The Kindness of Strangers by Jordan Wiebe (theboywhocouldfly) - Short, Family, Sci Fi - After the death of his father during the Christmas holidays, a young boy discovers something in the woods behind his home, a stranded alien.   40 pages - pdf, format

Jordan,

I know the moderators hates posts about "I'm going to read this", but I absolutely will read this one. You are a very prolific reader yourself and it would be my pleasure to read your script. I'm very much behind in my reading so it may be a week or so, but I definitely will.

I have enjoyed all your shorts so I'm interested to see what you have done here.

Pia

Thanks Pia

I hope you like this one.  This is my first family type story, no sex/nudity, violence or any strong language.  I think after Spoiled I needed to prove to myself I am not just a sick twisted freak

anyways I hope you like it.

Hey flyboy, already checked this one out and got some comments.

I can see you managed to stray away (successfully) from the style you’ve been showing here at SS till now; this reads indeed like something more family friendly. Although, I can see as well that you couldn’t help to include some jokes about sexing, haha.

You’re writing style and storytelling abilities are getting better, that’s for sure. Still I think this one needs some work here and there. Some SPOILERS may follow.

The way I see it, you’ve got one main plot (Billy finds and Alien) and three sub-plots (Billy’s relationship with Andrea, his mother, and Jasper). The problem here is that these subplots are disjointed from the main plot. None of Billy’s relationships with family and friends affect the alien angle, and the alien encounter doesn’t affect Billy’s life at all.

This is one of the checkpoints in David Trottier’s Screenwriter’s Bible: “Do the suplots intersect with the main plot, creating new complications?” In this particular script, I would say the answer is “no”. But if you turn that “no” into a “yes”, I believe you’ll have a much better script. Just to throw in an example, take a look at spiderman:

Genre differences aside, it’s also about an ordinary guy who finds something extraordinary (not an alien, just superpowers). There is the love interest suplot (Mary Jane), a friend (the bad guy’s son) and the relationship with his parents (uncle and aunt). All of these subplots intersect dramatically with the main plot (Peter becoming a superhero).

Once Peter has his superpowers, he kicks Mary Jane’s boyfriend’s butt… and gets noticed by her because of that; she didn’t pay attention to him before. The superpowers give him more self-confidence and generate a new spin to the relationship with her. And at the end of the movie, she gets caught by the bad guy, and Peter has to choose between saving her or a bus full of screaming people. The love interest intersects with the main plot generating a complication for the hero.

Finding the Alien doesn’t affect Billy’s relationship with and Andrea. A possible conflict is slightly hinted; she doesn’t want Billy to have secrets, but then Billy tells her she will know about it sooner or later, and everything’s fine.

Peter’s love for his uncle is what ultimately triggers his decision to fight crime; he feels guilty about his death in the hands of a criminal he helped to escape. The Peter-Uncle subplot intersects with the main plot, which affects as well the Peter-Aunt subplot (Peter feels guilty about his uncle’s death and keeps this secret from his aunt… for a while… until he tells her, generating a new conflict). Furthermore, is Peter’s love for his family and friends (subplots) that makes him decide to keep his identity a secret, to protect them from his enemies, and create an alter ego (main plot).

Billy’s mother never knows about the alien, and her character’s arc happens without any connection to the main plot.

Same with Jasper, no connection with the alien angle. In spiderman, peter kills his friend’s dad (which happens to be the bad guy). Then his friend finds out and wants revenge; the main plot affects their friendship turning it into a revenge subplot.

The scene at the end in which Billy sees “hope” through the telescope made me think that his character grew during the story, because of his encounter with the Alien. This is a good idea and it works but you need to develop it a bit more. Things got a lot better for Billy, he got the girl of his dreams, and his mother stopped ignoring him. But those things just happened on their own, and the Alien didn’t have anything to do with it.

For this angle to work, you must give Billy some kind of flaw standing before him in the road to happiness, and make him overcome this flaw with the Alien’s help. If his encounter with the Alien was an eye-opener for him (as it seems to be hinted in the script) show us exactly how.

Some additional comments about Billy and Andrea. Their relationship is too good. No conflict. Billy has no trouble in getting a date with her. Imagine if Peter Parker made MJ his girlfriend in the first minutes of the first Spiderman, and everything went fine then. I would recommend you to add some obstacles here (apart from trying to find a connection with Billy and the Alien). If you want the audience to root for Billy to get the girl, you must put him in a position of disadvantage. In a David vs. Golliat fight, the audience will always root for David.

