yo Chris,

hey this was your first script. had I of known, I would have went a little easier on you haha. if you were a long time writer, then you should be embarrassed. but you're not. and i'll give you an A for effort. there are others here who are praising your format when, in actuality, it needs work.

give these characters some depth. exemplify their personality. lets take ryan for example. he's in between stages. show this. does he have a girlfriend that's begging him for a more serious commitment? or does his boss chastise him for goofing off at the office? or maybe he finally opened up a retirement account and now he's dipping into it two weeks later for beer.

hopefully this helps.

Wasn’t busy so I thought I would give this a quickie.

Your formatting seems okay. Some issues with your action lines but they have already been covered so I’ll leave that alone.

The story itself, is, well lacking a story. There doesn’t seem to be one that I can see. I know that’s been mentioned but when I read this, I wanted to prove someone wrong.

But I couldn’t.

It does seem to just go on and on with no real point. Clorox, pretty much nailed what I wanted to say.

I’ll, instead, address some of the more note worthy issues that I noticed.

One page one-

OLD WOMAN
Can I get one of those Triple
Cherries - are those any good?

You have two questions here but a (-) instead of a ?

It should read like
OLD WOMAN
Can I get one of those Triple
Cherries?  Are they any good?

You might want to introduce us to your characters as well. Zero description means zero interest. Very one dimensional.

Something like…

He stands next in line as an OLD WOMAN, hunched over, oversized purse in tow, takes her time as she orders lottery scratchers from the CASHIER, 45, Middle Eastern, inpatient.

It helps to give a description.

It is also good to be careful of the passive verbage in your action slugs.

OLD WOMAN
Better make it two. And....
(looking at the other
scratchers painfully slow)
let’s see here...

I could take up a page on what you’ve got going on here. I’m just going to say, “rewrite” that wrylie, dialogue and action because all of them are backwards.

RYAN
(to: cashier)

Man, that has a couple problems just with the two words in the wrylie.
First of all, that’s an action not a parenthetical. Also, why the : in it?

Ryan looks over to the cashier…

This belongs in an action line, not a wrylie.

OLD WOMAN
(turning to face Ryan)

Same thing here. This is reserved for and action, not a wrylie. You’re also using passive verbage.

I’ll stop at page 1, reviewing that is. I read the entire script. Sorry, I couldn't go any further.

I hope some of this has helped in your re-write.

Shawn.....><

Hi Chris - though I'd give this a quick read. It's not so much that is dull - it's more a case of -- when you write a short, it's normally best to try and get the 'heart' of the story. In any case, scenes are best entered in late and left early. I didn't read all of it, but from what I saw, you could easily go in (start) from page 8, when the guys are in the car - I don't think it would lose anything - the kind of set-up you've gone for (it's a form of exposition) would better suit a feature.

Best o' luck with it.

Thanks for all of your reviews and critiques.  I gave it a re-read with your perspectives in mind and agree that this just doesn't work as a short because it takes too long to get to the point (or lack thereof). I've decided to push forward with making this a feature so I can add more of a solid story to it. It will be posted in a couple weeks with a new title. I'll bump this thread with a link when it is up so anyone interested can take a look. I promise it will be better.

Thanks again,

Chris