All screenplays on the simplyscripts.com and simplyscripts.net domain are copyrighted to their respective authors. All rights reserved. This screenplaymay not be used or reproduced for any purpose including educational purposes without the expressed written permission of the author.
William's Wishes by James Redd - Short - William is an angst-ridden teen who is granted three wishes by an atypical genie. What would you wish for if you hated everyone? (7 pages) - pdf, format
The premise of this script was really good; it really made me interested in reading it.
The story didn't really deliver though. Instead of a story about a person really weighing in the possibilities of his options. Intead, you give us a story about--
SPOILER SPACE
zombies.
END SPOILER SPACE
I have to wonder if you were making this up as you went along.
Again, great premise. It's actually one that I imagine people talking about. What would I do if I was William.
The only weakness IMO was the ending. Not that the zombies were bad or anything, it just felt the story petered out. You did so well with the rest of the story that I was expecting a more clever ending. Other than that I thought it was good. Don't really have anything else to complain about.
I thought you have a good script here and like the others have said the ending needs to be altered.
Maybe you could have some sort of conflict in the very beginning to add spice at the end.
From the genie's perspective, I'm not sure if she would wish everyone to be dead. It kinda defeats the purpose of her being around and after three wishes she would go back into her lamp and never come back. This would set up a conflict of wishes between William and the genie. Although your genie stays out.
I've always wanted to do a genie story.
Overall, it was a good story that needs conflict to make this story go full circle.
Javier, thanks for the comments. The first ending was actually William going home and taking out his mother first (I changed it to an unnamed zombie, though some may have still gotten the impression that it was his mother). I just couldn't leave it in, not sure why. I had the genie come back and destroy the lamp to show that she was finally done being a genie since zombies are not smart enough to make wishes. I gues nobody liked that ending, though.
Hey James, I enjoyed this. As others have said, while the initial premise is a good one, and I actually liked the ending with the genie freeing herself, I think the story sort of just...happened. Maybe just a little more thought from William. That part - his actual wishing - was a little rushed.
I also have to agree with Steven - since when could zombies fly?
Just when you had me laughing, you throw in willam's third wish that made me almost fall out of my chair with more laughter.
Whoa, maybe you should install a seatbelt in that chair. I'm glad you liked it but I don't want any injuries sustained as a result of reading my script. I have never heard the term "word wish" but it sounds interesting. Elaborate?
Question, though. . .how did the zombies gain the ability to fly?
The genie gave them the ability to fly so that William would not survive, freeing her from her position since zombies are too dumb to make wishes. Kind of like Aladdin but instead of a schizophrenic blue genie we get a sarcastic black-leather-clad hottie. I just thought of this, but she'll probably die now too because she doesn't have her genie powers any more. Crap.
Hey, Jon, glad you enjoyed it. The idea came to me on my hour-long commute with no radio to work one morning. The wishes came first, then William developed from there. I guess I could make more conversation between the genie and William but wouldn't that start to drag? We want to get to the wishes, baby! And as soon as the first wish is made the rest kind of has to be rushed, right? Who knows...
I think this had a good premise. I agree with some of the others that it didn’t fully deliver. It seemed a bit lost as to what direction to go.
It starts off strong, with a cynical edge to it right from the very first line of description. The banter between William and the genie was good. Then it seemed to begin to get lost a little right around the second wish.
It seemed odd to me that William would use the word undead, particularly knowing how important word choice was at that time. As soon as I heard the word, I knew what was coming. If there’s some way to finagle the language so it won’t be so obvious...I don’t know though, it may work on film. It may fly by before anyone has a chance to rationalize it.
William wishing to fly was an interesting choice, given the situation. It works insofar as provoking interest from the reader to see where this is heading. But the flying zombies came off to me as sort of a reverse deus ex machina. Instead of coming out of nowhere to save our hero, it popped up expressly to destroy him. And it brings the whole story into question; if the genie can just add whatever she wants to someone’s wish, she should be able to easily destroy her master. I mean, why not just make the zombies faster from the second wish so they could destroy William before he could make a third wish?
So for me the ending basically undermined the entire story. That aside, I still think the premise of the genie manipulating someone’s own flaws to achieve her own personal goal is a damn good idea and it was an entertaining story.
The writing is good. About the only piece of advice I could give you there is that I think you could use sentence fragments to conserve space a little more. Other than that, you have your own voice and it reads well.
"word wish at your own risk" As in wording a wish, selecting the right words for your wish so you get exactly what you want.
That's what I meant
"I wish everyone was dead" is not a smart thing to say to a genie who will grant you a wish. Niether is saying "I wish for a hot chick or a sexy bit of pussy" for obvious reason.
Hey James, I enjoyed this. As others have said, while the initial premise is a good one, and I actually liked the ending with the genie freeing herself, I think the story sort of just...happened. Maybe just a little more thought from William. That part - his actual wishing - was a little rushed.
In an episode of the X-Files, Mulder found a genie in a lamp (a rolled up area rug, actually) who granted him three wishes. The first two ended up being reversed because of the whole monkey-paw thing. For Mulder's third wish, he wrote it down. IIRC, it was about twenty pages long, making sure it wouldn't him in on the ass.