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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    Unproduced Screenplay Discussion    Short Scripts  ›  A Place To Call Home Moderators: bert
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  Author    A Place To Call Home  (currently 1194 views)
Don
Posted: August 15th, 2014, 7:55pm Report to Moderator
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So, what are you writing?

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A Place To Call Home by M. Malling (DS) - Short, Drama - A homeless man makes a rash decision to get off the streets. - pdf, format


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Revision History (1 edits)
Don  -  April 27th, 2015, 2:09pm
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Nomad
Posted: August 15th, 2014, 11:12pm Report to Moderator
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Marko,

This was a nice tale, even if there was too much exposition throughout.  You have the ability to tell a story, but your mechanics need some work.

Keep up the good work.

Jordan


Read my scripts here:
SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 8pg-Drama
THE BRIDGE 8pg-Horror
SCHEISSE 6pg-Horror/Comedy
MADE FOR EACH OTHER-FILMED
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khamanna
Posted: August 17th, 2014, 4:12pm Report to Moderator
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Hey, Marko.
p1 "He walks to the liquor" - let us know who as it follows the exchange between Walter and Jim.
Walter starts his sentences with "can't" - two of them. Jim with "could". I'm not a fan of that conversation, a bit of exposition here.
p3 I'd cut "Know what, the store had some good day's this week. Profit is good"
p3 and I'd cut Walters "Desperate times call for desperate measures". I'd just leave "Somehow".
Maybe just me but I'd keep it at minimum. Maybe it's because it's a slow-paced, dramatic short and I think it calls for less dialog.

p4 "I'd give you whatever will be left of forty-five bucks" - don't get it.
p5 - hides a revolver? A real thing? I thought it was a toy gun.

I really wish you found a way to compress that long long long letter.
It's a nice little story. But the letter spoiled it for me. I think you have to think of a way. It
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LeeOConnor
Posted: August 17th, 2014, 4:15pm Report to Moderator
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Hi DS,

A good story, easy to follow.
There are a typos and weird sentences for example: "Irregular sounds until he stops playing, engrossed in the view. He's longing." I just think this could be worded better, I had to read it twice to get what you were trying to say.

I like that Walter didn't stitch up his friend entirely at the end. The end is the important part of your tale, But I think it could be more powerful, perhaps Walter could be in jail already because of Jim calling the police instead of being forced to push an alarm.
I think as Jim reads the letter he regrets calling the police and of course Walter regrets sticking him up, a double guilt factor to the story.

Just my thoughts of course

Good luck with this.

Lee
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Colkurtz8
Posted: August 18th, 2014, 6:09am Report to Moderator
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Marko

“A lingering stare at Walter as he distances.”

- I think you are missing a word or two here or it needs to be phrased better.

“Walter gobbles the last of his drink down.”

- Maybe I’m being nitpicky but I would associate “gobbles” with eating not drinking.
“Irregular sounds until he stops playing,”

- I know what you mean here but it could written more clearly.

JIM
Saw you looking at the meatlowe
there.

- I take it you mean “meatloaf”

WALTER
What would you know?

"Instant regret."

- I’m glad he shows some regret as I was totally siding with Jim here. Walter has no grounds to be getting angry with him.

Maybe it’s your intention to show an even handed portrayal and not just play on our sympathies with Walter. I mean, given he’s destitute it’s easy to take his side and manipulate the reader into feeling sorry for his plight. The victimisation narrative is so in vogue right now. However, at the moment I don’t have much pity for him. He’s spending what money he has on booze and is rejecting rehab so it’s hard to lament his situation too much, he has options. On the other hand, as a friend of mine said to me one time: If you were living on the streets wouldn’t it be much easier to do it drunk than sober? He has a point.

“Walter wakes up, hammered. He turns his head, an empty
bottle next to him. Disgust covers his face.”

- Case in point: There is only going to be so many times you’re going to witness this before saying “Right, you need to help yourself now.” There is obviously a self loathing in Walter too, he knows it’s self inflicted.

“A five dollar bill falls into his cap.”

- Sh?t, I thought this would’ve helped get his mojo back

WALTER
Could you do me a favour? I'll give
you whatever would be left of
fourty-five bucks.

- I had to read this a couple of times as it confused me a little. It seems a rather odd way to make a proposition, unnecessarily cryptic. I mean what if the favour required spending forty three of those forty five bucks, you know? That’s what the kid should be asking. How about just simplifying it to “you could make a few bucks” If the Kid presses him for specifics then he could say “at least 30” or whatever. Also, omit the “u” in “forty”

Plus, it might be worth indicating that Walter spots the Kid when he passes the first two times. You set the Kid up in those earlier scenes so we know we are going to meet him at some point but Walter doesn’t appear to take any notice of him thus it feels a bit coincidental that he picked him out from all the passersby to do him a favour.

WALTER
He's about your age.
Loves firearms.

- Don’t know if it was your aim but this line cracked me up. A Kid who loves firearms, plain and simple. Parents, be afraid, be very afraid!

