Baby Without Birth :: SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board

Take everything I say with a glass of salt.

Opening scene
Remember that screenplays are a visual medium. You can't see "August heat". Think about how other scripts show a scorching summer day.

"lays on the horn" - love it.

Watch for run-on sentences and how you use punctuation. I have this problem too!

I would revisit some action lines in your opening scene. Most prominently for wording and proper sentence structure. I liked the bit of dialogue you had here.

Your opening scene doesn't make me feel what your story will be about.
It does dive into the character of Adam. That's good. What else does the scene accomplish? Okay, he’s from West Virginia, but where are we in contrast? How do I know I'm in Boston? For all I know I'm in a random city. Yes, your scene heading says Boston but show me. What will your audience see to make them say, "Ah I know this place, we're in Boston."

Try to make your reader/audience feel what your story will be about within the first scene. Most horror films for example try to scare you within the opening scene. That tells the audience right away this is a horror film.

If it wasn't for the dialogue I would probably have stopped reading from page 1. I tried my best but had to put it down 30 pages in.

Genre

30 pages and so far you’ve written a drama. Read comedy screenplays and try to find the different beats on the genre.

Plot

-time? When does this take place? There’s a lot of confusion about this and yet you never mention it to begin with. There’s mention of the internet, websites, but Adam uses a newspaper to find a job. Then there’s a doctor who speaks of surrogacy as if it was never heard of before. If we aren’t in the present you need to establish this within the first scene of the script visually. Cindy implies cloning was possible. Are we in the future?

-the scene where Adam goes to do a singing telegram at a birthday party doesn't sit right. If the ladies wanted a gogo-dancer they could have easily called a place for exactly that. Why would they expect Adam to agree to this? When he runs it doesn't make sense they chase after him.

What’s the question your script trying to answer? Think about films you like and what’s the question.

-I didn’t do the research or know but make sure you have the science right. If it's fiction then don’t dive into explaining it! People will call bullshit. Be vague about it and tell the story from a different perspective.

-Where I dropped the script was during the whole experiment part and how easily Cindy and Adam bought into it. Dr.Stevenson doesn’t seem like he knows what he’s talking about. He’s taking a guess and giving suggestions. Who would listen to a guy like that? Even if you are desperate which you haven’t shown Adam and Cindy are at that point. Who in their right mind would listen to this guy?

Subplots

Not sure where any of this is going from the first 30 pages. I feel like there’s a lot of loose scenes left unattended. Meeting the parents, Cindy at her job, and Adam going to a birthday party. How are they all connected? Also, you dropped the ball when Adam met the parents'. There's a golden opportunity to do stuff with that.

Characters
Adam
What does Adam really need? You pull us towards him wanting a job in his field of study only to then suddenly wanting a child. He has a website apartly but what is it for? He does have a colorful personality that makes him different but to what end?

There’s not a lot I can say about the rest of the cast from what I’ve seen. There’s a lot of people but not a lot of context.

Formatting/Grammer - You'll get more reads if you iron this out to a crisp.

-clear up your action lines, lots of grammar issues. I found myself multiple times having to reread action lines to figure out what was going on.

-No action in the dialogue, you have this way too much and there’s no exception.

-remove the title from the page header and the word "page" You only want the #, the rest is a distraction.

-You have Scene Headings at the bottom of the pages. SH are always attached to at least their first action line on the same page. The same goes for characters and their dialogue.

- a scene needs context and 99.9% of the time starts with action unless done in a specific way. You can not have a scene with only a heading.