Cole & Hagg format predicts the double space after the period in Movie Outline -- if you are manually doing it, then you would technically have 3 spaces after the period.  

The misconception with the double space after the period in this format is truly one space, but in terms of characters on screen it is 2.  I'm sorry I brought up the period bit -- to me, and many others, it seems a cluttered read.  A tight one.  Cramped.  I've always done it with 2 spaces and always will.  

More over, two screenplays I've studied extensively over the year's: Creepshow & Karate Kid, both are spaced by 2.

Both Creep show & Karate Kid were written in the Cole & Haag format... Same one I use to this day.  It's the cleanest format out there... and one of the oldest.

Not saying it's right for you -- just saying it's right for me.

According to the article James posted, this single spacing idea is relatively new, so anything dating back past 2009 or so should have double spacing.  Remember, before the advent of the personal computer, scripts were written with a typewriter and or word processor.

I'm with Balt here 100%.  Maybe this all needs to be on its own thread?  I'm sure James doesn't mind the extra posts and attention, though.

Baltis,

Thanks for the read and continued notes. Just so you know, that article I posted actually does support the argument for double spacing after a period. Because everyone used to use a typewriter and everything was mono-spaced back then. Most fonts on computers proportionately space letters according to their size now. With the exception of Courier, witch still mono-spaces like an old typewriter.

Anywho, Enough with that argument. I think I will adopt it in my future writing.

Quoted from Baltis. Tons and tons to keep up with with this one, James.  Back story-Racism claims-kids with heart problems-witches-folklore- and a ton of characters galore. I was dissapointed that you wrote so well for certain characters and completely dropped the ball on others... Jane and Sammy come to mind here.  It pisses me off, because while this read was weighty at times -- it was pretty damn good.  I'd easily sit and watch it, and probably enjoy it for what it is.  Easily better on paper than 30 to 50%  of the stuff you see today.

Jane and Sammy don't get a whole lot of character development early on, but I think they do as the story progresses. The extra characters and back story were all meant to set-up that moment when jane takes her own life. I failed to set it up according to alot of people, but I would hope it might be easier in a filmed version to understand.

Quoted from Baltis. Mark was pretty much the one character I didn't like from the get go.  Guy comes over, imposes, drinks beer, tells dick weed jokes and just gushes dicktwist... I don't know if that's how you intended him to be, but that's how he hit me.

That's actually what I was trying to do. He is a dick in my mind, but needed and asshole to just show up and tell Tom and Jane their house was inhabited by an evil old woman and scare the shit out of them.

I know, I am rushing to catch up the structure because my seven page opening scene.

Quoted from Baltis. It's good to build character and make them believable, and you did this, but I think you did it too much and too often.  It's like each character came with their own Diary of dialogue.

Just trying to create real people with real problems. I want you to care for them, it ups the tension when I put them in the witches path. That's my belief in horror. I really can't sit through a slasher taking out cooky-cutter colleg kids anymore. Just not my bag.

In a rewrite I will put many of the suggestions from here, yours included, to good use. Yes, much can be trimmed from this early on. Still, I wasn't to0 far behind on getting my turn to act two to hit a little after page 30.

Quoted from Baltis. I don't know if you skip around when you write or what, but it often felt like you had during 30 to 70.

Much of the middle is story that stayed from the beginning and this was the first thing I ever wrote. Three years ago. I tried to tidy up alot of the writing, but i should've just deleted it and started over.

Quoted from Baltis. Really, from page 80 to the end is pretty good.  I didn't stop reading it for a second.  It kept me there and kept me wanting to see the conclusion culminate... I think they are easily the strongest pages in the script... Aside from some good stuff on page 13 to right before Mark shows up... Then you had some fantastic dialogue and writing going on with aunt Bee around page 35 and the whole fog in the window bit -- powerful stuff.

Thanks, I wanted this to be something we haven't seen in awhile, evil actually losing in a horror story. It's not easy to do. Probably shouldn't have attempted it for a first script.

