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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    One Week Challenge    January 2019 -  One Week Challenge  ›  Second Chance - OWC
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  Author    Second Chance - OWC  (currently 1688 views)
Don
Posted: February 1st, 2019, 11:20pm Report to Moderator
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So, what are you writing?

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Second Chance by Michario - Short, RomCom - Young man wanting to make up for a mistake he made with his girlfriend. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work



Visit SimplyScripts.com for what is new on the site.

-------------
You will miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
- Wayne Gretzky
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Mr. Blonde
Posted: February 2nd, 2019, 2:07pm Report to Moderator
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What good are choices if they're all bad?

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The beauty of screenplays is that they're typically sparse and the lack of words make for a much easier experience when it comes to editing. It's hard to enjoy a story when there are this number of spelling and grammatical issues and completely overwritten lines slowing the read down. In all fairness to you, on a rewrite (if you choose to go that route), you could probably drop this down to 6 pages and lose zero content.

On the other hand, had it been perfect to look at, I just wasn't feeling this misunderstanding story. The comedy might work for some people, but it's not my type.


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PKCardinal
Posted: February 2nd, 2019, 2:21pm Report to Moderator
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Reads like a script from a newish screenwriter. Tons of passive writing.

As for the challenge: I had to go back and find the red element. So, even though you mentioned it several times, it didn't stand out as a story element to me. But, mostly, you lost me on the rom part of the romcom.

Not much romantic about a guy trying to recover from soiling his drawers.

The good: the early dialogue was pretty good. It didn't hold up, but it's a starting point.

Keep writing!


PaulKWrites.com

60 Feet Under - Low budget, contained thriller/Feature
The Hand of God - Low budget, semi-contained thriller/Feature
Wait Till Next Year - Disney-style family sports comedy/Feature

Many shorts available for production: comedy, thriller, drama, light horror
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ReneC
Posted: February 3rd, 2019, 2:06am Report to Moderator
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What would a sitcom do with this? Because the incident you describe is situational comedy, but you didn't really hit the mark with it.

The problem with this is the whole thing is exposition. It's something that already happened, and we aren't even going through the process of recovering from it. The whole story here is two people describing the same incident from two different perspectives to other people and then meeting up at the end to get over it. That's not a story.

Some of the dialogue is pretty good, stereotypes aside. Way too much description going on, you can cut a lot of that down.

Read more scripts and keep writing!


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Warren
Posted: February 3rd, 2019, 6:39am Report to Moderator
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A man who has taught his mind to misbehave

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Hi Writer,

The dialogue is very much on the nose, people just don't talk like this.

The whole thing is very passively written, the action blocks read a bit like a shopping list.

I would recommend breaking your action up into shots, it would make for a much cleaner read.

You will definitely benefit from reading a lot more scripts, and learning the art of subtext.

All the best.


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eldave1
Posted: February 3rd, 2019, 12:07pm Report to Moderator
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Email address on title page no a good thing for an anonymous challenge. Just a note for future ones.

At the opening, I am assuming this is a relatively new writer. This


Quoted Text
It is Saturday afternoon and the mall is busy. There are a
lot of shoppers walking about. Two young men are leaving a
shoe store. ERIC, 30’s is tall and lean. He is a sports
therapist. STEVE, 30’s is shorter than Eric and a little
heavier.


Has problems.

"Saturday Afternoon" is not filmable. i.e., there is no way to film a Saturday vs a Monday. You can either delete it or - if it is really important use a SUPER.

SHOPPERS should be capped.

Writing actively would really make your action blocks pop more and be more efficient. e.g., this:


Quoted Text
It is Saturday afternoon and the mall is busy. There are a
lot of shoppers walking about.


Could simply be:

Busy. SHOPPERS mill about.

Anyway - going to stop commenting on these types of issues and get to the story and dialogue - but you may want to read some scripts to get some pointers.

Dialogue is a bit wooden - stilted. It doesn't sound how people talk.

I liked that you tackled a two person version of the same story - that is a nice angle to take.

Congrats on entering. All the best,



My Scripts can all be seen here:

http://dlambertson.wix.com/scripts
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LC
Posted: February 4th, 2019, 7:14am Report to Moderator
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Good at the start. Well, I enjoyed this line specifically -

you’re starting to look
flavorful.


- despite the long-winded passive stuff, but then it deteriorated into juvenile. Perhaps you need to be in your twenties to appreciate material like this. Or maybe it was never my thing...

I like that she was a wise-up to him at the end but there was really no inkling throughout that she was.

Thanks for submitting.
I hope you're contributing by reading and reviewing.
This is a great place to learn.


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irish eyes
Posted: February 4th, 2019, 1:17pm Report to Moderator
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I think you were desperate for comedy stretching to the guy talking about shitting himself on a massage chair.

Some long winded passages that could have been trimmed down with a few F bombs dropped in for good measure.

I didn't enjoy this at all maybe others will

Good job on entering


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Dreamscale
Posted: February 4th, 2019, 3:08pm Report to Moderator
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Logline very poorly written...almost as if English isn't your first language.

Opening passage very poorly written, 5 lines long, and contains obvious unfilmables.

This isn't looking good...

Dialogue not remotely believable.

Oh boy...a completely unnecessary CUT TO, followed by an 8 line passage.

Sorry, I'm out...as in way out.

