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The Text by Sudesh Sunichura - Short, Comedy - A young women wakes up to realizes she is late or work. In a panic she sends a text to her coworker who misinterprets the text. 4 pages - pdf format
New writer interested in feedback on this work, please be nice
Sudesh, there are tons of things wrong with this. About every error imaginable. Too many to mention in a single post.
So, let's start with three things - not putting your action/descriptions in parentheticals.
Not writing unfilmables. Everything you write - we must be able to hear or see on the screen. We can't see that she late for work - only that she wakes up in a panic. We can't see that Ryan is her co -worker - only that she is texting.
Texting is not dialogue - don't format it that way
E,g this:
Quoted Text
INT. SARAH'S ROOM - MORNING
SARAH wakes up abruptly to the surprise that she is late for work.
SARAH (Sarah awakes suddenly. Eyes wide open as if she heard a loud bang. In a state of panic she reaches for her phone to notice that it is 10:00am and she is late for work. She frantically texts her coworker Ryan.) Hey Ryan. Sorry I'm going to be late. I'll be there sexy. (After sending the text she frantically gets ready for work.)
INT. SARAH'S ROOM - MORNING
SARAH awakes suddenly. Eyes wide open as if she heard a loud bang.
In a state of panic she reaches for her phone to notice that it is 10:00 am. She taps in a text.
INSERT TEXT: Hey Ryan. Sorry I'm going to be late. I'll be there sexy.
Sarah hits send, then rushes towards the closet, yanks some clothes off the hanger.
Even the above has problems - but it fixes the three I mentioned. GO through your entire script and fix these throughout - repost a new draft and we can move on the the rest of the script.
Considering the wrong format and grammatical errors, I still read it through just to see what the story is. It felt a bit funny sighting the misunderstanding. But still, the question about the text been sent like that seems less likely. It meant that Sarah went haywire on her phone keyboard, frantically typing out words without eve looking. Maybe I am wrong but that's way I see it.
And what exactly is the text? It's not mentioned. Given that the title of the script is THE TEXT, it is an important element of the story which arises misunderstanding. So it would be nice for a reader to know what the text says. Just one word for the sake of the plot won't suffice.
Regardless, good luck if you are planning to do a new draft and fix all the issues(a fraction of which is already mentioned by Dave).
I get it. She meant to say "I'll be there soon" but auto-fill/correct typed "I'll be there sexy." Humorous and could happen.
The script is written like a stage play though - directions in parentheticals - which isn't done in film scripts. Fix that and also some of the suggestions mentioned by other reviewers and this could be more well-liked.
Has the potential to go in a kind of "Office" or Seinfeld/Larry David direction.