“conceiled look.”

- Should be spelt “concealed”

“Walter takes out the gun, all exactly in front of the
camera.”

- You could drop the “all”

I sense by having Walter rob from Jim, the one guy who has helped him out, shows you are not looking for us to like Walter all that much. And that’s fine, I don’t necessarily need a likeable protagonist in order to be engaged with them. Let’s see where you take it though…

Nice twist at the end, a poignant well written speech by Walter to explain his complete and utter capitulation. A man who has finally given up, reached the end of his tether, considers its better to be in prison then take part in the world outside.

I am wondering though what kind of a sentence he’ll get. Yes, he shows the revolver to the CCTV camera but if they can’t find the weapon (I presume he’ll dump it rather than show it to them) can they give the standard 10 or 15 years or whatever the conviction is for armed robbery?

Also, I would think about intercutting the last few lines of prose with Walter’s dialogue. You have more than half a page to spare so why not break up the dialogue with the reactions of Jim as he reads and the final decision of Walter to enter the cop shop rather than tagging it on at the end because lines like “Jim’s face begins to reflect concern” just come off sounding strange on their own.

Other than that, this has a lot going for it. I thought it was going to be another “Oh, look at the poor homeless guy, shouldn’t we feel sorry for him” scenario but you gave it a fresh spin with his choice at the end, his reasoning behind it and the subsequent implications.

Also, it mightn’t hurt to pay more attention to spelling and phrasing in the future. For an 8 page script there is a lot of avoidable errors (typos, misspellings) that will turn off some from reading it to the end which would be a shame since there is a decent story here.

Col.


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DS
Posted: August 21st, 2014, 10:18am Report to Moderator
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Much appreciate the reads, everyone. Fixed the issues brought out that I agreed with.

I did indeed leave a fair amount of typos in there. Was a vomit draft, but considering the length spell-checking it wouldn't have been a problem back then. Updated it.

@Khamanna: Thanks for the pointers. Fixed P1/P4/P5. I don't however see the problem with the rest. Interesting that you bring out that starting dialogue with can't/could would be considered exposition. Don't really get it, seems like natural dialogue to me.

@Lee: Yeah, the double-guilt idea scenario did pop into my head before the letter one, however I dismissed the idea because I didn't manage to nail the timing enough to be pleased with it.

@Col: Thank you for the detailed notes as ever. Heard gobble in the drinking context a fair amount of times. Don't know, sounds right to me.

You made a great point about the ending and I added a few more action lines of Jim's to the intercut.

I wasn't too sure on how to format the intercut. My intention was for the V.O to sound through the intercut, however I felt it was unnecessary to break it into parts through the action lines as it wasn't really relevant during which exact action line would run on the screen during the V.O. This is an interesting one. I updated it so it would seem more clear that the V.O is supposed to work over the actions for now.

After giving this a fresh look a few days later, I think I haven't done too rough on the action lines as I first imagined.. for a second short at least. The feedback on them doesn't seem to indicate that they're too rubbish at least. Think it might be a good enough result to get cracking on a first feature.  Thanks again for the read, folks.
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khamanna
Posted: August 22nd, 2014, 4:37am Report to Moderator
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Hey DS, I in no way mean there's exposition because of the use of can't/could. I noted fixing can't/could 's is for the flow.
But if it sounds natural to you - then great.
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DS
Posted: August 22nd, 2014, 11:24am Report to Moderator
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Quoted from khamanna
Hey DS, I in no way mean there's exposition because of the use of can't/could. I noted fixing can't/could 's is for the flow.
But if it sounds natural to you - then great.


Ah. The positioning of the line confused me. Should have probably picked up on that.




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Ugo
Posted: August 24th, 2014, 12:11am Report to Moderator
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i liked the story, seems that everyone touched on the things that i had issue with. but i will say is the dialogue is to much. cut it short. kinda messes up what Walter did but i guess if i was in that position i might do it to..

your a great writer, good luck in the future and on the  rewrite


check out my scripts here....let me know what you think

https://www.dropbox.com/s/amkdn3svt5rernq/last%20hope.pdf?dl=0

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DS
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Quoted from Ugo
i liked the story, seems that everyone touched on the things that i had issue with. but i will say is the dialogue is to much. cut it short. kinda messes up what Walter did but i guess if i was in that position i might do it to..

your a great writer, good luck in the future and on the  rewrite


Hey Ugo:

Being called a great writer is new, but certainly welcome. Thank you for the compliment.

As for the dialogue, you'd have to specify exactly which part you have in mind. Right now I don't have much to reply with.

- DS
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JimiLamp
Posted: August 24th, 2014, 6:53pm Report to Moderator
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DS,

Nice job with this. I didn't have any major problems with this. Little bits in some of the action lines. Just opinion of course.

Pg.2 - :Aggressively covering himself with a poor excuse of a blanket." This left me slightly confused. Was it a grimy, tattered, old blanket? Was it newspaper? This is where my mind went right away. Maybe just specify/go into a bit more detail. I know it's a small thing.