*

Revision History (1 edits)
Dreamscale  -  February 5th, 2019, 9:03am
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Sandra Elstree.
Posted: February 4th, 2019, 7:02pm Report to Moderator
Of The Ancients


What if the Hokey Pokey, IS what it's all about?

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Well...

That was a shitty story.  

Change the title, though.

Poor dude. It could happen, I guess.

Nice Effort.

Sandra



A known mistake is better than an unknown truth.
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Matthew Taylor
Posted: February 5th, 2019, 8:25am Report to Moderator
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Hi Writer

Straight away I have issues "It is Saturday night" - need a visual way to show this, or lose it.
"He is a sports therapist" - same thing

lots of "there are" - simply no need for them.

Writing like this makes the read hard, detracts from the story.

Dialogue needs some work to make it seem more human.

Ahhh! an 8 line block - I'm skimming past that, hope it doesn't contain anything important. (Now imagine a professional script reader, who has masses more screenplays to get through than we do in this challenge, he opens this up and comes across that big block of text, he's going to skim past it as well, just saying)

"Julie cut her off again" - past tense - and not needed, instead add "--" at the end of one dialogue and "-" at the start of the next, that tells us she is interrupting her.

I'm sorry but the story was boring, dialogue was flat and not natural.

It's not a Rom-Com (At least I hope a man shitting his pants is not a Rom-Com). The humour wasn't for me.

This strikes me as a newbies entry - Don't take anything to heart, if people don't like it it's nothing personal. Instead, use these reviews to improve your writing.

Good job on getting in an entry

Matt


Feature

42.2

Two steps to writing a good screenplay:
1) Write a bad one
2) Fix it
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Cameron
Posted: February 5th, 2019, 8:36am Report to Moderator
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Hey writer!

So I suspect we might have a bit of a greenhorn here. Keep the descriptions active and try to say as much as possible in as few lines as doable. Make every line of dialogue count and keep everything moving forward, also show us through the action, don’t tell us.

You’ve created a story here which kinda works, I reckon you got the brown pants idea and then just built around it rather than seeing where else it could lead us. Keep up the writing, just strip it back and work on your technique, as you had some form of story but as above a lot of people are fixated on the actual writing ability (as am I).

All the best,

Cam
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ghost and_ghostie gal
Posted: February 5th, 2019, 10:17pm Report to Moderator
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That was a shitty story.

Indeed.  Pun intended. Nope.  Didn't care for it.  I read it, finished it. The dialogue is basically one big exposition dump.  Sorry, don't have anything more than that, not going to spend anymore time on this one.

Kudos for finishing.


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James McClung
Posted: February 6th, 2019, 4:51pm Report to Moderator
Of The Ancients



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I suspect you're a first-timer. Lots of first-timer issues on display (passive voice, unfilmables, overwriting, etc). Let's take the first paragraph for instance:


Quoted Text
It is Saturday afternoon and the mall is busy. There are a lot of shoppers walking about. Two young men are leaving a shoe store. ERIC, 30’s is tall and lean. He is a sports therapist. STEVE, 30’s is shorter than Eric and a little heavier.


- You've provided no ways to tell visually that it's Saturday or that Steve is a sports therapist, nor is there any mention of either in the dialogue. Not only that, neither are even important to the story as they don't come up again. Both can be scrapped.

- "...the mall is busy. There are a lot of shoppers walking about." - Redundant. "Busy" would imply a lot of shoppers walking around.

- "Two young men are leaving a shoe store." - All passive voice thus far. Makes for longer, weaker passages. That's not always the case, but it is the case here.

So much of this information already can be collapsed into one simpler, punchier line. Let's try this for the sake of argument:

"ERIC and STEVE (both 30s) step out of a shoe store into a busy mall."

I don't want to get hung up on format here, so I'll stop with this paragraph. In any case, lots of similar issues throughout that would benefit from a little thought along these lines.

Dialogue comes off pretty uninspired. A lot of emphasis on exposition, as others have mentioned, and unnatural. But also just plain bland.

The whole bickering about whether to eat healthy or not, for instance, is kind of a played-out scenario but could work with some flair. Instead of "You're starting to add a couple of pounds," how about a clever insult? How about instead of "health food" (who would call it this?), Eric pitch an actual kind of food he would have some hope of converting Steve to? Speaking of which, what kind of fast-casual restaurant hoping to make any kind of profit call themselves "Fitlicious?" It all comes off as sorta placeholder dialogue for until you can come up with something better.

This is another issue that continues throughout. I'd think about how to spice up some of this banter. Not to mention, where are the jokes? This is supposed to be a rom-com, after all.

The whole scenario of Steve shitting himself isn't particularly amusing. I mean, I guess it could be depending on your taste, but it's not great for the rom-com context since the couple in question are barely seen together. I'm not even sure the whole thing holds up; Julie reveals herself to have known about the incident the whole time, in which case I feel like she would've just called out her dude for not returning her calls and ended the whole thing. Probably would've told her friend too.

So yeah. Clunky writing on the technical front. Not particularly funny, definitely not romantic, and generally not all that interesting. Not for me.


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Philostrate
Posted: February 6th, 2019, 5:43pm Report to Moderator
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Hi Writer,

I'm not going to repeat what the others said, but pay them attention - lots of good advices from Dave, Cam, Warren, James, etc.

The story was a little boring and the dialogue stilted but I liked that you told us two versions of the same story from different perspectives. That was clever.

Good job on entering and keep writing.


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