The Kiss Goodbye by Edmond Dantes - Historical, Sponge, Captain, Island.

Hi Writer,

Quoted Text FADE IN : SUPER : 1736 EXT. DESERT ISLAND - BEACH - DAY Washed up on shore, the remains of a ship. Gold and silver coins scattered among four bodies of men, with the second, WILLIAM (50s) being the oldest. SIMON,(mid 30s) face down, opens his eyes as the incoming tide soaks him.

A better way to do this would be to fade into something, the actual scene, and then lay the SUPER over it. The way it's written, we FADE IN to the SUPER.

Quoted Text scattered among four bodies of men, with the second, WILLIAM (50s) being the oldest.

This reads quite awkwardly and it's not clear what you are getting at.

Quoted Text WILLIAM Look around you Dupot.

Comma when addressing someone directly in dialogue, so: you, Dupot.

Quoted Text Past a group of sea sponge,

Really driving it home with the bold font. I'm not a fan of this at all, I see you do it a few more times in the script as well.

This script really has a fair bit of awkward lines.

Your spacing is all over the place.

Sorry, this one was a miss for me. Congrats on getting an entry in.

All the best.

Hey writer,

I was a little confused by the action here. Simon appears to be up on a cliff 60 feet up from Deathbeard's ship, and then he overtakes the pirate in the crow's nest from that vantage point, somehow.

I don't think this criteria was particularly difficult - historical, captain and island certainly go together nicely. I'm betting that you didn't have a lot to choose from for objects, and thus the sponge is kind of ancillary in this story. I also think if you didn't go large, with the shipwreck and such, this set did lend itself to a script that could have actually been filmed.

It looks as if the theme took you in a more pedestrian direction, as it's basically a battle for pirate's booty.

Parameters aside, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to glean from the story. Pirates, and stories about them, always involve greed. I'm not sure there's anything new to the table here, though I suppose that with some easing of the restrictions (page count, object) there's a character study in Dupot and his reluctance to govern and then his bravery in taking over Deathbeard's operation.

AJR

Oh man, what did you choose here. A sponge, an island, a captain. And you want to manage to make it historical.

I didn't look up the characters here, but I trust you. Unless I don't understand what historical genre is.

Anyway, this was a strange mix of talking scenes and silent scenes. I mean the flow is not there for me and that disrupted the read big time for me.
The story - I'm not sure I dug it. But again, look at the criteria. I looked through and this would be the toughest set for me.

Parts of this read awkwardly and the main character's name was Dupot and Simon.

I would have preferred if you just picked one and went with it.

I like the use of a sea  sponge to meet your criteria, but I wish there was more to the story than just money and a ship.

Good job finishing.

So you manage to get the criteria in, sponge a stretch but no real issue with it.

Greed, yep, Pirates chasing them down for their gold and silver, yep pretty clear on that one.

But the story itself was just a little too confusing and all over the place for me.

E.g.
Washed up on shore, the remains of a ship. Gold and silver coins scattered among four bodies of men, with the second, WILLIAM (50s) being the oldest.

How do we know he's the second?

Also
Simon manages to get from a cliff onto a pirate ship moored some way off the beach with no explanation as to how.

Well done for getting one in and hitting the criteria.

Historical? I checked for Deathbeard and he's a character in role playing game? No Google hits for the shipwreck Poniard except that it's a pirates dagger. Maybe I'm missing the point on historical genres?

You hit all the other requisites without a doubt but I'm really going to ding the genre. You should have picked action or adventure.

Writing style was a bit all over the place but I had no problem following the story until Simon was all of a sudden on the pirate ship. Not sure how that happened.

Valiant attempt - good work, writer.

Historical, sponge, Captain, island

Good choice for your criteria. They all seemed well tied off.

Overall a decent stab. I found it difficult to buy in the cliff and the boat thing, especially as historical not fantasy, but hell let it ride

As a short, I suppose I felt this was too large. It felt like it was a condensed second act, or maybe third act of the feature - maybe you have something in that to follow.

But for such a short time, and getting it all in, well done.

Oh, what was the kiss goodbye - must have missed that

I think this was a rush job after the writer had the concept for it but they simply ran out of time to straighten it.

The sea sponge use was damn ingenious but the rest was a mish mash of pirate tropes and the like.

I love how you got the sponge into a historical story - my pirate's hat is off to you, sir!

All the elements ticked. I think this suffers a little bit from a slow start and would flow smoother if we had a very quick intro to Simon's predicament and Deathbeard's (sounds like a lovely chap) arrival.

You would then have more time for Simon to get to Deatbeard's boat and take it over, as that element feels rushed at the moment.

Excellent effort though, laddie! Argh!

-Mark

I like the base idea here: shipwrecked after chasing for gold. Another pirate shows up and his greed leads to the same fate: stuck on an island with no escape.

But, the execution just didn't bring it home for me.

Marks up for theme. Marks down for "historical" and story execution.

If you rewrite, I'd suggest focusing more on your core story. Take out anything that distracts from that: highlight his greed. Highlight the second pirate's greed.

Fun script. Thanks!

I wasn't allergic to this, it's short, it read OK, but it lacks punch for want of a better word. Just a couple of trivial comments. Just between the two of us, I just think it needs tightening, focus, and needs to jump off the page much more than it does. Makes for a better execution. Otherwise - a very fine effort on short time.  Entertaining for sure.

Shrug, my thoughts. I'm not claiming I'm right. Hope it helps in some way, voodoo doll me if it doesn't. -ghostiegirl.

Ahoy, matey! Ooh, I like very much how you used the sponge/sea-sponge, and highlighted it in bold - just to be sure we didn't miss it.   Pretty straightforward parameters here.

I liked this a lot.
Yep, I could nitpick but for the short time constraints, and considering you've already tech comments above, I thought this was a mighty fine effort.

YOUNG MAN
I’m just the cook.

- made me chuckle.

Arr! Very well done and enjoyable to read.

Hi, a little bit of Castaway and a little bit of Treasure Island. It wasn't clear of there had been a fight between the two ships as the timeline is a little confusing for me, but there's pirates, derring do and gold. Who doesn't love a pirate?
A bit clunky at times and I couldn't quite get all the imagery but enjoyable none the less.
Well done.

Entertaining, and Simon comes off as a competent adventurer. However, I found it unrealistic that there were so few sailors crewing the pirate ship, that when the others went ashore on a few dinghies, only two were left aboard. And when Simon leaps off the cliff and tackles the sailor in the crow’s nest, he most likely would have been impaled on the mast. Given the time constraints, though, these are minor quibbles.

Hmmm....so historical...I didn't find any Googly evidence of this. Deathbeard though...great pirate name.

So I did like it but there were def some confusing parts, starting with your opening. Couldn't figure out how many of the guys were alive/dead...and Simon tries to revive William but you tell us it's too late...even though he doesn't die right away. I thought he was dead. LOL. So maybe just let your writing do the work instead of telling us. He tries to revive him...William coughs up blood. We know that can't be good. Then he wheezes out a few more thoughts then ... dead.

A couple more place I was confused on how things were happening but was glad to see him slide down the rope onto the ship. I mean...it is a pirate movie.  

Oh...and wy tell us the boots he put on used to be Williams? First...your telling us. Second...who cares. LOL. Use your space wisely, especially when you're writing an epic pirate adventure in only 5 pages.

Anyway, thank you for the enjoyable read.

Best of luck.