Rubix by Dan Brown - Short - An obsessive compulsive kid, and his frat boy room mate clash heads over the layout of their room. 4 pages - html, format

Hi Dan,

Nice little story here.

There are a few typos here and there but nothing that can't be fixed.

Try space out your descriptions a bit more and show us more white on the page.
Some of the Parenthetical's I find are not needed so I would recommend losing them.

Nice work.

Lee

Dan

I think this one begs for more setup.  We understand the animosity between these two, can you show the build up?  Certainly, these two didn't start this way. On that first day of school they wanted to get along, right?  When did things begin to go wrong?  When Clive can't get in because his roommate has a babe in the sack?  When he comes in blotto?  When Clive fumigates the room?  When Clive asks for another room but none are available?  When clive hangs a curtain between them?

Show us the little aggressions that fuel a murderous rage.

Best

Richard

The script was okay; it's a good start, but it definitely needs its share of revisions.

First off: shorten some of the descriptions. They should be quick and simple. For example, take this one:

Quoted Text Clive doesn't return the greeting, instead he looks back to his rubix cube for a second before setting it down and going over the homework that sits next to him. Andy doesn't seem surprised, he just stares at Clive for a second questioningly, before opening his closet.

Maybe something like this:

Quoted Text Clive says nothing. He sets the cube down and turns his attention to some homework. Andy stares questioningly at Clive for a moment, then opens the closet door.

Achieves the same purpose, but isn't as big a paragraph. Remember, an executive reading this has to remain engaged; and they're all about short, sweet and to-the-point.

Personally, I see the hostility on Clive's part towards his messy roommate (maybe he's really a obsessive-compulsive psychopath, maybe not), but I really don't see enough character motivation as to why Clive suddenly wants to strangle Andy to death. It seems very out of the blue, very unexplained. I agree with RichardR, it begs for more setup. Give us some character background into why Clive is so neurotically obsessed with cleanliness and where his contempt for Andy starts and how it grows into a sudden burst of murderous rage. Generally, I feel this story needs to be longer than four pages.

Not trying to preach at you here, but these are my thoughts. Take them into consideration if you wish. Like I said, it's a good start, but it definitely could be better.

I agree with the others' takes on this.  If you're going to tell this through Clive's point of view, you need to give him more motivation.  You should heighten in some way the instances where Andy annoys Clive, because right now they're rather mundane.  Establish why he's so offended, what it is about the noise or messes that gets under his skin, and then heighten the moment from Clive's point of view with something visual or audible, like extreme closeups or a heart beat pounding.

Or maybe have him really hate Christmas.

If you do all that, the script could be really good because the ending is quite chilling.

Interesting read, though I'm not sure I fully get it. What was the deal with the rubix cube? What was wrong with it at the end?

Format was good, but the font for screenplays is usually courier. Some typo's here and there, but I'm not gonna bug you with those.

The dialog was actually pretty good. It flowed very naturally and helped me get a feel for the characters.

Not bad at all.

~Zack~