Those That Help Themselves by Anonymous Yevette - Short - Two men and one woman on the way to their next music gig find a deserted motel and a free room in a hurricane. But is it luck that brought them here? - pdf, format

I thought this was good. All three characters have visions and tie into the plot. Hurricane check. I think it's low budget, depends on how detailed the director would want to shoot that dead body. Decent dialogue. Good effort here.

I'm sorry, but I'm out on Page 3.

The writing is very passive.  Very awkward in places.  Very overwritten in places.  "(CONTINUED)" on tops and bottoms of pages.  Dialogue goes nowhere.  Characters are far from interesting so far.  Just very amateur and juvenile, sorry to say.

I've seen much worse in this OWC and normally, I'd continue, but I already know it's not a strong entry, so I'm out.

Good job entering, though.

Didn't work for me, sorry to say.  The dialogue was pretty cliche and the real conflict didn't come into play until late in the story and by then my interest was waned.  The actual decision of the trio having to decide who gets it first is a good one but it felt like an afterthought when it finally happened.  

As far as the supernatural element, yeah it was there, but it just didn't hit the mark for me.

Sorry, not much else to say.

Greg

I thought this was good. The writing at the beginning was passive but it got better towards the end.

Some of the dialogue was questionable but needs more originality, it felt stale and went by very slow.

The story was pretty simple but I liked how you got there. Make the pages flow faster and better and I think you have something here. Otherwise it was good.

My grade: C+ but take that lightly.

Yeah, you should really work on the writing here.

Use "Alison walks" instead of "Alison is walking." Keep it active.

Or this: "Walking through the car and to the office window, she is now in a panic."

This sentence is awkwardly written, plus it's passive as well. Could be: "In a panic, she walks through the car and to the office window." (What do you mean, "she walks through the car", anyway?)

This line starts off well:

"It’s a storm. Trees strain in the ripping wind. Water pelts the road, buildings, anything underneath it."

...but what do you mean "anything underneath it"?

"A strange smell hits him."

On film, there's no way of knowing what he smells, unless we see his reaction. So maybe you could say "Gil wrinkles his nose at a strange smell." It's more visual that way.

Anyway, hope this gives you some ideas for revisions. Good job completing the OWC.

Congrats on finishing the OWC!

I stayed with it to the end.  

However, I agree that there wasn't too much to keep me interested.

There were many issues with formatting which other members posted.  Too many CONTIUEDs and CONT2... took me out of the story.

Too many passive verbs like is walking...etc.

The characters were not very interesting imo.  

Thanks for playing.

Hmm, bit of a whacky story here & a bit disjointed as if you couldn't quite make up your mind as to plot.

You'll notice the SS mob all going on about your 'passive writing'/'overdescriptions' etc. Thing is, if you had a rip-roaring story going on here none of that would have mattered to me - that stuff can be fixed quite easily...and they know that too.

Unfortunately the story, as is, is a bit rambling and unfocused and a few of your descriptions are not constructed very well i.e. 'the two pairs of feet gingerly walk past the cat's toy - a human ear' - I had to read that twice to get it, at the very least it's ambiguous.

Good job for entering the OWC - it was imh a tough challenge.

This seemed like a very rushed job.

I can see the story behind it, which is a good one and I liked most of the dialogue, but couldn't picture enough action.

I thought the opening scene with Alison was good, but I could definitley read between the lines at midpoint with what happened there.

With a re-write this could be a lot better.

Good effort.

Made it to the end, but still not sure what was going on here.  Some of the passages had a rather stilted feel to them.

On page 2, instead of 4ft, you should actually write out four feet.

Really light on any story progression until they get to the body.

As for the ending, it was unclear who pounded on the glass.  Alison says "a friend" but that's not much of an explanation.

Not bad, but suffered from a lack of action and clarity in places.

kind of reminded me of Shallow Grave

i think there was enough in the core premise of three people find a stash of cash and the consequences with taking it. I appreciate the OWC demanded a supernatural event and that probably got in the way as, on balance, it confused rather than added.

otherwise quite tight, not expensive to do and could be tense and dynamic

all the best

The story opens up really slow for me. I was on page 8 when I found myself wondering that I still dont know much about those people as well as the story.

Id think you better cut on your dialog.

For me the real story started on page ten. Wish it hapened much earlier.

This one felt like it didn't have an ending... or many attempts at answering questions. You have a single line of dialogue telling us why the people are at the motel. You have the "A friend" ending which makes no sense because you don't say who that friend is. Maybe it's the ghost of the dead guy in the shower, but they didn't know him beforehand so I don't know how it could have been him nor do I have a clue who else it could have been.

I don't know what to make of this one because you never really explained anything and, to be honest, the writing itself was a little rough.

D.

Starting this with a dream sequence didn't help the story in any way, from what i could see.

I felt the action description was awkward in places, maybe it's a fresh effort from a newbie or a complete last minute scramble for the finish line.

Uses of present continuous instead of present simple and things like. 'The rain stopped' - should be 'the rain stops'. Everything in a script in happening NOW.

The characters need more description to sear them into our head.

The story was okay, if a little confusing. It needs more clarity.

