Shrink Rap by 0 - Short, Sci Fi - The closing of a mental hospital is delayed by a severe snowstorm. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Hi
Kind of fun to see happy ending here. And it was an entertaining entry overall. However it was hard to stay put and avoid skimming it. You plunge us into heated bickering and bitching about everything right from the very beginning. Each of your sentences ends in an exclamation mark which means to me they are yelling all the time.
What’s more important there’s no central character to hang on to. That might be just me tho - I count out points for sort of story that dwells exclusively on an idea without the support of proactive characters that make things happen. In your story things happened the way you want them to happen, characters don’t help those events.
Also at the beginning you introduce a large chunk of characters. That’s messy.
But it’s still an entertaining entry.

Jumping out right at me, on page 1 it's a Friday.  Friday isn't a location.(likewise, p2, Saturday isn't a location either)  I wonder what kind of a roadside sign  would read "STATE HOSPITAL FOR THE MENTALLY ILL" that's a lot to put on a sign, And too generic.

I know the estimated age of Weldon.but the EMTS, the attendants, Lilly the nurse and DR. BRADY (who should be capped on intro) are not given any ages. John gives some odd dialog, and I cringed at Brady's coffee and doughnut line.  These lines sound unrealistic as all would have concern for Weldon and make him feel at ease, even if he's drunk and worse for wear. It comes across as cold. By the way, why is Weldon here anyway?  He should be in a regular hospital, going through a detox.  Given the ending, it would make sense if the EMT guys were aware of the end result, since all the remaining patients share the same Mars vision.

(to Campbell & Lester)   p3  please write out the word and.

Quoted Text This hospital is closing down  - Dr. Brady to Charlie.

Charlie's transferred on Monday (two days).If the hospitalis closing down,why do they take in new patients?

Quoted Text SHEILA, 22, stands. She’s a shapely woman dressed in a revealing seductive outfit and wears expertly applied makeup.

I'm tempted. Very tempted, to tap out when I read this. She is a patient.  I seriously doubt she would have access to makeup (which isn't allowed in mental hospitals) let alone a sexy 'outfit'. Her multiple personality could easily flirt just as much in pajamas or a robe.  Later, she pulls a Basic Instinct bit, and I yawned.  But I made it all the way through.

Very clunky, cliched and not really engaging.  I think more setup would be better,

Fun and quirky! The wide array of characters is quite enjoyable. However, the script gets confusing at times because of the rapid-fire introductions and frequent location changes. Once I wrapped my head around your structure of storytelling, I enjoyed the story for what it is: an exploration of quirks and a love letter to science fiction. A slightly baffling, but pleasant read.

Your first two headers are wrong.

Quoted Text EXT. HOSPITAL - DAY - FRIDAY

Friday needs to be DAY or NIGHT - or DUSK or whatever - not Friday

Quoted Text INT. STATE HOSPITAL - ADMISSIONS

Need a day or night at the end.

Reading on I see this problem throughout.

Quoted Text Psychiatric attendants are CAMPBELL and LESTER. The psychiatrist is DR Brady. The nurse is LILLY

Tip - don't confuse us by introducing the characters here - they have no part in the scene - save it to where we are going to remember them.

Quoted Text DR BRADY Booze will do that. Want some coffee and donuts

An odd line.

The story - just okay for me - same beat over and and over - crazy patient think they're going to Mars - and of course they are.  Just didn't land for me. Congrats on entering.

Story didn’t land all that well for me—all very surface level interaction and conflict.  Whose story is this?  It seemed to bounce from one character to another without a clear direction.  Granted, there’s a spaceship but storywise I’m not sure it fits all that well within sci-fi.  Lots of characters to keep track of for the page count and not a lot to distinguish between them—had to go back a few times just to jog the memory.  Not bad, just didn’t leave much of an impression. Maybe trim the character count and focus on one patient with the Mars ‘delusion’?

Good luck.

Weldon gets an age, but John, Melvin, Campbell, Lester, Lilly and Dr Brady get no age or description... sorry but that needs fixing so that the reader/viewer can better picture them.

Scene heading should have a DAY or NIGHT in them, so INT. ROOM 7 isn't right.

I think there's a lot of this that could be shortened in the middle, will make for a smoother read.

So it was kinda obvious what would happen at the end, but I'm not sure I understood why.

Well done for getting a script in.

Um... Uh... Well... the setting did seem a tad overfamiliar and stale. Mental hospitals do exist, people congregate there, crazies too, but... hmm... I dunno.

eldave1 is real good with comedy. I almost want to suggest that you send your entire script to him, put both names on the result, and split the proceeds... but that's none of my business.

Seriously, the problem with this is, you've established several characters that have neither the slightest hint of likability nor depth, spaced over ten pages that barely even attempt to nudge the story forward, with description that includes no details, while dominating it with dialogue that's 100% devoid of subtext, meaning or humor.  In other words, to be blunt as possible, this does very little right and needs to go back to the drawing board. Yes, I know comedy is subjective, which very well may play in your favor here, but --consider focusing on a central protagonist.

