Sadie The Maker by Anthony J. Russo (ajr) writing as  - Short, Action - A young girl with special powers is humanity's only hope. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Pet peeve: please don't end a screenplay with a colon. It just doesn't make sense. FADE OUT or FADE OUT. is more appropriate.

I think it's sad that this doesn't have more comments. It's pretty good, though not precisely my cup of tea. The dialogue (and really, the whole setting) was a bit cheesy by my estimation--too cheesy for me, actually--but it does flow well. The script and the story are true to themselves and what they are, through and through. There's an honesty to it.

The voice-overs were overly lengthy and could benefit from being trimmed. They drown out the visuals sometimes. This is of course subjective; others could think differently.

Heavily influenced by Terminator 2, well, the VO is; Sadie=Sarah. The battle of man versus demons instead of Skynet.

Great concept and it started well. But Sadie’s dialogue became long winded and I began to skim. I liked the narrative structure and it was done pretty well for the 5 page limit. Just wasn’t a fan of Sadie’s esoteric ramblings lol

I quite enjoyed that.

One issue though is that the ratio of voice over dialogue to the action it will go over doesn’t work. Quite a few parts that are really lean on action with lots of talking. Does that make sense?

What are we seeing during all the dialogue? I realise you can draw out the scenes, but still.

Anyway it’s a minor nit.

Well done.

I like the concept, but also thought the voice-overs were laid on a bit thick. Par for the course in an early draft, so I hope no one holds it against you.

One nit is that a Christian superhero wouldn’t summon Hercules... she’d summon Joan of Arc or St. Ignatious or something.

Great job.

Not sure you don't need SUPERS for the time changes (they're embedded in scene headings)

Descriptions are vivid - set the scene nicely

The VOs became a bit tedious - perhaps if they were broken up a bit.

Solid effort for the short time

Code A WOMAN lies prone while three hairy, blood-matted DEMONS crouch beside her.

Hairy and blood-matted, and... ? That's it? Are they 3 Harvey Weinstein's by any chance? She is prone, perhaps they are Bill Cosbys? What do you want me to see here? You go for monsters then it's your job to build an adequate image of what they look like.

Do people actually see these scripts or do they just read the words and wrap up a summarisation in their minds? How can poor, unvisual writing ever be deemed solid?

Code Her blood-curdling SCREAM portends the unspeakable acts of horror that will follow.

I like this. it says a lot in a small space. It serves to help us better hear the type of scream and the way it is screamed. Nice.

Yeah, this is way better than the other one. I'm shocked they are so close as the writing here is more visual - demons aside.

Ouch. Ruined with the VO telling me everything. So cliche, so... been done, and done to death, at that.

It's all gone a bit Buffy. I think I was too old to watch that. From what I saw of it it looked like badly acted crap aimed at kids.


Writing: 3
Story: 1

Total: 2

Nice story here. And I liked Sadie.

I won't tell the specifics but if you have that question for me I will - I just think her speech is a bit dispersed as opposed to be forming a case. I believe if you give it time and reread it later you'll see what I mean.
I think you're seeing it now after submitting.
I'm saying this because it's strong and can be even better.

And I liked the ending.

I thought it was too much talking, not enough action.  

And she didn't feel like a superhero, she felt like a prophet or something.  

Too much exposition.  All the dialog did was explain how we got here.  Nothing really happened in the here and now.

It was pretty good, but, I'm gonna have to read the other one and see which one was better.

I'm not sure if I can add any advice save for the following:

You don't need the time jumps.
Cut down on the expositional dialog.
more action.

Good luck
Dan

It's not bad.  The one thing I'm not keen on is the over use of V.O.  It feels like the intro to a film where the real story will start, the action.  To me this was a warm up.  I still enjoyed it.  

All the best.