Quoted from Baltis. Some great imagry here.  Some very eerie stuff that could be done if filmed and people, the auidence, would love it... I've no doubt.  Me, personally, I wouldn't go see this movie in theaters.  It's just not my thing.  Witches, hauntings and stuff -- I just don't get into those movies.  But I would watch it on Netflix or something.  And, as I said, probably enjoy it.

Thanks for the kind words, I did work hard on this, I just lost perspective on it because its been so long since I decided to open it up again and work on it. Plus, I'm a lazy bastard.

Quoted from Baltis. Don't let it go.  Don't put it on the back burner.  Work on it, send it out... TALK TO PEOPLE!!!  If you have the money to have it professionally looked at, do it. Reading this script solidifes, in the amount of time you've been writing, how far you've come -- I remember reading some of your earlier stuff.  I remember reading a Vampire on a Train bit... good stuff, but not near this caliber.   Best of luck to you on it.

Thanks again, Baltis. I do plan on sending this version to pros before i rewrite it completely. Just cleaning it up best i can from all the feedback I've gotten here.

Thanks again, Glad I caught you while you were here. Good luck to you also, man.

James

Am up to page 50 if this. Just wanted to chime in: I read some of Jeff's review before I started reading, and bits of others.

I just wanna say that I have really got into this from the start. I didn't think the steamboat opening went for too long, I thought the POV bit was done ok.
I enjoyed the guy Mark telling the old story and it didn't feel forced or too expositiony to me. The dialogue felt real, the chars real. The interludes with the old black women are done well and all on all I'm digging it.

Oh and I've never heard of the double space after period? Balt, I'm still using the Soph gear you gave me and haven't noticed it. I agree with Kev that a DS would leave a big old gap.

Anyway, continue on...

Finished it just now, JDub, in a big iPod session. It's hard writing on this device so will write a few things then add later when on the computer.

I really got into this! Ok, it veered a little at times but it was good. I feel it is quite strong writing up until Tom carks it. It is a bit of a shock. Then the writing loses some momentum - and suspense - the bar scene with James breaks into the flow. And it doesn't do much for the story anyway.

I will continue this later - my pod needs charging!

Quoted from stevie Finished it just now, JDub, in a big iPod session. It's hard writing on this device so will write a few things then add later when on the computer. I really got into this! Ok, it veered a little at times but it was good. I feel it is quite strong writing up until Tom carks it. It is a bit of a shock. Then the writing loses some momentum - and suspense - the bar scene with James breaks into the flow. And it doesn't do much for the story anyway. I will continue this later - my pod needs charging!

How the hell do you read a script on an iPod? Gonna go blind doing that, ya know. Thanks for finishing up. I'll explain the bar scene after you post the rest of your comments, but unfortunately, its relevance has had to have been explained to just about everyone. So it's on me there.

Cheers, Thanks again...

James

Um, you can read anyting on an Ipod!!  The scripts open up in I Reader if u wish!

Ok, some more thoughts on WW:

I reckon, JDub, that this would be better - this is MHO - if you didn't show the gory bits. Ok, you could some but, for instance, when Tom's head came bouncing outof the baasement, to  me it instantly became a slaher type story.

As I said earlier, I loved the slow build up you gave us. Mark telling the story of the sheep lady was almost Stephen King like! I know other reviewers thought it went on for too many pages, but I LIKED IT!! It didn't drag at all, and thats good writing.

Anyway, once the witch started killing, it became a little 'paint-by-numbers' (god, I should fucking patent that phrase and retire...), losing some of the magic for me. I'm not a huge horror fan (I loathe the endless slasher flicks - give me the old scary films of years past), but I really dug the back story of this.

Ok, man, better go. i might read back over the other comments and see if I can add stuff at a later date.

