Down South Blues by Quentin Congress - Action, Comedy - With all travel booked for 4th of July weekend, a bounty hunter is forced to bring his jewel thief bail jumper to his family reunion in Atlanta to evade the FBI and the thief's dangerous ex-partner as he returns him to Chicago for his biggest payday. 119 pages - pdf, format

Quentin,

I notice you've read a couple scripts and have been plugging your script in the process.  There's nothing wrong with doing that.  Squeaky wheel gets the grease.   I decided to take a quick look at your script  and you've definitely got some talent, but you've also got a few problems with the mechanics of your writing.

The two things that stood out to me the most is you're being overly-descriptive in places.  The other would be that you're trying to cram too much action into one paragraph.   You've gotta break it up.  Write in beats.    

I'm not a major format guru so the best I can do it point you to a couple scripts that might be good for you to read, then compare to your script to theirs.   You'll see the difference.

This was last months script of the month;  "Open Your Mind"  http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-thriller/m-1296524050/   Also Dreamscales' Unforgettable; http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?m-1283717922/

Those are just a couple examples.   There's plenty other good scripts on this site.   You just need to tone your style down a bit.  But again, I'm impressed with the way your words flow on the page.  You've got energy.   As for the story itself, I'll be honest and say I had to skim through it because I'm in a rush.   Not really my kind of story anyway.   But there's definitely a market out there for this type of story.

Read and review others scripts and people will return the favor.  

All the best

Hello Quentin,

I just noticed your script and thought I'd take a quick look.

Here's what I noticed that would cause me to scrap your script right off (and don't feel bad because we're all in the same boat and lots of stuff should be scrapped).

>We start

>We slowly pan

Please don't tell a story this way if you can help it-- unless you really know what you're doing. Maybe you do...

But don't direct unless you're the director. If you're a director and writing this: Disregard above and write any way in hell you feel like it!  

In the dialogue:

>BIG DANNY (O.S.) (sluggish)
Who the hell is it?!

RUSSELL (proper voice)
Hi, is Danny Nunez home?

BIG DANNY (O.S.) (sluggish)
I’m Danny Nunez. Who are you?

RUSSELL (proper voice)
Mr. Nunez, my name is Clarence Parker. I’m from Publisher’s Clearinghouse, and I’m proud to announce that you’re our winner of the $10,000,000 jackpot!

BIG DANNY (O.S.) (awake)
Yeah! I won! I won! I won! I’m rich, bitch!
(singing) ‘Money, money, money, money! MONEY! Money, money, money, money! MONEY!’

Please give your actors the benefit of the doubt that they know their business. If the writer does their job properly, they won't need a whole shmuck-load of parentheticals in the dialogue. Best is to use those sparingly 'cause otherwise, it marks you as not knowing what you're doing and they just toss your script in the slush or the shredder or whatever the hell they do with it these days. God forbid-- not that!  

Anyways, I hope this helps. It's late. I was actually about to go to bed, but I thought, maybe open one that wasn't OWC and check it out before returning to owed reads.

Keep on keeping on,

Sandra

The energy of the script is good - it wants to rush off and take people places and does it quick-style.

Action sections I though were ok.

I had a problem with the dialogue in the main, just didn't believe it - although I hear dialogue like this all the time in made-for-TV movies, or the occasional Jean Claude: so if that's what you're aspiring to, then you've made a good mark.

Following your email I went through the first ten pages again, and at that point felt that I had enough to give the following feedback:

Visually, I think that this script moved well; it was broken up into the right constituent parts, introduced villainous character in part, early on, and began with and action sequence to help set a good tone. As a cinematic piece, it does have some potential, and is theoretically worth working on.

It does however have a number of problems, and these mainly concern the writing. If this script were to be re-worked by the current author, then, in short, the writer’s writing skills would have to be improved. It could, however be re-written by a party more skilled in scriptwriting.