Good job on entering.-A

Figured I would like this from the beginning. Opening kind of reminded me of the opening crawl to the mental hospital in the first HALLOWEEN. Characters were introduced very nicely. One of the best I've seen. Problem I had is when we started going to room after room after room after.... It established there was massive hysteria going around (from the doctors' view) about everyone leaving for Mars, but it got repetitive. The mental patients were handled well too. Humorous at time, but not overly cartoonish. Was really hoping for a TWILIGHT ZONE style twist at the end; something on the lines of the hospital was already on Mars and the doctors didn't know it. Either that or something like the Heaven's Gate/Hale Bop Comet cult. So just a tad disappointed at the end. Seems like we're all writing about snow, hehe.

Maybe this one just wasn't for me. I liked the writing for the most part. Just some very odd choices (e.g. having week days in your slug lines, or not writing "- DAY" and "- NIGHT").

I think this would have worked better for me, if there weren't that many characters involved. As they kept going from room to room, it felt like the overly long build up of a joke. While the characters are varied and often well introduced, it was hard to remember all of them in the group scene. Also, they kept slowing the pace imo. I also didn't get much out of the ending, although the final line is funny and a good way to wrap it up.

I did enjoy most of the dialogue, it kept me interested

As I go:

- Our doctors do not sound very doctorly.
- Candice is (barely audible). But do they hear her, and do they react, given that she's catatonic?
- Too many vignettes.

Thoughts:

- Well, it goes where we think it's going. But why?
- Not really stakes here. Everyone knows what's going to happen except for our docs. That shift in authority doesn't really take us anywhere. Need to find a way for each vignette to add something new to the equation.
- When you offer two possibilities -- the bus comes or the spaceship comes -- your audience has no choice but to expect that the less likely one will turn out to be right. They know it can't be the bus coming, because then there'd be no turns in the story. Similarly, the creepy guy next door that the kids suspect of having a dark secret always turns out to have something in his basement. Because of this, I think this story needed added elements to throw us off the track. In addition, the "person with a mental disability who knows what the others don't" is such a recognizable trope that it kinda tips the script's hand, here.

Chris

"Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday"

Why do we care enough that it's Friday to put it in the slug? If it's important for the story, it won't come across to the audience.

Carrying a stretcher? Do budget cuts mean they don't have a gurney?

A lot of people in this, do you need this many characters? Making my brain hurt trying to follow who is who, but from a practical POV, it raises the production budget - especially when you give them all lines to read.

Dialogue is clunky, doesn't feel like I'm witnessing real exchanges - No one comes across as authentic.

a band of misfits go to mars - seems like the story I actually want to read/see comes after this. Set's up unique and quirky characters (kind of comic book) but doesn't involve them in any kind of story - It's just one long Character introduction, a set up for a story untold.

The ending was abrupt, all of the unnecessary extras you put in really ate up your page count.
Slash the characters (John, Melvin, Campbell, Lester, Lilly, Margaret) honestly you only need the Dr and his patients - Keep it simple to let the story shine through.
And actually give it a story, a plot - goals and stakes - there is nothing to grab hold of at the moment.

Writing could be better (not terrible) but it doesn't flow well.

Best of luck

Writer,

Lots of mistakes right out of the gate -- no ages for some characters, slugs are poor and don't denote DAY, NIGHT. Not a good start here. I didn't read any comments on this but I'm sure what I have to say you've already heard so I'll spare you.

Basically, you need to touch up your writing skills here and put together a story that has an ending we're not going to see coming from a mile away. Maybe this was a first or second attempt at screenwriting (storytelling) for you, and it's a decent first attempt. Just keep writing and reading! Awesome that you got an entry in, though.

Steve

A cute story as far as it went. But a hint as to how they “caught” the shared “psychosis” would have been welcome. And a hint as to why Mars wants people wouldn’t have hurt. Plus, there are way too many characters, which meant that none of them were well developed.

Hi writer,

This was eerily similar to a 2001 flick - K-Pax with Kevin Space(y). Plot: IMDB scrape --

“PROT (Spacey) is a patient at a mental hospital who claims to be from a far away planet. His psychiatrist tries to help him, only to begin to doubt his own explanations.”

Prot has explained that he can take one person with him when he returns (to space); thereafter most of the patients at the institute ask to be taken to K-PAX (his home planet)

Then, at the end of the movie, what is thought to be Prot is found lying catatonic under his bed, and one of the other patients is also missing. The missing patient is never found, and Prot does not return (from his catatonia).