Cheers and congrats on getting your first feature done!

stevie

Thanks Stevie,

This is kind of a meld between two different types of horror to me. I like the slow start and the legend of the sheep lady. Then, the un-seen things like the finger drawing through the condensation in the window. Its an attempt at what Hitchcock always said was good horror.

Once the sheep lady is free'd, and you see the witch for the first time, the eeriness of this is gone. So, I tried to switch gears at that point and make it a tension ride.

Putting Sammy, Tom, and Jane directly in the witch's path. I certainly hope you cared for them more than your average twenty something college kids in slashers.  People like to watch slashers because they want to see those kids get killed. They want to see some original ways to off the cast members. They know its coming.

Here, I didn't want you to know it was coming and i wanted you to hate that bitch for what she was doing. Anywho, thanks for the read and I'm glad you liked most of it.

Lemme know if you want a read of your comedy feature whenever its done. Actually, think thats what I'm gonna write next. I'm horror'd out at the moment.

James

Hey James,

Sorry the long delay in getting round to reading your script, with the OWC being about witches and reading all of them I wanted a few days break before cracking this open.

Firstly, let me state that I’m an amateur who is still learning the game and don’t know merely as much as you but will try my best to be as helpful as possible.  Congrats on finishing a feature, never accomplished that feat myself and by the way my script is going down in the OWC, it looks a long way off until I will.

I loved the opening scene on the boat, thought it was well written but by the end this left me with a question as to what other than Walter, meant? I mean, for the 7 pages it used, it had no real relevance to our antag or overall story as far as I could tell, sorry if I missed the point of this.

The first half was slow but good although one scene with Mark and all the back story felt way too long. I didn’t count how many pages it was but it felt long and then I was surprised to never see Mark again, I honestly thought for someone who’s been bonding with Tom and Jane that he would reappear but we never saw him again.

The scene in the high school was relevant by the end but it seemed to again introduce us to characters we would never see again apart from Alexa who comes in at the very end although I was left a bit puzzled by that I have to say. Why was she down the well?

James was a very weird character and came off as confusing, he made an appearance in the first 20 pages, disappeared until the bar, was attacked and then disappeared again. I failed to find his connection with the overall plot and again, sorry if I missed it.

We seemed to skip time or the witch took a break because after Tom was killed, we had the swat team outside ready to burst in. We then moved to the hospital with Jane, then we seemed to skip to Tom’s funeral which would have been days at least in between these events and it raises the question of what was the witch doing in between this time? Why wasn’t it attacking people or Jane then?

My biggest gripe would be the witch I guess, apologies but I’m sure how to say it. The first 70 pages, this felt like a “The Ring” type horror with some spooky goings on and scary moments happening. Then the hospital scene came in at the end and the horror changed direction to more action monster horror which kinda fell flat for me for some reason, it didn’t fit in with the first 70 pages. It’s just personal taste I guess in this type of horror for me, I like the less you can see element because when you see the witch for all its glory fighting cops, the horror element was lost on me. Felt like two different horror genre’s coming together and it didn’t work for me.

Although it feels like there’s been a lot I haven’t liked, I want to state that I did enjoy this on the whole and think you’ve done a fine job. I think Jane and Bee were good characters and I loved some of earlier horror going on with the witch. Scenes like the condensation on the windows, and the death of Bee were well executed and I liked how you used the storm to good effect to enhance that scene at Bee’s house.

I also enjoyed the ending with Jane sacrificing herself to save her son and I think it worked well as it ties in with the earlier discussion in the classroom about suicide.

Although it would be easy to forget that scene in the classroom, maybe a more exciting incident needs to happen in that scene to keep it on the readers mind.

These are the notes I took during the read and to be honest, I couldn’t find much.  A great compliment to your writing and proofreading I guess.

P. 1 You've named Walter but not the father?

P. 3 I wonder whether this should be man instead of husband? Just due to the fact we can't see him as her husband in the scene?