I hope you don’t find this too disappointing, but my opinions are based on the following:

Characters were good. They presented as being fairly clearly defined, although Mia came across as a little wooden. El Bankston appeared to have some level of character even though he had barely been introduced.

Dialogue was regularly poor, with some exceptions. Dr Maynor’s words came across as ham-fisted (p4). Jenny and Russell’s dialogue was too on-the-nose (p5). Try something like:
JENNY
                    Hey. Mia wants to see you.

                              RUSSELL
                    Why?

                              JENNY
                    Go see her and see.

          Russell turns toward Mia’s office.

                              JENNY (CONT'D)
                    You going to the family reunion?

                              RUSSELL
                    Answer's same as last time.

                              JENNY
                    Don't be an ass.

                              RUSSELL
                    A day of dealing with
                    dysfunctional-ass kinsfolk?

                              JENNY
                    It might be better this time...

...avoids straight answers to straight questions, and leaves a little mystery.
Some of Mia and Russell’s dialogue: straight up? People will laugh out loud at some of it. Try something along the lines of:

                              RUSSELL
                    El Bankton? Wasn't he the dude
                    that...

                              MIA
                    ...diamond heist. Four years ago.

     Russell frowns.

                              RUSSELL
                    Didn't he kill the rest of his
                    crew...?

                              MIA
                    Oh yeah. And ripped off his partner
                    in crime.

Or something along those lines. People just don't immediately recall details like that without a little thought.   

Plot: I liked the plot, and I thought it was fairly cleanly set up, although I was unsure about some of the details regarding the bailing of the criminal. Maybe just my lack of knowledge in this area.

Format: Structure was mainly fine, and without nick-picking didn't see any major howlers. I would liked to have seen a little more clear scene setting though. Your action sequence methods need some work. Reno is described as a ruthless-hearted criminal - yet no description of him is given - how is this shown? Can you make him 'look bad'?
On p4 you say 'we see SEVERAL SHOTS' - can't you use MONTAGE?
On p7 in your descriptions you note that 'it's the Sancy Diamond'. How do you show this on the screen? The easiest way to do it is to have (one of the) characters say it.
On p8, 'Russell ponders the proposal  instantly changes his mind'. When does he instantly change his mind? After pondering???
On p9 'Russell's sweet and carefree mother' - again, you can't show this, so don't put it in - Russell shortly after says 'Hey Mom', so we then know that this is his Mom, and that's sufficient.
On p10 'Mom' has a big piece of dialogue, and this whole scene feels wrong - I think it's because a lot of that dialogue need to be broken up - the mother needs to be doing things in the kitchen, so intersperse her conversation with moving pots or pans or chopping something up - it gives it a little more dimension and depth.

Summary. Although I think you have some strong visual strengths in 'seeing the film' and you were able to pace things well, bring in people at the correct times etc, I think you have a difficult question to answer - in simplest terms: can you write? I think that what you have here is potentially a good story that could possibly sit well on the cinema, but is not well written as a script. Either you have to enhance those writing skills, or involve someone to change the story into a screenplay. Nonetheless, I wish you well.

Quentin,

There's a book called "The Screenwriter's Bible" by David Trottier.  It helped me.

You write very well.  You just don't quite know some of the rules and the no-no's.  Its hard to find them just cruising the web.  Get this book.  You'll be glad you did, and you will see where you are not formatting correctly.  I'm reading your script, but it's hard to enjoy the cool writing when I'm seeing formatting no-no's.  The people above are right... without the proper format, your script will just get tossed.  I will say, I really like the dialog.  

http://www.keepwriting.com/tsc/swbible.htm

Hey what's up everybody. It's been a while since I've been on here. I've been busy writing and rewriting. I just finished the 2nd Draft of "Down Home Blues". I think is a little bit better than my first draft. I wanna thank all of you for your feedback, and I took some of your suggestions seriously while I was rewriting the script. If you wanna read it, let me know. Now, I'm working on a new script, it's in the early stages. Good luck everybody in your endeavors, take care.