And about the mother’s character arc: it was a good one, and believable, but it seemed a little bit abrupt. Her final speech (which I’d advise you to shorten a bit) seemed like the final result of a big equation in which all the long an previous math was missing. Show us the math, show the audience how and why Billy’s mother changed. And it the Alien got something to do with it, much, much better.

Maybe it’s me, but there’s a certain tone in the flirting between Andrea and Billy that seems a little bit advanced for their age; I would have expected them to be more naïve. Same happened with some of Jasper’s jokes (specially the “ménage a trois” one, haha).

Wow, that was a long rant. I hope this one gets the attention it deserves, you’ve been reading a lot lately, flyboy.

Hope this helped. Good luck.

Thanks for the read Matias.


I wanted to try something a bit different, and ya, I did put one kinda dirty joke in there , but it was in a non sexual situation...LOL

I did have a few subplots put in here, and I probably need to connect them more to the main story, but at 40 pages already I didn't wanna make it too long.  Maybe if I did this as a feature I could flesh these relationships out more.

I never intended for anyone else to see the alien, I didn't wanna turn this into a CIA chasing the alien kinda story.

I think if I turned this to a feature I could fix a lot of the things that you said needed fixing, connecting the sub plots and such.

I don't think that Billy and Andrea are that advanced, I know a few kids that act the way they do, even more advanced that that actually.

The mother's speech at the end was actually a lot longer, a full page in fact, but I cut it down in half.  For me it's the first time she is able to grieve with her son so I though she may have a lot to say, but maybe it does need some trimming.

Anyways thanks for the read and comments.  They will help.

Jordan

First off all, this flowed very well and read quickly, which is alway's a plus.

You're plot with Billy and the Alien isn't that bad, but as Mr. Z has said, i think you need to incoperate the subplots into this main plot. Otherwise it feels like different  a bunch of shorts going on in the one short. Connecting them together gives them more meaning.

I can understand you not wanting to turn this into an ET type script, with the CIA
chasing the alien, but i do feel like someone else needs to meet this alien. Probaly the mother, that way the alien can guide them both and show them that there is hope out there.

Also, i think Billy wins the affection of Andrea too easy, perhaps both Billy and Jasper like her and they hace to compete for her affection. Billy might feel like he is going to lose her, but when he meets the alien, he can give Billy the confidence he needs to beat Japser at winning her affections.

I liked how you capture the tone and mood of Billy's grieving mother, it seemed very real and believable.

Overall, this is a nice flowing short, well done.

Jordan, I must owe you a ton of reads so I've got some comments for you.on this one

I like it and I think it has a lot of potential, but it could use some tweaking. As usual, Mr. Z has beaten me to the punch with some excellent advice about intersecting your subplots with the main plot.

Here's my take on it:

SPOILERS?



I got an inkling that the alien was billy's father in some kind of purgatory prior to the afterlife, or he was all in Billy's imagination, a subconscious image of his father. Maybe that wasn't your intention, but that's what I took from it, and it might be a good angle to explore.

Billy's relationship with Andrea is sweet but it really needs conflict. It feels like a first act build up but the conflict never comes.

What if Billy was already dating Andrea, then he becomes withdrawn or angry when his father dies and risks losing his friendships with both Andrea and Jasper. Then you'd have conflict, a goal, and stakes right off the bat. Have the alien (Billy's father?)be the catalsyt for Billy's change and new found hope that allows him to deal with his grief and save his friendships.

That's one way you could do it, I'm just throwing out ideas.

Your writing is definitely getting better, as is your characterization. Billy's mother barely speaks a word until the end but she's well drawn through her actions (and inactions). I felt sympathy for her, and Billy.

I really enjoyed this story and I reckon it's got legs for a feature if you work on fleshing out those subplots and working them into the main plot.

Nice work, Jordan.

Thanks for the read Robert.

I know the story is a little disjointed.  I kinda wanted it to have a different feel than most family films, maybe I made it too disjointed.

If anyone is going to see the Alien it would be Jaspar, I never had the mother plan on seeing it, I think her change comes from herself other than the Alien's doing, that I wanted just for Billy.  But I may have Jaspar see, there could be more there than.

yeah, the Billy Andrea thing happened really fast, but I think that's cause it's a short.  If I did this as a feature I would have more obstacles.

anyways thanks for your comments.

Hey Martin,

I'm glad you like this one, no maggots, no incest, no intestines

I had a feeling some people may think that the Alien was Billy's father.  It is an interesting idea, but I don't know if I wanna go into reincarnation or spirits, but it's a thought.

the Idea of having Billy and Andrea already together is an interesting thought, that might work and add a bit of drama to that.

