Sorry to hear your dealing with some personal problems I hope everything gets better for you....I live in Avondale, very close to phoenix.

That sucks, Cam.  Hope all goes well.  I can relate as I also had something shitty happen to me while I had a feature posted and people were leaving me detailed reviews... I just hope things eventually start looking up for ya.  Here's some advice to help you with your script, especially with your first act:  Complex characters, simple story.

Be safe.  

Sorry. This isn't the place to share personal struggles. I was freaking out at the time but I've recovered. I want to keep this on topic and not hijack my own thread. I was temporarily weak. My apologies.  

CameronD,

Sorry to hear of your troubles. She left you for an older millionaire?

Does this mean you are a younger millionaire? This was no doubt a foolish move on her behalf.

Hope things get better for you soon.

R

I'd say you've a right to vent!

Hang in there Cameron. Even though it's an oft use phrase, just breathe deeply and take one day at a time. At the moment it's all a huge shock obviously, and you're in that state of reeling from it all. Most of us will be able to relate to your pain having been through similar relationship woes. Love is grand, but it can also be the pits.

Last bit of advice: don't suffer in silence. Lean on people you know will support you and/or get some counselling to help you through this initial time. You'll be okay.  

Libby

Wow.  

I'm sorry, Cam.  I didn't know it was that serious.  That's a hard situation.  My jaw literally dropped reading your post.  You do what you gotta do, though, that's all I can say, man.  I don't know the whole story.  If you want to shoot me a PM, go a head, but do what you gotta do.  Just know we're all here for you.  

For any future readers I have uploaded a revised draft thanks to input given from here. Some of the scenes in the first 10 pages have been shuffled so it's not as jumpy as before. Hopefully it'll be a bit easier to keep track of who's who if we stick with characters a bit longer. I have also fixed some of the grammar mistakes that still lingered. I don't want to keep losing readers after the first ten pages.

The link wouldn't open - it takes me to my own dropbox folder for some reason. And if I try to open it from my phone it just wouldn't. Also in a corner on top it says "the link "malevolence" does not exist". Am I doing something wrong?

You are right Khamanna. The link goes to my own Dropbox as well and it says Malevolent does not exist. I guess the writer must have changed something. Maybe screwed up a bit while uploading a new draft..

Sorry, didn't know. It should be fine but I'll try and reload again when I get the chance.

Here is the correct dropbox link.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xf2qvh9k1x20d85/No%20Beans%20in%20the%20Wheel.pdf?m=

I resubmitted recently for a revised logline and I think the orginal link got mixed up in the process. So use this one for now and I will resubmit to get the orginal fixed. Sorry.

Ok finished reading this, sorry it took me so long, been crazy busy.

As I said with part one of my review, you are a very good writer. This is a good story with alot of potential.

The story definitely got easier to read and more interesting for me in the 2nd half of it.

SPOILERS

The relationship between Cade and Cassandra was a strong point for me, before the train robbery I felt cassandra was a weak filler character but after the train scene I really enjoyed her scenes, so well done on that. On the other hand I felt like Gustavus was a better stronger character in the first half of the script but got weaker near the end.

You have some really good action sequences throughout and Cade is a strong character as the reluctant anti hero. The scenes leading up to Williams hanging were some of your best in my opinion, I really enjoyed this sequence, it made me think that these scenes would be even better if we got to know william better leading up to this. Either way I realy enjoyed this section of the script.

My main issue with the final act of your script is that I feel like character logic went out the window. First someone steals their money, Gustavus blames it on William which no one seems to believe and yet after Cade rides off this becomes a non issue the rest of the group seems to just accept that William stole the money, this didnt make sense to me.

The rescue of Gustavus is another area I didnt think made sense, They know he is to be hung in two weeks but they dont formulate any real plan to rescue him except apparently to wait until he is about to be hung and go in guns blazing. This seems illogical, some sort of jail break plan would seem more logical to me, this isnt a big deal though and I can live with this plot decision.

The bigger issue with this part of the story is when the gang sees Gustavus magically free with no explanation nobody asks any questions or anything they just act like nothing. I am not sure if I missed something but I reread this section several times and couldnt find any explanation given. To have the group not question how he escaped at all and just blindly follow him to the barn didnt make sense to me at all and took me out of the story a bit. Even if he gives a completely bogus excuse for how he got out, something needs to be said to make this more believable.

The last part that seemed bizarre to me was the very ending when Cassandra shoots them both. I dont understand why she would even be with Gustavus, how did she not realize he set them up at the barn. This didnt, make sense to me and seemed to be a convenient contrived drama to end the story with.

Besides that complaint I did really enjoy your ending, Galen was a good side character, Cades killing of Cooper and connecting back to the first scene was satisfying. The final showdown with Gustavus all was a good exciting read, only the last bit with Cassandra do I have any issue with other then that it was a good ending.

My final thoughts are you have a good story here and its written very well. I feel there is some room for improvement in the area of character development early on in the script and then some lapses in logic near the end.

Overall nice work and goodluck with this.

I hate Dropbox.  Since my computer is so slow, it takes me forever to open one window and then download the script.  For some reason the whole Dropbox thing just doesn't agree with my computer.  Anyway, cam, gonna cut you some slack on the 115 page count because it would be hypocritical of me to bitch about it seeing as it appears a rewrite I'm doing may fall into the 100s as well.  Also it's late - 4:23am - and I'm calling it quits at p. 28 to go and get some sleep.

