engle - Sci Fi, Fantasy - Peter engages in an intense hunt for justice after the mysterious death of his son and an amnesic witness with uncontrollable power remains his only hope. 80 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Genevi,

I read through your script for Pixie and wanted to offer some feedback. Just keep in mind that I'm very new at screenwriting, too, so take any advice with a grain of salt :-)

The story itself seems paced well, read through it in one sitting, and I only noticed one plot hole: that Kirk, who went to all the effort to build a hidden Mad Scientist Lair, had no failsafe for dealing with Claire bolting or he himself having an unforeseen accident. For the former, you can show Claire telekinetically crushing the sedative autoinjector that goes off if she strays too far from him. For the latter, it can be covered in Katherine's dialog that she was the backup observer.

One thing that immediately jumped out at me is that Claire and Carrie's names are too similar. I actually lost track of which one was which when Claire was hit by a car then the next scene was Carrie in an ambulance. Claire is described as Hispanic, so I would lean toward changing her name rather than Carrie's. There's also a Katherine, which is less of a problem when reading but could cause similar issues in actual dialog.

I get that Claire comes from a messed-up childhood and ended up in a crappy line of work. Not to be prudish, but putting her in a strip club might limit what actresses are willing to even consider the role. You could probably get a virtually identical set-up if she was a scantily-clad waitress in a rowdy sports bar. Alcohol makes guys do really stupid things regardless of the bar's theme.

If we are to infer that Claire was inspired by Thomas, they should either both be soldiers or both be Marines.

Some nitpicks: I think dialog lines broken up by action are (continues) or (cont.) rather than (continuous), Ellen is introduced with no description, and Issac should be spelled Isaac.

And finally I'll comment on something completely outside my experience: Are scumbuckets like Isaac actually that direct going after their victims? I don't know anyone like that to know if it's realistic, or if you should imply some passage of time. Speaking of Isaac, you might want Claire to mention on p53 that he won't be treated nicely in prison.

Hope this helps!