The Woman Across the Street by TY - Short, Erotic Thriller, Dark Thriller, Thriller, Psychological Thriller - A woman, Emily, who always looks through the window to see other people's livelihoods catches a beautiful woman named Maggie. She goes to finally meet Maggie for the first time but finds out that Maggie was never in the apartment to begin with. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

The writing was decent here. And I appreciated the twist, there definitely weren't any clues at all that would make me predict that this would be a supernatural erotic thriller. Still, the twist in stories like these are done often.

My biggest issue with the script was the dialogue. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I don't shy from profanity. But it felt really forced here. We start off with this elegant opening with almost poetic dialogue, it almost reads like an erotic novel. Then, next page, her dialogue makes her sound kinda white-trashy a little bit. Her dialogue didn't match the tone that I felt was being established in the opening. And then there are so many "fucks", it sounds really, really forced.

Nice effort, but the dialogue needs a polish and I think it needs to fit the elegant tone of the story that is set in the opening scene.

-- Michael

Hi writer,

Not entirely sure what happened here (caught the gist of it), complications aside, the atmosphere of the script is beautiful, it reminded me of a ‘John Register’ painting.

This may be before your time, however, the band ‘Live’ incorporated various aspects of John Register’s artwork into one of their videos back in the 90s (Turn My Head), and I still love that video to this day, for some reason this script reminded me of that, not sure why:



Okay, that being said, there are many (script) issues abound here, but I won't bang on about the logistics of that, cause negative feedback might sway you from your pursuit of doing what you’re doing.

The good news is, the base of your writing is like a daydream, that being, whenever I daydream, I tend to find myself in a John Register painting… minus the melancholy of course. (mind you, there’s a certain beautiful enigma in melancholy).

Keep at it, you have a unique voice, and that’s one of the biggest hurdles to overcome in storytelling, best of luck!

Pretty sure if you googled Maggie Gyllenhaal you'd get a different result. I was so thrown whether or not you were trying to make us picture Maggie Gyllenhaal or if you just created a Maggie Gyllenhall (I See what you did with the name there) who had an undeniably similar name to the star.

Emily's dialogue with the housekeeper seemed a bit too aggressive. So many exclamation points!!!

I'm not sure why Emily would need to drive to get across the street. Seems a bit counter productive. The whole meeting with Harry seemed to serve no purpose other than to establish that she was a lesbian. This script is an odd one to me. Definitely not my bag.

As far as criteria I think it's lacking in the erotic part.

James

Shouldn't MAGGIE be into'd correctly?

A homeless Harry shows up at her door for odd pointless conversation. How'd he get into the apartment building? There's no reason for the character, The page is filler.

Quoted Text My name is Maggie Gylenhall

>
Reliving her Secretary days, I'm sure  

The rest of the script with Emily's scores of f bombs and ranting, is grating so much it feels like the writer gave up and pissed in the wind. We learn that Maggie isn't the actress but a person who 'died in a car accient' a year before. We then see Maggie's ghost, banged up. Makes no sense. (Note: Emily looked up the name and that's what hit she got!)

I almost expected the Housekeeper to be "Maggie" which would have been a masterstroke of genius, (as we know it would be an alias) but alas, no such inspiration. Nothing happens except a young lady getting rude and over emo. What a waste.  

(I'm using the following assessment criteria, and will apply the same to all... is it erotic, is it a thriller, is it low budget and the usual is it any good)

I'm going to ignore the email on the title page...

INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY ... and the next line is Emily is in her bedroom, this is very confusing. And if we follow the logic then the next thing Emily does is open her bedroom door, to find Harry somehow already in her apartment. Think of how the people move around the set you are creating to make sure it makes sense.

The dialogue between Emily and Harry doesn't seem very realistic, more like some odd dream.

You've spelled Gylennhal in more than one way in the script, and not sure about using a real person here - let's see where you go with it.

As proved more than once in Friends, figuring out where someone's apartment is in a block across the street isn't very easy... why don't they just hold up their phone numbers instead?

Okay, now I know why they don't exchange numbers

Nice twist.

But now I know it's not that Maggie Gylenhall I would definitely recommend changing it, far too confusing as it stands.

Emily has no real reason to say 'fuck' as frequently as she does, yes she's confused, upset etc but there's better ways to covey that in dialogue.

End confused me a little, but that might be the intention.

Okay, so this isn't erotic at all, thriller a little and there are issues as mentioned above but it does have promise in my opinion.

