Nice post, Ghostie, and great suggestion.

*Military Intelligence, eh? And TS. What a dark horse you are.

Thank you, Libby, Richard,

The points you've made, are encouraging, and I am in the process of re-writing now.

Richard, I have had a second look at your suggestions, and I must admit, it has opened up interesting opinions.

As far as the punctuation goes, I will learn.

Cheers

Gary

Hi, Ghostie,  you are right, I am over thinking it all, but I will not give up, and I thank you for your suggestions and comments, I appreciate it.

Gary

Quoted from LC Nice post, Ghostie, and great suggestion. *Military Intelligence, eh? And TS. What a dark horse you are.

Sorry, Gary, but I'm hi-jacking your thread.

Hey, Libby, thanks.  I tend to fall in love with my anonymity, but it's not so terrible to reveal a little about yourself.   Anyway, I'm always around, I just don't post much.

Ghostie

Gary, I'm going to throw 1 more thing in, and it's something I suggest to all new writers.

Practice with a very simple short.  3 or 4 characters, max, and 3 or 4 settings, max.  Shoot for 5 or 6 pages.  The goal with this exercise is your writing (grammar, structure, punctuation), dialogue, and technical screenwriting (Slugs, transitions, etc.).

You can lead a horse to water, but sometimes you can't make him jump over the damn fence, so try just getting on the beast, and walking around...then run, then lead him to a fence and see if he'll drink some water.     You get me?

Hey, Jeff, yeah thanks for that. I wish I had done that in the beginning, but this seemed to, just build and build. Great tip for the next one, though.

I have knocked it down a few pages now, thanks to Richard's suggestions, and I think it reads a little better.

I'm still finding mistakes but will sort them out.

Cheers

Hi Gary,

So I read a few pages. Now I am by no means an expert to screenwriting but I've written quite a bit and read a few books, so anyways, these were my thoughts.

Your first paragraph you should consider revising. It's a lot of words.

Rick 35, Simulation Technician, casually dressed, unlocks his locker and removes a white lab coat. He shuffles it on.His gaze, lingering on a photograph attached to the door.The familial resemblance to Rick evident.

This could easily be shortened to:

RICK (35), casually dressed, takes his lab coat out of a locker and puts it on. He eyes a photograph of his family attached inside the door. He touches the photo, saddened.

- The above reads a lot more smoothly.
- Character names should always be in caps; so RICK not Rick. You have STEVE in caps so I assume you know this. Try to be as consistent as possible.
- Most people include ages in brackets, but you don't have to.
- Don't tell the audience that he is a Simulation Technician in the writing, they need to see it, figure it out.

This line read really weird: In walks SHAWN 48, Manager, shirt and tie man. He approachesRick, raising his: 'have you got a minute?'finger.

Maybe: In walks SHAWN, 48, shirt and tie man. He raises his fingers and approaches Rick.

Make sure to use a comma between the characters names and age. So it's SHAWN, 48 not SHAWN 48.

This paragraph reads fine:
A high acuity setting resembling an Intensive Care Unit, austere and brightly lit. A manikin lies motionless on a hospital issue bed. Patient monitoring equipment records its every move and vital statistics.

-- But make sure you space it all out. People hate large paragraphs. Standard rule of thumb is three lines of action per paragraph max. If anymore, take a new paragraph.
-- "A manikin lies motionless on a hospital issue bed" would read better as "A manikin lies on a hospital bed" - because you described the setting the reader already is imaging that type of area/space. Also "motionless" seems redundant, obviously it will be motionless, it's a manikin.

I noticed on the third page you forgot to include Steve's name at the top of his dialogue.

Shawn's "You've not heard the last of this" comes off a little cheesy, maybe consider changing?

-- I'm seeing you have a lot of issues of when and when not to use commas. I would consider reading over this whole thing and paying special attention to that.

I'm going to call it a day here, Gary. Nothing within the storyline is keeping me want to read on. I would consider trying to get to the punch sooner, rather than later. Are there any scenes you can cut out, shorten? Maybe when you upload a revised version I will come back and continue!

Hope these comments help! Good luck!

Page 1.     I have no problem with you telling me Rick is a simulation technician. Helps me know his job. You need to RICK's name in uppercase letters though when you first introduce him.

Instead of writing Rick turns around sharply, you could write Rick snaps around. Shorter, which speeds up the read, but also avoids 'ly words and instead uses an active verb which helps with the visuals.

Page 2.     Dialogue with Shawn is repetitive, IMO.

Page 3.     You need to tell us who speaks into the headset...

Page 4.     You don't need an INSERT: Or BACK TO SCENE!
He takes out a CD with the title Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Trust me, anyone will know what that means and ALL directors will include that shot when filming. Writing INSERT and BACK TO SCENE just wastes a LOT of space.

Not really sure why Shawn seem so mad. Maybe I missed something, but it seems a bit out of left field.

Page 5.     I would skip the part where it says he calls Steve. Instead, just write, Rick takes out his phone. Pushes a button.

Then, when you start the next scene, it will be clear to us who he is calling, by writing something like this.

A cell phone rings. Steve picks it up, checks the screen, then answers.

INTERCUT is enough. You have already told us that it's Rick calling Steve.

Page 6.     Again, skip the INSERT and BACK TO SCENE. Just write, on the monitor...

Turn off the (cont'd). We're not stupid. We can see that it is Steve talking again. Not necesarily  wrong, but annoying clutter on the page.

Page 8.     If it is the same scene, just later, you can just write LATER. No need to make a repeat logline. Again, we're not stupid. Nor are filmmakers.  

You can also just type DREAM SEQUENCE.

Page 9.     I think you do need an END DREAM SEQUENCE though. Rick in bed dreaming is not part of the dream sequence.

What bottle does Rick grab? I thought the whiskey bottle was empty.

Page 12.   No need to describe Rick's house again.

The slug saying WEEK BEFORE should be an insert.

ONE WEEK EARLIER

INT: DOCTORS CONSULTATION ROOM - EVENING

Page 13.   No need to say it's BOBBY'S flashback. A simple FLASHBACK is enough.

Page 14.   INTERCUT is enough.

Story wise, I think I know what you're trying to do here. IMHO, this needs to be way shorter. If I had to watch a 17 minute short film, it better be awesome. This moves slow just to show us what? There's nothing really new here as far as the story goes. What you as the writer has to do, is figure out how to keep our attention. Make us want to turn the pages to see what happens next. Work on your suspense writing.

It's not that there's anything particular wrong with the story. You just have to learn how to write it in such a way that we want to stay with it, Want to know more.

My take.  

Hi, AmbitionIsKey, thank you for your comments and for pointing out some mistakes. I take what you say on board, and I have corrected the errors.

Cheers

Gary

Hi, Angry Bear, thank you for taking the time to read this through. You have pointed out some big mistakes that I have done, which I think I have now corrected. You are right, and it is still too long, and I am in the process of rewriting it now.

Many thanks.

Gary