Hits and misses throughout as stated above but I liked it. You were probably rushed to finish as most people were and it just needs a good rewrite. Congrats on writing the OWC.

I'm not sure about this one.  I kind of liked the basic idea behind it.  But I'm not sure the way it was executed was the best way to tell the story.   Probably a few more rewrites and this will be a pretty good short.  

Good on ya for getting something together for the OWC.  

I wouldn't expect anyone to say this line...

HARLEY
Now, who wants it first?

...unless this is the 1920s and Harley is holding a Tommy gun. So, I guess Allison has a ghostly friend who pounded on the glass? That kind of came out of nowhere.

I didn't see a clear choice between good and evil, just whether to live or die. So, minus points there.

Good job entering the OWC.

James

I liked the way Alison's premonition/dream intersected with reality at the end when she warns herself.  I think there is a good concept here.  Unfortunatley the story it's wrapped around is somewhat underwhelming.  

I didn't see the relevance of them discussing their dreams or the freak out in the bathroom, it added very little to the story.  I did like the cat playing with the unidentified object which turned out to be an ear.  But the dead body and the bad man with a gun turning up felt very generic and uninspired.

Overall, not bad. A good concept.

I'm sorry not a fan of this one.

The first 2 pages read very awkwardly.. There were zero character descriptions besides Allison being 26.

It just felt very lazy too me. Your slugs are not great... what time of day is it?

Page 1 Earlier that day
4 slugs later on page 3 ... MOTEL - OFFICE - SAME

Same as page 1 slug???

The story itself didn't work for me... But maybe if a re-write and a clean up, you could make a nice little short

Mark

This one?  Some cute lines (eg: "hopefully not in that order").  

But the dialogue and plot did wander quite a bit, and I'm not 100% sure what the ending meant.  

My gut tells me that there was some sort of parallel universe going on, with Alison being killed and turned to a ghost in one - helping her alternate self survive.  But the writing left it hazy.  So that's just a guess.

This one just wasn't for me.  But could potential be polished into something much tighter...

Cheers,

--J (W)

I'm sorry to start this way but I have to say that the writing was really poor here. Lots of passive writing mixed in with tons of awkward sentences like "Walking  through the car" and "ROBERT TIMKINS and his backpack" Was the backpack walking in on it's own. There was also a lot of redundancy in your writing which meant it was overwritten in places - keep out the superfluous details.

And the dialogue was pretty poor as well, I'm sorry to say. Lines like "I�m not sleeping with another sausage in the bed." had me thinking this could be a pisser near the beginning. I don't think it was?

So why have I brought up this issues first. Well, because this harmed the story you were trying to tell, meaning me, the reader was confused and couldn't follow what was happening. This is never a good thing.

Why Harley would come in and ask for a room is beyond me - wouldn't you just go in there and ask for your lost bag.

And the last line about "a friend" went straight over my head. What friend? Maybe it was the backpack from earlier.

Sorry, I think this one missed the mark.

Congrats on completing the OWC.

Steve

This was kind of a 'What the hell just happened?' story for me.  I think I said that to myself on just about every page.

So first of all, these people are in a lobby, or office, and nobody's there to give them a room.  But then, with no explanation whatsoever, all of a sudden they're in Room 230?  Did they steal a key or something?

I had similar thoughts throughout the whole story and was still baffled by the ending.  She was saved by herself in a dream she had before?  I don't know.  Maybe a parallel life or something?

Unfortunately, the story didn't read well enough for me to try and put any more thought into what was actually going on.  There may be a great idea here, but it's going to need a lot of work for it to come through on screen.

- Mark

Those That Help Themselves by - Two men and one woman on the way to their next music gig find a deserted motel and a free room in a hurricane. But is it luck that brought them here?
Brief - Musician trio caught at gunpoint by man about a bag of cash, motel manager hung in shower.

Locations & Sets  -  Night, motel parking lot. Night, exterior office window. Night, inside motel room. Daytime exterior parking lot. Daytime inside motel lobby/office area. Daytime, inside motel room.
Actors  -  ALISON TRUMBULL, 26, GIL MORMON (, ROBERT TIMKINS (, Dead motel manager, HARLEY (55)
Costumes  - Alison’s walking trance costume, (same as interior Alison?), Gil’s outfit, Robert’s outfit, bathrobe (I think a female wrote this since no hetero male takes a bathrobe to a dingy run down motel. LOL!), Harley’s hat + raincoat,
Props  - small lamp with a dingy yellow light, bell, duffle bag, keyboard case, guitar case, backpack, drum sticks, cat, human ear, clothing on floor, meerschaum skull pipe + tobacco, prosthetic missing ear, liquid stage blood, cheap CRT TV for destruction, sports bag, pistol
Audio FX  -  thunder, dripping water, gunshot
Visual FX  -  Probably might use some computer image softening filter effect to make opening sequence look like a dream,
Other  - Car, practical rain effects across parking lot & room window in both night & day, shop fan, hurricane stock footage, van, lighter, hang man from shower neck, makeup artist, bathtub clean up, flash for gunshot in office.
Genre & Marketability - Drama. Not very marketable on the shorts circuit.
Comments  - I am not real clear on Alison walking through the car but pounds on the office window. Some of the descriptions are slightly off or odd. Turn off your screenwriting program’s mores and continued’s feature. Nice banter between characters. Shit. That ransacked office/domestic space is going to be a tough bill to fill + extra hassle to set design then clean up afterwards. Alison can open door instead of window to b!tch at Robert. Can probably get away without showing Gil buck naked, only strongly suggested. Robert’s actions on pg7 are absurd. Fuck me that was a long ass build up to a pg10 decision. Lotta unnecessary elements can be eliminated or altered for more cost effective production. Gil’s character can be eliminated entirely. A fair bit of moving the camera and equipment around. The whole story is kinda incoherent. Script format: fair. Final word: Meh. Missable.

