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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    Screenwriting Discussion    Screenwriting Class  ›  Stuck at the 3/4 mark Moderators: George Willson
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  Author    Stuck at the 3/4 mark  (currently 2039 views)
eldave1
Posted: July 13th, 2016, 11:37am Report to Moderator
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Steven, I've read it. My thoughts:

Very much like the overall premise. i.e., a journey that people take in a world without electricity. IMO, that is a solid start. It is well written for the most part.

For me, there were some big logic issues that I could not get over.

SPOILERS

1. Where are the women and in particular -  the children? You have one major female character (Sherrie) and zero children. In my view, that is incomplete to the point where at least it would have to be explained and their absence is a missed opportunity for drama. Think of the added drama if Frank and Sherri were accompanied by their ten-year-old son - or if they had to shepherd the neighbors orphaned kids through that pass at the Rim of the World.  Anyway - their absence from the story was noticeable.

2. Frank has a working vehicle (the patrol car on page 13 that he decides not to drive). Despite that - he does not use it to get to the Rim of the World???

3. I thought that the hike up was done to quickly - I wanted to see more of the challenge/struggle associated with climbing a mountain.

4. I think you need to have some more detail or explanation on how is it that all of the batteries are gone - all of the food - most of the fuel. Ed has gas for his truck - why doesn't anyone else?

5. I didn't get a real sense of what happened to all of the people in the town - it seemed abandoned but why? The outage was wide spread - where did they go? What happened to the infrastructure - no government, no military? no church? etc. ?  I mean there I know that there is no electricity - but there is 12 hours of day light every day. It was just hard for me to connect the lack of power to the apocalyptic landscape portrayed in the story. Part of that iis that electricity was invented just 150 years ago and not in widespread use to much after that and we all survived quite nicely. Many places on the planet without electricity today that thrive. So what is it about this outage that creates this much chaos and anarchy?  

In terms of your original question: IMO the story is not over when they see the light. The film may be if you plan on sequels or a series. But is single contained feature I thought the ending was premature.

Hope this helps - all the best.


My Scripts can all be seen here:

http://dlambertson.wix.com/scripts
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Steven
Posted: July 13th, 2016, 12:35pm Report to Moderator
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Let me explain my original concept of the story, which I abandoned, but now considering a rewrite because honestly, I don't have rational answers to those questions. I wanted to get to the finish and fix things along the way when I was done.

But here it goes, the story completely changes at this point and turns into some serious sci-fi.

The cause of the blackout is an EMP which was intentionally emitted by the US Air Force.

Here is where things get a bit weird.

The Black Knight Satellite is a strange object that has been hovering just outside of the Earth's atmosphere since as early as 1960, I believe. No one knows what it is or how it got there - that's a true story.

The original title was to be Orbiting Darkness, by the way. So, in that story (which I have written in long form, about 20,000 words so far), The March Air Reserve Base that Harry is to be stationed was recently turned active, and the people there are monitoring the Black Knight - because it is a secret satellite that can cause devastation via EMP's. So, a decision was made to  test out the satellite for the first time, and what better area than a local city?

The cast of characters are still the same, but there is a longer introduction to Harry, who actually has a satellite phone on him the entire time. He gets a phone call just after the EMP and obviously people are suspicious, and eventually he comes clean and explains what he knows. He didn't know of the EMP attack, but he knew what the Air Force was doing at the recently converted base.

Then there is Ed, who is actually a plant with the Air Force. He still has the VFW, but in a back room, there is a "safe room" for lack of a better term, that is shielded by EMP blasts. He has direct contact with the Air Force base as his mission is to monitor and report what is going on with the general population. So Ed doesn't kill anyone directly in this story, but he is leading these few men and they're the ones breaking into houses and doing what they do.

James, Marcus and Sherrie are still part of the story in the same capacity as they are in the screenplay I posted.

So the first half of the story was going to take place 6 months after the EMP, then during the flashback showing the EMP happen, we learn what is really doing on.

I'm just struggling on how much I show. I know I have to have a scene with some high up military officers discussing the plan to use the EMP, and I have to show Ed in his safe room talking to these same people.
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eldave1
Posted: July 13th, 2016, 12:41pm Report to Moderator
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Well, that indeed is a different story. But I am not sure it solves the logic problems.



My Scripts can all be seen here:

http://dlambertson.wix.com/scripts
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Steven
Posted: July 13th, 2016, 12:46pm Report to Moderator
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Forgot to mention these things:

-Frank uses Sherrie's car to drive through a reinforced gate at the police station to get to the armory, basically totaling it in the process.

-Frank's cruiser is attacked by looters and they're forced to abandon.

-There are more people in the original story, most of them do leave through the highway over the mountain.

-I need to come up with a clever way to explain how Ed has gas without the other people in his crew being suspicious. He doesn't let anyone else into his safe room, by the way.
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eldave1
Posted: July 13th, 2016, 12:56pm Report to Moderator
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That probably works - but I still think your biggest hurdle is explaining/describing why a town losing it's electricity results in armageddon for that town. It's this - yeah, I get the dire landscape - I don't get how the loss of electricity causes that landscape. We lived without it for most of civilization.


My Scripts can all be seen here:

http://dlambertson.wix.com/scripts
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Steven
Posted: July 13th, 2016, 1:00pm Report to Moderator
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Well, to be fair, people lived without electricity because it was never invented. But with today's population, cutting electricity will cause a huge problem. There will be no more utilities, so that means no more hot water, no way of making phone calls because cell towers will be useless.

I think it's safe to say that after 6 months of that, a large percentage of the population will go ape shit in one way or another. There will be a gradual breakdown of society especially considering emergency services won't be available with the dialing of 3 numbers. Not to mention the people providing emergency assistance will be taking care of themselves and wouldn't even be aware of emergencies in the first place.
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TonyDionisio
Posted: July 29th, 2016, 5:16am Report to Moderator
Been Around


Damnit, get to the point!

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I believe 70-100 is perfect for spec (you want an economic read that will actually get the pages completely turned.) We are in the social networking age of wanting things immediately and then moving on to the next. Don't feel the need to write subpar filler just to have enough to satisfy. Satisfy through quality, page turning flow, and a kick-ass story that creates buzz.

As pointed out previously, if you're stuck - open another project...  then the other. Read more scripts, come back with fresh ideas and solutions.

Get as much feedback as possible.

Gl

Tony
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