Pg.2 - "tears run down his chin" Do you mean cheek? Just created a weird visual in my head. Maybe let us know tears are welling up.

Pg.3 - "Another look at the meat just to decide for another bottle" Might be a better way to write this. The "to decide" is telling us something that can't be shown on screen. Maybe he has another look at the meat then walks over to the liquor and grabs a bottle? That way we see this decision. The way it's written, you don't specify that. Goes from he decides to - putting coins down on the counter. I totally get what you mean but it's slightly confusing.

Pg.4 - "Everything he has in there is taken out. A few bills." Just a little confusing. At first I thought you implying it was stolen. But you're saying he himself takes out the bills? Maybe you can say, "he takes out a few bills." Just so we see specifically what's happening.

Pg.4 - Walter keeps playing. He can't get it right, sounds like an amateur." I get what your saying, just didn't fully buy it. If Walter is a great harmonica player I doubt he could, in one day, drop that dramatically in skill. Maybe find a way to show he is just not into. No passion or just doesn't want to play. If he was that good he's be able to fake and still sound good. I think it's the lack passion or even wanting to play that you want to convey.

I think Walter's monologue is written well. I wonder if there's other ways to portray that information. But overall I think it works. It's poignant.

There's a lot of telling not showing in the last description on the last page.

My apologies if I repeated anything others may have said or if you have rewritten any of this. I make these mistake all the time myself, especially in early drafts. And all just my opinion. I think the nit-picking is a testament to what is good about this.

Overall, I thought it was written well. Definitely good stuff going on. I think you could add to this too. A little more detail.

Nice job. Hope there was something helpful here.


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DS
Posted: August 25th, 2014, 5:23am Report to Moderator
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Quoted from JimiLamp
DS,

Nice job with this. I didn't have any major problems with this. Little bits in some of the action lines. Just opinion of course.

Pg.2 - :Aggressively covering himself with a poor excuse of a blanket." This left me slightly confused. Was it a grimy, tattered, old blanket? Was it newspaper? This is where my mind went right away. Maybe just specify/go into a bit more detail. I know it's a small thing.

Pg.2 - "tears run down his chin" Do you mean cheek? Just created a weird visual in my head. Maybe let us know tears are welling up.

Pg.3 - "Another look at the meat just to decide for another bottle" Might be a better way to write this. The "to decide" is telling us something that can't be shown on screen. Maybe he has another look at the meat then walks over to the liquor and grabs a bottle? That way we see this decision. The way it's written, you don't specify that. Goes from he decides to - putting coins down on the counter. I totally get what you mean but it's slightly confusing.

Pg.4 - "Everything he has in there is taken out. A few bills." Just a little confusing. At first I thought you implying it was stolen. But you're saying he himself takes out the bills? Maybe you can say, "he takes out a few bills." Just so we see specifically what's happening.

Pg.4 - Walter keeps playing. He can't get it right, sounds like an amateur." I get what your saying, just didn't fully buy it. If Walter is a great harmonica player I doubt he could, in one day, drop that dramatically in skill. Maybe find a way to show he is just not into. No passion or just doesn't want to play. If he was that good he's be able to fake and still sound good. I think it's the lack passion or even wanting to play that you want to convey.

I think Walter's monologue is written well. I wonder if there's other ways to portray that information. But overall I think it works. It's poignant.

There's a lot of telling not showing in the last description on the last page.

My apologies if I repeated anything others may have said or if you have rewritten any of this. I make these mistake all the time myself, especially in early drafts. And all just my opinion. I think the nit-picking is a testament to what is good about this.

Overall, I thought it was written well. Definitely good stuff going on. I think you could add to this too. A little more detail.

Nice job. Hope there was something helpful here.




Thanks Jimi. Most certainly was. Action lines were what I felt like I needed the most feedback on, tricky bastards they are. You gave me some good insight on clarity that I will most definitely use later on.

P2 1: Good catch on the poor excuse of a blanket. You're right, it isn't clear enough. However, I somehow feel that clarifying might not be necessary here. Leave it up to the reader. The only point here is that he doesn't have a proper place to sleep.

P2 2: Yes. I did mean cheek. Not sure how I managed to turn that into chin on the keyboard.

P3: Indeed. The clarity part. Thanks.

P4 1: Agreed. Wanted to show that after that the bag was empty. Yeah, the stolen vibe does easily come in there. My intention was to show that he had been saving up and had planned it for a long time... you gave me a good idea to put the letter in there as well. I'll make this clearer.

P4 2: If your thoughts are completely elsewhere, it's possible despite how good you are at something. Depends on the person, I suppose.

Thanks for the valuable feedback.

- DS
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IamGlenn
Posted: August 26th, 2014, 10:01am Report to Moderator
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I enjoyed this. It's a nice story and I like your writing style.
As someone said above, the letter at the end could do with some shortening and maybe some parts of the dialogue feel a little forced, especially near the beginning.

But, yeah, nice story and well told.


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