P. 4 Maybe change "off screen" to (o.s). Same effect and saves space.

You have an interesting way of writing, a lot periods instead of comma's in the action. This isn’t to my personal taste as I feel it slows down the read but we all have different styles don’t we.

P.5 Question...is underwater okay for a slug? Guess it would be.

Seven feet of water seems a bit precise to me. Why not just deep water?

Again, "wife" instead of woman but I think I understand why you've done this because there is an awful lot of intro's of different characters here and they need some individuality.

P. 6 P.O.V's are tricky but I thought yours should have ended before the skeletal hands drag him under.

P. 9 “dinning” believe it’s “dining” Maybe a different spelling across the sea which is possible.

P.10 The first time I’ve seen the (BG) technique used in a spec script that I remember. I’ve read about it but have never seen it, seems like an unused writing technique.

P. 12 “They drive up into an intersection” Feel “up” is unnecessary in this sentence.

P. 17 “She wiggles passed Jane” Should this be pass or past instead of passed?

P.20 “grabs her bags” Should it be bag? How many bags do kids have? It’s just when I was at school everyone carried one bag.

P.27 “Tom and mark cheers” Mark isn’t capped. Also felt “then” was redundant here” could just be “down their shots”

Have to say that this whole scene with Mark feels too long IMO, it has some great back story and it’s well done. I mean I’m not having any problems with the dialogue but it just feels a tad long.

P. 32 What’s with the photographs? Is Mark showing photo’s to them or are they just photos thrown over the shot? This sequence felt out of place to me. I actually think believe it would better without the photos but that’s just a personal opinion.

P. 33 “Go to baaaaaed” Liked this, funny.

P. 37 “HELP US” A nice visual this scene, very spooky.

P. 44 I didn’t understand why (O.S) was used here on the phone call? You’ve use (V.O) before and after.

P.45 Witches P.O.V? Have we met the witch? Did I miss that?

P. 62 I had to go back and check out James, At first thought you hadn’t capped him on first intro but obviously he was intro’d earlier in the script. He’s disappeared for a long time.

P.65 Would James really go for his coat in this situation?

P.66  Should officers be capped?

P. 71 What happened with the swat team?

P.72 “Jane looks passed” should this be looks past?

P. 74 “Meliah returns with Jane’s Coffee” Don’t think coffee needs to be capped here.

P.82 “Security gaurd” this should be guard. It’s spelt wrong throughout this scene.

Overall it was well written and a quick read, like I say, all the periods in the action isn’t for me but it never truly harmed the read. I was left a bit confused about certain aspects and characters of the story by the end but liked how Jane sacrificed herself to save her son.

Again, apologies for taking so long to getting round to this.

Good work.

Steve

Anoyone who's read this script thus far... Please read this...

http://www.cleveland.com/whateverhappened/index.ssf/2004/01/willoughbys_sheep_lady_found_d.html

The Sheep lady was local folklore. She was just an old woman who had an eccentric love for her animals. I turned her into a nasty witch who pulls tongues out. Again, I crammed everything i could about this town into the story. The real sheep lady, who lived in the neighborhing town, was nothing but a kind old woman. worked at the library. I feel I may have overstepped my boundaries. The sheep lady even has her own fan page on facebook. Look it up.

I dunno, honestly. If I shot a trailer for this, would you think I would be doing an injustice to her? I'm hell bent on doing it, just to have some fun. Nobody from Willowick has seen this script yet. not that it will mean much. But, I just wanted to write a horror story about my hometown.

Steve,

Thanks for the read. I'll get to your points tomorrow. Thanks! It's almost 6am here and I'm still up. When I stop drinking, I shall remove the Captain Morgan avatar...

James

I don't think the whole "sheep thing" brought that much to the table.  I think you could easily drop it and work out a totally new backstory for the witch that has a much more diabolical slant to it.  You know, killin' hobos, drifters, orphans, etc.  Whatever.  But if you do, I would suggest strongly tying that backstory to the paddleboat tragedy in order to make that scene more relevant.