The rule of thumb most try to adhere to: Make your reader read down the page, not across. You definitely did that.

In terms of the dialogue, I had much the same problem that other's did. Only I'll go a step further, it too could be trimmed.

The twist was good, albeit cliche. If you go back and re-write this, beef up the eroticism.

I think my biggest takeaway here is that it's feeling a little rushed.

Ghost

This story confused me even after a re-read.Not quite a thriller, not erotic.
Does Emily imagine the whole story from Harry to Maggie or is it just not clear to me what Is should be reading?
I think it's supposed to tell of a supernatural encounter but it doesn't really make it easy to decipher.
Spend a bit more time on it, lose Harry's participation altogether so you can expand what it is you're trying to say. Even with all that, kudos on getting a story written and submitted.
Well done.

Hey, good work on submitting, there's an opportunity to learn a lot doing these challenges.

I think I understand where you were going with this, but some parts were distracting for me:

-When Maggie is first introduced her last name is misspelled.
-Naming a character the same name as a famous person made me think "comedy".
-The Harry character felt comedic as well, and seemed to deliver conflicting purposes.
-Harry tried to "screw" Emily, but she's gay; why the comic relief despite that? Also, why show that she can be justifiably angry sometimes?
-The Housekeeper banter with Emily can probably be cut down to one or two lines
-Emily yelling, "What's with all the fucking questions!" was out of place. Emily is poetic in her VO which makes me think sentimental, but she really gives it to the Housekeeper.
-The "jump-scare" can be timed better, what if it happened the following night when she realizes she's being haunted? Also, what happened to the Housekeeper here?

I think what you've written is a good place to start, and I think it has the potential to be something neat.

There's a story here that could be revised into something much better. If you work on writing realistic dialogue and banter instead of ramblings, the flow would improve dramatically. Spellcheck and correct grammar goes a long way. And lastly, I always try to pick names that aren't easily mistaken for a real or well-known fictional character. Maggie, whether spelled the same or not, was a real distraction.

Like I said, though, there is a story here. It just needs to be refined. Good work, writer.

Writer,

Good effort, but it falls way short of the mark. Spying a ghost is really nothing new, so you should really add a twist we don't see coming to try and make this feel fresh, creative and edgy. A hard job, but one you need to do here. We've all seen this type of story before.

Steve

Hello writer

Is it me, or are the characters and dialogue too far to the right? could be my tired eyes.

Your writing needs tightening.

Quoted Text A silhouette of a woman sits on the terrace wine in hand. EMILY,27, caucasian, takes a sip from her wine.

Why not just introduce her straight away rather than the whole silhouette thing?

Quoted Text Maggie turns towards the window. Catching Emily looking. She waves towards her. Emily waves back. Maggie walks out of Emily's view. She winks at her and closes the curtains. Emily chuckles to herself.

How can we see the wink if she is out of view? it also reads like a shopping list.

Quoted Text INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY Emily is in her bedroom on her laptop.

Slug says living room - She answers the door without a change of slug so I'm guessing the slug is correct, description is incorrect.

Quoted Text HARRY I don't have a doctor!

He is now on the otherside of the door, so his dialogue would be (O.S.)

Quoted Text HARRY,67,homeless

This is telling, not showing - show us he is homeless (or at least hint at it, describe his clothes, unkept hair and overgrown beard)

Actually, that whole scene with Harry can be cut, it is superfluous.

Too many writers have no idea how to express shock and fear other than to write "What the fuck!" multiple times in dialogue. I would consider cutting this out. by the end it felt like I was reading the lyrics for "Hot Dog" by Limp Bizkit

This has descended into childhood campfire ghost story territory with the highly cliched "She was dead all along!" angle... Consider something more out of the box.

The google hit was odd as well - If I google the name of a deceased person, google doesn't instantly tell me that they are dead and how long ago it was.

Strikes me as a newbie writer and so this is a fine base to start off with and learn from.

Well done for taking on the challenge

So there's a cool story here but right now it's bogged down a bit with awkward dialog and descriptions.

Maggie Gyllenhaal?? The name is a distraction.

IMO, less telling and more showing would amp up the tension. Maybe instead of extra maid interaction, add a scene where she sees Maggie while she's out, tries to find her in a crowd but then loses her. Lose the dialog exposition and show us.

Congrats on coming up with a cool thriller concept. Keep working on it!!