Racial Killer by Nadine - Short, Thriller - There's a serial killer in Seattle. One of the things the victims have in common is that they're all the same race. 17 pages - pdf format

New writer interested in feedback on this work, please be nice

This was a nice read.  The format is much better with the new software. Nice.

The story flows smoothly to a nice ending. There was a slight twist near the end that I didn’t see coming. Actually, there were two things that I didn’t see coming. I’m easily surprised so it’s not quite something to brag about but I still enjoyed the story.

There are a couple more things to correct regarding format:

When you have a lot of action text, you need to break it up into blocks of 4 lines or less. It makes it read faster. Also, it prevents a reader from getting a “Too long, didn’t read” reaction.
The correct way to show a note like the one that Detective Frost read in her apartment would be:
INSERT  –  NOTE
“IT’S TIME THAT EVERYONE STOPS PRAISING THE WHITE MAN.”

I don’t think you need the INSERT heading for everything that is read but just for things like newspapers and notes; things that are zoomed in on. I don’t think you need it for things like signs where it is read from a short distance. I could be wrong. However, I do know that anytime the audience reads something, it is in full quotes and all caps.

Your parentheticals are not quite right. The only parentheticals that would go on the same line as the character are: (O.S.) and (CONT’D).  Things like (to Myra Frost) or (softly), (shouting), (laughing), etc.,  are lower case and are by themselves on their own line, mixed in with the dialog text.

I placed a couple of one-page examples from a project I am working on showing parentheticals and how action text is broken up for easier reading. They can be found at:

http://www.beastinn.com/scripts/scripts2.htm

I cannot state enough how much easier this was to read because of the better format.

Nadine,

I believe I peeked at some of your other scripts posted on this site but didn't really do any reviews due to major formatting issues. A vast improvement to formatting in this script, still some lingering issues, but so much better. I have some preliminary notes and questions, so if you're on the board, let me know so we can discuss your script.

Frank