Quoted from CoopBazinga Hey James, Sorry the long delay in getting round to reading your script,

Sorry for what? can't even remember if I've read anything from you. Sorry to hear your OWC was a dud. I've been there. That fucken Ryan Always wins anywho.

Quoted from CoopBazinga Congrats on finishing a feature, never accomplished that feat myself and by the way my script is going down in the OWC, it looks a long way off until I will.

No kidding. You really need to carefully choose what you write about before you dedicate yourself to weeks of writing. It took me three years to write this turd. I'm going comedy next. I truly believe that's where my blood is.

Quoted from CoopBazinga I loved the opening scene on the boat, thought it was well written but by the end this left me with a question as to what other than Walter, meant? I mean, for the 7 pages it used, it had no real relevance to our antag or overall story as far as I could tell, sorry if I missed the point of this.

was just to drive home the point that evil souls don't get to stay. And i wanted to pay homage to this particular disaster. It was a miss.

Quoted from CoopBazinga The scene in the high school was relevant by the end but it seemed to again introduce us to characters we would never see again apart from Alexa who comes in at the very end although I was left a bit puzzled by that I have to say. Why was she down the well?

I never thought this scene was so much of a stretch as everyone is calling it out to be. My protag is the teacher. It's her understanding of sin that I'm trying to drive home here. Alexa does reappear in a cheap like sequel intro. I figure if any studio wanted to spend the dough to make this, they will want sequel benefits on name alone. So, instead of letting some hack put it in there, I threw my own in.

Trust me, I'm done with this story at this point...

Quoted from CoopBazinga James was a very weird character and came off as confusing, he made an appearance in the first 20 pages, disappeared until the bar, was attacked and then disappeared again. I failed to find his connection with the overall plot and again, sorry if I missed it.

Shit! Nobody got the point of James. He is disposable. I was just trying to show that the witch was afraid to kill him. Because he was hell-bound, Something waits for him to die. Something the witch can see, but nobody else. Tis why she backs off. Tis why when Jane summons these demons by killing herself, they take the witch too. I went for way too big of story here.

Quoted from CoopBazinga We seemed to skip time or the witch took a break because after Tom was killed, we had the swat team outside ready to burst in. We then moved to the hospital with Jane, then we seemed to skip to Tom’s funeral which would have been days at least in between these events and it raises the question of what was the witch doing in between this time? Why wasn’t it attacking people or Jane then?

There was a couple day lapse in time. I hope that would come across on film. The witch truly wants Safiyah who is bunkered up in her shop. When the witch becomes frustrated, she vows to kill innocents until Safiyah gives herself up. That's why she goes after Jane and Sammy without motivation.

Quoted from CoopBazinga My biggest gripe would be the witch I guess, apologies but I’m sure how to say it. The first 70 pages, this felt like a “The Ring” type horror with some spooky goings on and scary moments happening. Then the hospital scene came in at the end and the horror changed direction to more action monster horror which kinda fell flat for me for some reason, it didn’t fit in with the first 70 pages. It’s just personal taste I guess in this type of horror for me, I like the less you can see element because when you see the witch for all its glory fighting cops, the horror element was lost on me. Felt like two different horror genre’s coming together and it didn’t work for me.

Quite right. I did attempt to meld two different horror codes here. hitchcock  always preached that the things we can't see, scare us the most. Once the witch is present, I just tried to make it a tension piece. Yes, she becomes a monster at this point.

Quoted from CoopBazinga Although it would be easy to forget that scene in the classroom, maybe a more exciting incident needs to happen in that scene to keep it on the readers mind.

I'm all ears here. I have several friends that are teachers. Not a fucken one of them could help me come up with an idea to spark off the conversation of suicide in a classroom. I did the best I could on my own.

Thanks for the page by page notes. I owe ya. Gonna go down the list and see things I may have fuckered up.