I get a feeling that you were working as many threads into this tale as you possibly could with the intention of driving home a scenario that could only be considered delusional. However, it is generally understood that all the patients that reside within an ‘Institute’ are not bound by the same form of psychosis, or neurosis… it’s a mixed bowl of fruit so to speak. So not everyone’s immediately onboard with a kooky story about going to Mars, especially coming from the nutjob down the hall. So, there must be something the patient’s know that Brady doesn’t… no?

CHARLIE: What do you mean better? There’s nothing wrong with me. I gotta get outta this contraption by Monday. I don’t wanna go to Mars looking like this?

DR BRADY: Mars, huh? You’ve only been here 24hours and already our Mr. Maxwell has you under his spell.

So, Brady knows Maxwell is somewhat of an instigator, but never questions the motive behind every other patients’ belief in the Mars theory:

DR BRADY: Very well. Mr. Maxwell has what’s known as a Delusional Disorder--  A false belief about something that doesn’t exist.

Which only further amplifies Brady’s disbelief in Maxwell’s ability to take hold of logic within the walls of the asylum, yet, on the day of judgement, there it is:

“A loud screeching noise is HEARD o.s. as a large egg-shaped spacecraft descends out of the sky and maneuvers to land. A blast of hot air begins melting the snow and ice in the parking lot as the spacecraft settles to the ground.

DR BRADY (speechless)I don’t...I can’t believe...I...

I kept searching for a clue that would reveal why the ship was gonna land, cause it was obvious the ship was gonna land, I just wanted to know how Maxwell knew, and what evidence he had to support his theory in order to get the entire banana bunch to follow his lead. Alas, just like Prot in K-Pax… we’ll probably never know.

Best of luck.

I like the title!

Easy enough to follow although it felt rushed. The problem is, it’s rather obvious the Mars thing is real and yet you stretch it out repeatedly with different patients, which adds nothing to the story. You could have told the same tale in 5 pages and it would be exactly the same.

There’s the beginnings of a quirky comedy here. I think the last line is funny for example and there’s some nice moments throughout. Have a think of adding a few more elements and maybe some misdirects so the audience doesn’t expect the ending a mile off.  

-Mark

New writer, I assume. You have a lot of issues here, but they're newbie issues that can all be resolved with practice.

Not sure where to begin. Well, okay...whose story is this? Dr. Brady? I thought it was Weldon because you started it that way but then we met so many other patients after him. Or...is it Sheila's story? This is a big problem. First that we don't know who your story is about, and second...way too many characters for a 10 pager. Way too many. In the first quarter page you intro 7 people!! And not well. Some of the intros are bad. My advice...just show the orderlies waiting for the ambulance...we see the blizzard...maybe here, while waiting, the orderlies mention the hospital is closing. Hope the blizzard ends before they have to transport everyone. Then comes the ambulance...weldon. who cares about the drivers...just show them quickly, you don't even have to name them. .... When inside give a good description of occupants and definitely the surroundings. Why is the hospital shutting down? Is it decayed? Could make for some creepy visuals. Then intro Dr. Brady but well. Give us a good description. The same with Lily. No need to go into so many rooms and intro all those patients. Just give us a glimpse. But intro Sheila. Give us some interraction with her, maybe more with Weldon...but it needs to lead up to your twist at the end...which is very funny but needs a good story and characters we're interested in, in order for it to pay off.

Overwriting...the leaner your words are, the easier it is for people to hear your story. Yours is buried. The first half of your opening sentence,  for example... "a bitterly cold snowstorm of blizzard proportions "...OMG, just tell us it's  a blizzard. LOL.

And your writing needs to read smooth. Yours doesn't. Example: "Weldon is unshaven and disheveled. He’s shaking violently, sweating and agitated." -- Smoother--- Unshaven, disheveled, agitated, Weldon sweats as he shakes violently.

This whole thing is overwritten. And too many ing's... Some are fine, but you just have way too many, sometimes clumped in one paragraph. Example..."Numerous male and female patients are milling aimlessly about. Some talking to themselves. Others watching TV. Others seated around a table playing cards." -- In this sentence you have 4 ing's. Here is same paragraph with zero, and trimmed -- Patients aimlessly mill about. Some talk to themselves, others watch TV, some play cards.

I hope that helps. Others on this thread have given great advice. Just keep writing. Rewrite this one as an exercise and post it for reviews. Best of luck.

The writing is awkward. Little green men strikes me as lazy. It seems, from the tongue-in-cheek writing, that the writer isn't taking this seriously. Rather than being transported to the world, you have created, I can tell this is a story. The writing is very passive. The dialogue is stilted, forced, unnatural.

This one needs a lot of work...

Criteria Met (Y/N) – I don't care.
Story (1-5) –  1
Characters (1-5) – 0.5
Dialogue (1-5) – 0.5
Writing (1-5) – 1
Overall (1-10) – 1.5

Sorry, but this one is pretty rough. Awkward writing makes it a chore to get through. And what's with the blank page at the end? Sloppy.