I feel you should intro all of your bandits at the same time instead of as BANDITS.  You have a lot of them speaking first then being described, or not described at all until a bit later, and it's all confusing and I'm like 'who's this guy?'  Strive for clarity.  And I would get a little bit more in detail about how the gun man shoots them all.  "More SHOTS tear through the bar, killing them all except Cooper and Becky" is a little bland.  You describe a bullet ripping a part Amigo's head.  That's good, now give the others each a specific way out.  Maybe one gets shot in the throat and gurgles blood and another gets shot in the eye or one lifts a gun only to have his hand blown clean off.

William gets a similar character description ("homely") as someone else earlier in the script.  I forget who.  

You might want to scratch that and make sure they have unique and different descriptions so they have some individuality.

That's all I have to say, really.  I haven't noticed much of a difference.

Everything still seems the same.  I'll see about checking out the rest, but I can't promise I'll get right on it.

Tired.

G'night.

Thank you and thank you both for the second chance.

Topher, I'm glad you dug the second half. So much of the begining felt like setting up dominos to knock down later and I realize its more entertaining watching them fall down than being set up one by one.

I'm glad you liked Cassandra in the end. She is the emotional heart of the movie. I've heard before that William would be better served if we get to know him better. I'll have to look into that. He does have a few moments of his own already though, but I guess he could do with a few more bones thrown his way.

I'm also glad Cade came through as a strong hero. In earlier versions he was pretty stoic and boring so I tried to better show his progression and growth throughout. And I'm glad you felt satisfied returning to the first scene at the end. I know it turned a lot of people off whom only read the first few pages but I'm not getting rid of it. First, it starts the script off with a bang. Also I was hoping the black gunman's identity would be a mystery, or even forgotten as you watch the movie. Until the moment when Cade gets branded and everything snaps into place. You know the gunman IS Cade and you know  a reckoning is coming soon. But if you know Cade was the gunman right away that moment would be lost.

I can see how Gustavus gets weaker at the end, because, well he does. I tried to put him on a high horse early on so his fall later would be more damaging. He's never dealt with setbacks, but losing Cade and the bad luck that follows is too much for him and he loses it. His selfishness comes out as he tries to grasp at the life he had once built for himself. As for his rescue.... while being tortured he realizes the sheriff is still fixated on Cade so he proposes a deal. We don't see the fine print of it until later but basically the sheriff lets him go with the promise Gustavus can deliver Cade to be captured. That is why he just appears outside town, the sheriff let him go. Except for Cade, the gang still loyally thinks Gustavus can do no wrong and assume he just escaped. I tried to show Cade was unnerved by this and originally there was some back and forth asking the details of his escape but I cut it. Long story short is it was supposed to be a bit of a head scratcher. Something is not right. The numbers aren't adding up. And you know something shady is going on because of it.

Of course William didn't steal the money. Cade doesn't buy that story and says as much as he leaves. Even Cassandra knows it's not true but being the loyal good soldier she can't leave Gustavus. This is why she is with Gustavus at the end. She saw Cade tortured, left for dead, and in her mind abandoned her once again. Right after she loved him. She is depressed, distraught, dazed. All she has left is Gustavus even though he is a scumbag. It's not so much she jumped into Gustavus' arms, rather he took advantage of her emotional state. I even tried to imply there may have been some rape involved. And at the very end, Cassandra has nothing and nobody. Just like Cade.

There's a lot that happens in the end I know. I understand the motivations of course but I don't know how effectively they came across so I'm thankful for the comments. If there was confusion then perhaps I need to leave some more breadcrumbs.

Deadite, you are going to beat me up over that opening scene until the cows come home. You may be right it needs some more bloody descriptions but honestly I wanted to be in and out of that scene. Right now it's about 3 minutes I think and I don't linger too long. And you're right about homely being used twice. I caught that and thought I had fixed that. And who cares if your rewrite is pushing into the 100s? I'm weary of anything below 100 pages myself.

Hey Cameron,

I read the first ten and I'm going to continue with the read, but let me comment on your opening ten first.

The biggest problem I see here is - I don't see your main character just yet. It's a bit of many characters for me.

The first scene - you never return to these characters in the first ten, only to Cooper on p8 but I don't see the connection to the scene and to Cooper's last line in your your first scene. Do you need that scene at all?
p1 You say it's snowing outside, then Slick repeats what he sees "It's snowing outside" - try to come up with something like "Looks like we're stuck in here for the night" or something, don't repeat what he's seeing.



AMIGO has to appear (O.S) from the very beginning.
I'd get rid of the exclamation marks in Amigo's speech (bottom of p1) Exclamation marks are never good.  
Lot's of exclamation points on p2 and I'm thinking you have to go over your script and get rid of them leaving only a few most needed ones.
P2 Ahhhh! - get rid of it.
p4 Isaac is on the floor, passed out - there's no explanation to what just happened and why. Also, he's on the floor, passed out and James is showing off the babe in the locket... "James proudly pulls" - why proudly?
p5 Do you need this scene with Gustavus and Goody? Maybe you do, but if they play important part in your script you can't introduce them like that.
typo p8 "the action lever of the rifled dented by rocks"
p9 "Aaaaaaaaa!" - come on now...
"my finger!" - stuff like this makes it read like a cartoon.
on p11 yuo have a flashback - there's no bridge to this - it's out of blue sort of.

I'll continue with the read.