Sorry you didn't like it. It is a major chore for me to read and review a feature. I honestly suck at it. But, I owe ya. PM me your OWC entry. Would like to read it. If it really sucks, don't bother because I'll tell ya. .

Love honesty. will live and die by it. I will never be offended by it. So long as it holds water. You brought up many sticking points here that others have had.

Sent this for professional coverage Thursday. When I get the notes, I will post them here. But, I doubt they will be as insightful as the reviews I'm already lucky enough to have.

Thanks again,

James

So I do recall looking over the opening pages, seems a while ago.  Good job on seeing it through, good job on keeping it below 100 pages.

Those vaguely-remembered pages serve as my primary introduction to the story, as I have read very little of the prior comments -- other than glancing over Jeff's posts to ensure there was no trouble brewing.  You know how that goes.

This reads pretty smooth, and I do not have a ton of notes on it, reading primarily for pleasure once I realized it was already in fairly decent shape.

The opening is strong, tight, and well-written, except for that odd "POV of the Damned".  Folks are right that this unconventional slug is not working right. Perhaps you could spend a line or two introducing this unknown character; show him to us, and call him by name: THE DAMNED.  Then you can use POV of the Damaned all you want.  And if that is not what you mean, go ahead and give us an unfilmable sentence telling us what you mean.  It's OK.  Just don't do it all the time.  But I am not really sure what purpose this serves for the story, as I kept expecting this character to return, and I am not at all sure that they did.

The introduction of Walter is interesting, though you fail to give him a formal introduction.  We can intuit his age, but you fail to give us an age range for James just a bit later.  And this whole subplot with James never really builds to anything except a bit of exposition that could surely be delivered through more expedient means.

The introduction of Mark feels similarly random, and personally, I was not a big fan of the first-date story. But the larger problem here is nearly 10 pages of conversation before we get to the flashback, and a good chunck of this conversation does not even involve Jane at all!  And she is our main girl.  And then Mark never even comes back into the story?!

Snip, snip big-time all the way through this kitchen scene if you ask me.  What a waste of space this stuff.

I do like what you have going on with Bee.  Up to page 40 or so, her character is by far the most compelling to me, and you are doing a good job with her.  So of course you go and kill her right off.  Sigh.  I'll come back to that.
  
On page 48 you have a very specific problem when you describe "the witch" standing at the window, as you have failed to describe any witch up to this point.  But apart from that, the tension is building very well.

I am thinking page 61 is way too late to be introducing new characters.   Ends up being a nice little scene, but again with this "witch" that you never introduced in the first place.

Now I am thinking page 71 is way too later to be introducing new characters.  And I am not sure what this graveyard scene, a bit heavy on the melodrama, is really doing to move this story forward.

By the time you actually get around to describing the sheep lady, it is a great description.  I think you should give it to us earlier.  And all of this stuff in the hospital is handled well, and quite good.  I can buy into everything the characters are doing and think the payoff is satisfactory.

So, the primary problem with this script in its current form is wasteful and wasted characters.  Mark, James, and probably a few others I cannot recall are "wasteful". Your method of making a PDF does not allow me to do specific searches of the document, so I cannot go back and pluck them out for you.  Bee, and probably Walter, and maybe Tom, are "wasted".

Now, I understand James and Mark are there to deliver exposition and backstory, but you need to find a better way to do that than a 10-page scene where they are sitting around the kitchen table.

To a certain extent your boat accident up front sets a lot of this up, and you are encouraged to exploit that scenario to a greater extent when setting up some of these revelations.  At the very least, it seems those pages would be better spent with Jane researching and discovering some of these mysteries on her own.

Maybe do not lose Bee so fast -- and actually give Janet a few interactions with her.  The character of Bee is certainly more compelling than the character of Mark.  Way more.  And that is probably a better way to deliver some of the information you want us to have.

You can use Walter to the same effect here.  Have Sammy give information to Jane from his imaginary friend and totally weird her out. How creepy could that be?  A lot creepier than Mark pounding beers and talking about poop, I can tell you that.