Sadie The Maker

Short notes: Pretty poetic VOs, thumbs up, feels authentic for this picture. The time changes were irritating since the reader must even get it in context to the timeline the vo is coming from. And if it's that complicated you really have to be very attentive and precise to deliver those changes in reader-friendly manner, which wasn't perfect to me and slowed down the read. I could see some great aspects that would play into some huge material. Atmosphere kept this one alive and I enjoyed some of it. That said, Sadie wasn't very active to me. It would need much more balance buuuut you have drawn a unique picture for sure.

story (0-5): 3

character (0-5): 3

presentation (0-5): 3

total: 9

I liked the concept and the idea that the pure and blind) can combat the rising tide of demons, it's not wholly original but it's handled well.

I do think it's let down by the VO though, too much imho.

It felt like a odd cross between a short and the beginnings of an outline for a feature. You pretty much lay out an arc for Sadie. She just wants to be a kid but was thrust into this life and death situation where the fate of the world depends on her. The more she engages and lets her guard down, the more fear rushes in and could ultimately kill her. That's all really great stuff but we'd have to actually see it play out over a hundred pages instead of five pages of V.O.

I love the idea that only blind people can lead armies because they've never seen the enemy. I like everything about the world you've built so far. Write this as a feature!

Very, very cool. I haven't read the comments and wonder if anyone knocked the VO's. I thought them necessary and vital to the storytelling. Great job. Would love to see this expanded.

I just read the comments and most everyone (of course) picked up on the excessive VO's. The short seems more like an introduction to a greater work and that the real story would go from this point.

Sadie says nobody knows how Satan came then a page later claims it was a build up of negative energy.

I really like the premise of a blind girl fighting demons because she isn't afraid of them. However, this could be written better. Lots of formatting errors and the constant VO wears thin. It works at the beginning but Sadie won't shut up, lol. With a rewrite this coulda been a lot stronger.

Also, Daredevil would clean up in this world of yours. ;)

This is mine, thanks to everyone who read and commented.

I see the V.O.'s were pretty polarizing. I didn't want to write dialogue. And I felt that this was the best way to set up the world and have the narrative flow properly.

I have seen probably less than 10 superhero movies in my life, so I was definitely out of my element. I along with my competitor opted for someone with superpowers rather than a true superhero, though I hedged my bet a bit by throwing Hercules in there. (0:

I did it primarily so that it wouldn't be a piece of fan fiction. Can't write Thor into the script if you don't own the rights to Thor.

Someone said Terminator influenced, sorry to say no. Sadie sounded like Satan, so... it grew from there. Any resemblance to existing fantasy genres is purely coincidental. As most of the longtime regulars know, I usually write comedy / dramas and don't really have a knowledge base in horror or fantasy.

Not sure about formatting errors, if anyone can illuminate specifically I'd appreciate it. Unfortunately my software uses a colon after FADE OUT and I didn't catch it. For slugs, I believe the year is proper at the end, didn't want it to appear on the screen since it was only to orient the reader so I didn't use SUPER.

Again, thanks to all. This was hard, and my competition was very worthy.

Some nice visual writing. Shitty subject matter. Not sure how I'd have twisted the same parameters into something that makes worldly sense, or even if I could.

You can use Thor.  Yes, Marvel owns the rights to the MARVEL version of him.  You can use the version of him that gets taught in school.

BTW Hercules is also in the Marvel universe.

I wish you had asked me.  I could have told you that.

Dan

Makes sense. Thor was a myth before he was a superhero. Same with Hercules. God I hate superhero movies... I'd rather watch someone make an omelet.

Thor was more than a myth, he was worshipped as a God.  And there have been fun adaptations from time to time, like Star Gate.

Dan

Quoted from DanC And there have been fun adaptations from time to time, like Star Gate. Dan

Are you trying to tell me that Stargate SG-1 was not a documentary?!

Hi ajr,

Really enjoyed that. Considering you say you are not comfortable with the subject matter I think you handled it very well.

I do agree it is very heavy on the voice overs but I don't personally think it detracted from the story.

It's a smart idea set in a well made world.

Thanks for the read and the kind words Scott M, never got to thank you on this.

Sorry for bumping this during the OWC but Don was kind enough to post the rewrite.

Expanded a bit and incorporated some of the very helpful suggestions.

Thanks again to all who read and commented.

AJR