$2,000 - $3,000  Lo/Hi Estimated Budget Range
/ 11.6 Screenplay Pages
= $172 - $258  Estimated Cost Per Screen Minute

Adherence to Given Criteria:
Odd but interesting character(s) - Not really. Maybe Harley had some potential, but not as given for his brief period.
take refuge from a hurricane - yep.
in a beat-up motel - yep.
and are forced to make a choice - yep, who get it first
between good or evil - nope, not really a good or evil choice
in order to survive the night. - Nah. Harley’s pretty much intent on killing them so it’s no “in order to survive the night” decision. And Robert’s decision to plug Harley really wasn’t a good or evil decision either. Kill or be killed.
Each character must -
have some history involving a supernatural event in their lives - yep. Well, Alison and Robert have.
that factors into their choice. - yep, sorta. Kinda.
Genre is open. - drama
This is a micro-budget short, - fairly cheap. Could be made cheaper w/o detracting from the story.
so no destruction of the motel, - yep
no children or animals - Cat. Cats are animals, dope.
and minimal special effects. - yep, other than the outside water works which’ll suck up half the budget alone.
BONUS! Story also included:
mime(s) - nope
dinosaur(s) - nope

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WBdeA3ZfngPz7NfJg_5DSBUFsZXkicfyNQHRc8Bg2SQ/edit

I'm typing this review as I read, so most comments are based on a first impression. I will revisit them at the end...

The dream sequence at the beginning feels a little odd to me. Especially since we don't see anyone waking up. I assume this is Alison's dream, but I'm not sure what the point of it is yet. We'll see.

I think you have to capitalize YOUNG MAN, or just introduce GIL right off the bat.

The banter between the bandmates is kind of funny, but not enough to warrant the small-talk.

I'm now on page 6 and robert just said "This is a free room and we don't need to spend more money." I think this is where the conversation should have started when they got in the room. The banter about who gets the bed was unnecessary. Foul meat smell and no one around? This is where you got my attention. Now I am curious. All the dreaming or not dreaming in the previous pages didn't do anything for me.

They just found the dead body and a bag full of money. "I imagine thatguy in the shower died for it."

How would he come to that conclusion. If that guy had died because of the money, wouldn't the killer have taken it? Even if this is all supernatural, I don't imagine that's what I'd be thinking.

The gunfight just happened and I really like the idea that dreams helped these people get out alive, but in the end, their conversation after Harley got shot was just too calm for a group of people who almost died.

I think you can cut down a lot of the dialogue and explain a lot of things visually here. The challenge with low-budget is asking yourself what to show and what to explain. It makes sense to have dialogue heavy scripts, but in this case, the dialogue is explaining what we just saw rather than things that the contraints would have kept us from seeing.

Not a bad idea, but it could use some polish. Congrats!

Quoted from Dreamscale I'm sorry, but I'm out on Page 3. The writing is very passive.  Very awkward in places.  Very overwritten in places.  "(CONTINUED)" on tops and bottoms of pages.  Dialogue goes nowhere.  Characters are far from interesting so far.  Just very amateur and juvenile, sorry to say. I've seen much worse in this OWC and normally, I'd continue, but I already know it's not a strong entry, so I'm out. Good job entering, though.

No specifics to help the author. Only serves to tell people how much you dislike the writing.  If you're out, it's fine, but why go through the trouble of posting?

I didn't feel any suspense building in this story.  You just told the story in a very plain way.  I'm not even that sure I understand the ending, to be honest.

The characters were very two-dimensional to me.  They do nothing to make them stick out over the others.

You use a lot of non-filmable descriptions here:
  His agitation spikes;
  A strange smell hits him;
  Allison, who is in a trance.

You need to explain what we see when this happens.  Describe things in ways that are either seen or heard.

How does Robert know to look in the television?

All these problems could be easily fixed with a bit of time, something that the OWC usually doesn't offer.


Phil

Quoted from MikosZavros No specifics to help the author. Only serves to tell people how much you dislike the writing.  If you're out, it's fine, but why go through the trouble of posting?

Well, I posted on this to let the writer know I attempted to read it, but didn't get through it based on what I said.

Interesting...your first post and this is what you choose to say?  I'd have to guess this is your entry, and if that's true, why didn't you read any entries or post any feedback?  If it is yours, shame on you for not playing by the Quid Pro Quo rules of SS.

Not cool, bro.