This is honestly pretty good on the whole, though. I am harping on just a handful of negatives here.  You have lots of tense and effective scenes, and mostly good pacing.

The take-home message for this one is to lose the bland characters delivering backstory -- and instead make better use of the interesting characters you already have, and let them do the heavy lifting with this backstory.

Thanks Bert,

I received coverage for this today and I'm not gonna post the five pages of notes. Needless to say it got a pass. Much because of what other readers have already said including you. Too many characters. Not enough focus on the core story.

But, I will give a shout out to screenplayreaders.com. Heard mixed reviews about them, but I was very pleased with my readers insight.

I've nixed the POV OF THE DAMNED thing. It's HIS POV, WITCH'S POV, and the ending scene between Jane and the Sheep Lady is now INT. ICU HALLWAY - PORTAL.

The reader didn't mtntion it and got the story, so I guess it works.

Not gonna quote you as much as the others. The thing that makes me happiest about your review is that I don't have much explaining to do. You seem to have gotten what I was trying to do.

The sub-plot with James is a sloppy one. Although, to me, that scene in the bar is gratuitous horror, it's still effective IMO. I just wanted to show that the witch was afraid of what looms over James.

You didn't like the "Shit my pants" story? Ha, I"m surprised only a few had problems with this. I expected everyone to. This was also mentioned in coverage. It takes too long and throws off the structure. Anyhow, that's just me and a bit of my potty humour. I know, it does not serve this  story well.

I'll admit, i never once sat down and plotted my turning points and what page they should happen on. So the structure here is a bit of a mess and took too long to get going.

Walter was on the boat at the opening. I did intro him. Mark, on the otherhand, was very convenient means of explaining the back-story of the sheep lady. Many had problems with this scene. And Mark who was never seen again.

When you first see the witch, she is back-lit by lightning. I didn't convey this well, but you really don't see any of her features until the scene in the ICU. When she stands, plain as day, in bright flourescent lighting. That scene needs fixed.

I like your idea about walter telling the story of the witch to Sammy. He could then convey it to Jane, and yes, that would be creepier.

I don't know if you had time to read the two-page rough draft of the trailer we plan to shoot for this in the spring. I think I posted the link on page two of the comments here. I'm trying to think out of the box.

I am going to leave this script in its current form because it is very much about the town I grew up in. I hope the trailer we shoot goes semi-viral. If the script gets attention, I will cut it down to the core story, Like everyone would've preferred.

Can't thank you enough, Bert. You're one of my fave writers here. I very much appreciate your comments, and hey, I'm very pleased that you enjoyed this for the most. I don't want to ask someone to read my story thinking it would be work. Just hope they can enjoy the ride and have some insight after. As you did...

James

James, sorry this has been taking me so long. The problem is with my schedule, not the script.

Up to about p64 now.

I have had no problems with the writing at all, and the dialogue is generally decent to good.

I absolutely think you can whip this into shape with another strong pass at a rewrite. You do create some effectively scary scenes.

Where I think it needs improvement is along the lines I mentioned in discussing the opening scene. This has the feel of a novel, with a lot of characters, each with kind of their own story line.

We have Safiyah and the old ladies who have some knowledge of combating what has turned out to be a powerful witch. We have James, the racist...coroner?...why is a coroner trying to solve a crime? Anyway, he's got his thing. We got the Sheriff. And we got Walter and Jane's family. I'm not sure if the answer is to eliminate one of these angles or just reduce it. Part of the issue comes from the opening sequence which doesn't seem to connect with any great import. Maybe without that, the number of story lines is not an issue.

On page 58, when they are escaping the house, I didn't really understand why she was carrying Sammy, which seemed to create a struggle. And then he passed out or something. I wasn't sure why.

The witch seems cool. Obviously at some point I hope it's revealed what she's all about, what she wants, where she comes from.

The story is eminently worth pursuing. Definitely some good stuff in here.