Bleed My Soul by Robert Chipman & Sean Chipman - Thriller - A broken-down ex-cop is called back in when an alleged child killer claims to know the whereabouts of his missing son. Facing down the possibility of knowing the truth about his child, the cop takes extreme measures as the past comes back to haunt him. 92 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Sounds interesting.

Link to the script is not working.

First of all, a big shout to Don for getting this out so quickly.

This is a rather strange hybrid script my brother and I worked on. He came up with the original idea and wrote one draft of the script. I used the blueprint to, then, write my own draft (what you're reading here).

Hopefully you guys like it if you take a look. =)

The link is fixed.

- Don

The link is fixed.

- Don

Hey Sean,

Spoilers!

My thoughts in no discernible order:

Good job in keeping this focus on one setting.

I find Curtis interesting especially with the tattoos on his body.

What was the point in having Asher toying with Sam if he didn't do it? I believe you were trying something new since you wanted to get away from the old cliche of killer vs cop but this approach didn't work for me. Asher is an interesting character with his supernatural abilities but why have him there besides having the story move along?  

For the main star, Sam is an inactive character in this except for the last quarter of the script. He watches and waits. I wonder if it would it be possible for have Sam to have learned secretly that the cops have Asher and fight to try to get in there? Make him do some illegal stuff like what Curtis does to get Asher.

You know, as I write this now, why not combine Curtis and Sam together? lol. This has a Memento/The Traveler (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1533084/) feel.  

Unfortunately, the side characters didn't interest me much except for Alan with his backstory.

That's it for my review. You just need a couple of tweaks especially with Sam and then you'll have another great film under your belt.

Hope this helps,
Gabe

Hey, Sean. I left you feedback in the PM (3 of them). Where are you these days...

Thank you for the review, Gabe. I don't know if you happened to read what I posted up right after the script was uploaded, but this was basically an experiment between my brother and I. We both liked the idea he originally came up with, but we felt differently about the direction the script should go in. We were both in agreement that Asher should not have been the one that killed Sam's son, but where we split was Asher's motivations. My brother wanted a more natural version of a villain toying with a police officer while I was more in favor of a supernatural version of John Kramer. Anyway, long story short, he wrote the script over a period of 12 days and I did a page 1 rewrite in 2 days. If there's a reason why the script feels rushed and unfocused, that's it. Lol.

Quoted from Mr.Ripley I find Curtis interesting especially with the tattoos on his body.

Curtis was a divisive character. My brother had the FBI character, but he was more of a domineering hard-ass than a psychopath. I scaled him back for the script because, while my brother somewhat liked the new version of the character, he didn't quite like him for this script.

Quoted from Mr.Ripley What was the point in having Asher toying with Sam if he didn't do it? I believe you were trying something new since you wanted to get away from the old cliche of killer vs cop but this approach didn't work for me. Asher is an interesting character with his supernatural abilities but why have him there besides having the story move along?

Another thing my brother and I disagreed on. As I noted above, we differed on Asher's actual purpose in the story. My brother wanted Asher to be the cat, toying with mice and slowly killing them all off. I liked the idea of Asher gathering together all these people who had done something wrong and giving them a chance to redeem themselves. Neither of us ended up satisfied when the middle-of-the-road choice was taken.

Quoted from Mr.Ripley For the main star, Sam is an inactive character in this except for the last quarter of the script. He watches and waits. I wonder if it would it be possible for have Sam to have learned secretly that the cops have Asher and fight to try to get in there? Make him do some illegal stuff like what Curtis does to get Asher.

We are planning out a true page 1 rewrite right now where Sam is going to truly take center stage in a standoff against Asher. Downside is, what we're currently planning on will remove most of the supernatural element from the script, so it's hard to say how much we're gaining when we're going to be losing quite a bit.

Quoted from Mr.Ripley You know, as I write this now, why not combine Curtis and Sam together? lol. This has a Memento/The Traveler (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1533084/) feel.

Nope. Curtis is Curtis, but Sam will be going through some changes. It's not decided yet, whether or not Curtis will even be in the next draft of the script.

Quoted from khamanna Hey, Sean. I left you feedback in the PM (3 of them). Where are you these days...

Yes, Khamanna, I'm sorry. Since the power outage, I've been really trying to play catch-up with the site and a few other things going on. However, I have the free time to finally check out your notes. =)

Hey Sean,

Totally understand about trying something out. Like the lottery, it's either a hit or miss. And just know it's one person's opinion. Not sure what the others have said. At least you got to finish something. I'm still trying to finish my script. lol. Can't wait for the revised version.

Gabe

Sean

You’ll get a fair idea of my thoughts/reactions/suggestions/queries regarding the script in the page by page notes.

This has an interesting premise, it opens very strongly and has potential. A sort of a cabin fever-ish, Assault of Precinct 13 chamber piece with the threat coming from inside rather than outside.

Unfortunately, the execution needs a lot of work in my opinion. My chief criticism, in a general sense,  is that characters continually say and do things I just didn’t buy or just flat out don’t make sense. Sam’s motivation is apparent from the opening pages and I’m not saying everyone else’s goals need to be spelt out for us, but when we do learn of what the characters are after or more specifically, what’s troubling them, it didn’t ring true.
Instead, they only served to distract from the main thrust of the story involving Sam and Asher

The psychological gamesmanship between Asher and the cops/Fed was frankly silly at times, too simplistic, too easy.  

This isn’t helped by some rather clunky dialogue throughout and frankly baffling reactions from characters to events as they unfold. The narrative got increasingly murky as it went on, and not in a good way. My big question was around Asher’s, let’s call them “abilities” and how much he was orchestrating things. It seemed he was almost omnipotent and all knowing at times but it’s never really clarified and expanded upon. In fact, it’s barely addressed by the characters. They have some vague notion that something is up but display a perplexing unwillingness to tackle the issue and Asher head on in order to find out. Thus, it got frustrating.

I appreciate you might want to keep things ambiguous, maintain the mystery but if you don’t offer any kind of explanation as to why things are happening the way they are, things that are driving the story, it can lead to a very unsatisfying experience. This extends to the ending which I just didn’t get, I don’t know how Sam reaches the conclusion he does. As a supposed revelatory denouement, that’s a big problem.

Of course I could have missed the whole point here. This could be all me. My notes will tell you whether I did or not. Sadly, as of now, I feel this needs major finessing.

Anyway, I’m very curious to hear your intentions with this.
Col.