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Virgin Crimes by Spencer Paradise - Drama, Crime - A man trains a group of young assailants to bring down one of the largest crime families in Los Angeles. - pdf, format
Thanks for the constructive criticism, wish you would read more of it, but the biggest complaint I get about my screenplays is that I don't paint a good enough picture of the world we're in, so perhaps I went a little overboard here.
I'll get to it. What really matters is the plot. The rest can be fixed.
Here's Flynn's intro as you have it:
FLYNN, 18, enters the bar. She’s a beauty, however, not Goth or anything, she’s pale, like someone who has just emerged from a milk bath. Her luscious hair rests on her shoulders and drapes down onto her summer dress.
Do it like this:
Flynn, 18. enters the bar. Beautiful. Milky pale skin. Her luscious hair drapes onto her summer dress.
Easier to read and much more efficient. Don't be afraid the write fragmented sentences in a SP.
Your dialogue's pretty good. I'll try and get to the story. Like i said, that's the big thing.
So your opening passage comes off as a bit poetic and metaphoric for me. It's nice to paint a picture but I advise against going overboard with it. Just a suggestion.
The "we" part is also something I suggest you get rid of as it's redundant. If it's in the action lines, we can see/hear it.
"A nasty blue color." I'm not quite sure how to picture this. What shade of blue is nasty to you? Whatever it is, throw that in instead. Maybe the stools are just gross but it doesn't read that way.
After the initial introduction, you have quite a lengthy conversation between two characters that doesn't seem to have much impact, at least for me. You need some action to drive your story and right now, it's not cutting it for me. Have Amir inspect the stools or make some keen observations instead of this chatter.
You mentioned earlier that people who've read your scripts thought you didn't paint a good enough picture. I think you can though it's a bit misguided IMO. Your description of your characters is a bit abundant and somewhat unnecessary but you don't have enough action and dynamics in your writing. It's a colorful picture with no movement so to speak. Pull back on the description and apply that use of space to get this thing moving. Also cut back on any unnecessary dialogue, it'll make your story lighter and easier to read.
"Flynn stands there and listens...not because she's trying to hold back anger..." Way too long for a simple action we'd see on screen. After reading that, all I'm picturing is-"Flynn casually folds her arms." That's it. No lengthy unfilmables or wordy desciptions. Insider's example is pretty good though reading ahead, every young person seems to be pretty so I'd even exclude the beautiful adjactive. It's my personal preference seeing as most protags tend to be pretty. Just my two cents.
I would steer clear of putting titles in your script. It's better left to the editors.
Read up to page 6. Your biggest problem for me is the unfilmables and the needless description. You have to be a bit more creative at illustrating the emotions and thoughts of your characters than simply writing them out for us. It isn't that simple (wish it was).
I think the use of simple and discrete actions can do wonders in terms of visualization and can make this read pop. As of now, it falls flat for me. The two pages of dialogue about the bar renovations really didn't go anywhere and kind of wasted some prime real estate with your opening pages. I'd cut that down to about half a page.
Good luck with your script. Hope this helped out a bit.