Thanks again for the read and your thoughts.  

Well that was a sweet story I thought I would never see Jordan write. Though this reminded me of E.T. at some points, it was still a great family film.

Your descriptions are great, except for the first few pages, there was more description than dialogue, and it seemed kind of hard to read it, but that is probably because I just woke up and started reading this, and I'm tired and cranky.

Your dialogue was also good, and I chuckled at a few things when Billy got nervous around Andrea.

Apart from a few minor spelling mistakes, this was a well written short. I think I've only read two or three family scripts on this board, and I liked this one the best. When I saw that the alien was able to talk, I imagined it talking like the aliens from Scary Movie 3 and it made the script funny, even during dramatic parts.

Dude, Billy's mom made me angry. I mean, I know her husband died and all, but she has to pay more attention to her son when she needs to. The ending was really well written, where everyone pulled together, and Billy's mom finally became concerned on what he was doing.

Maybe you could try and make this a feature if you added more conflicts, try and bring the alien's problem into a little bit more depth, add a few more characters and a bigger story, and I think you have the next E.T. here!


Sean

Hey Jordan,

I know you're in Mexico right now but I figured I'd check this out just the same...

pg. 19 - Why would Billy want his mom to accompany him on his date with Andrea? Maybe I misinterpreted his line but that certainly seems to be suggested.

- I had a feeling at the very beginning of the story that the Alien could probably die in the cold. Perhaps make him immune to heat.

pg. 29 - Billy doesn't need to say his father died in a car accident. The flashback says it just fine.

pg. 36 - Billy says “you have shown me kindness...” Somehow, I think this was supposed to be the Alien’s line.

Z and Martin seem to have covered the fact that there is no connection between the main plot and three subplots so I won't mention it although I'm going to have to agree it's an issue you need to address. Another issue I had with the script was the fact that the Alien seemed to be MIA in the first act. Billy knows there's something strange in the woods but he doesn't seem to make much effort to find out what it is. In fact, after his mother tells him he's going to be late to school, it seems to be out of sight, out of mind. I'd imagine he'd be thinking about it all day. Maybe he could even mention it to Jaspar who, of course, probably wouldn't believe him.

Finally, I hate to say this but the ending went a little over my head. What did the Alien come to Earth for? My guess was to protect Billy from the other aliens but it's really not clear at all. I also don't see the connection between the Alien's demise/sacrifice (?) and Billy's mom suddenly opening up. Maybe the answer's staring me right in the face but I just don't see it. Care to elaborate?

These issues aside, I thought this was a very well-written, very entertaining piece of work. Ironically, what attracted me to this was the fact that you were going for something a little more squeaky clean. I've read most of your other work and I was interested to see what you did with this one. I was pleased to see you were able to make something very entertaining without any naughty bits. It's important for us writers to be diverse.

All in all, I thought it was a very strong piece of work with a lot of emotion and most of the right elements in place. I do think it suffers somewhat from the issues I've mentioned above. I think if you fixed those, you'd be in ship shape.

Nice job, Jordan.

man, with the OWE I didn't even notice that this got read.

Thanks for the read Sean, I'm glad you liked it. This was my first attempt at a family script, which proved to be a tad difficult for me considering it's, well, it's from me...LOL

This does have an E.T feel to it, no hiding that, but I wanted to make sure it didn't go down the same path, this is a little darker and there is no Alien chasing in it.

I know Billy's mom seems like a bitch at first, eventhough I wanted her to seem more distance than bitchy.

anyways thanks for the read.

Hey James, thanks for taking a look at this.

I think you did misinterpret the Billy wanting his mom to go on the date with him, I just meant he thought it would be cool if she was at the festival, not actually hang around with him, maybe I should re word it.

I did want the Alien not to actually show up till the second act, but yeah, I should have it be more on his mind, that is something to look into.

The ending I guess might be a bit confusing.  The Alien was sent to earth to show that there are good people out there in the universe, so he understands the sacrifice he will have to make when he returns to his planet.

Billy's mom opens up at the end cause she realizes she cant push him back anymore, she sees her husband in him and that's why she remains distance, that's why I have her holding the pictures throughout, but I should expand on that a bit more.

Thanks again for your comments.

What a good read. This is a COMPLETELY different direction from Spoiled. A quick read too.

Couple of Grammatical Errors:

Pg. 9, Aloud : Allowed
Pg. 21, Pleas : Please
Pg. 30, Wit : Wait
Pg. 32, Lien : Alien
Pg. 38, Lit : Light

That's all I found.

The basic story was good, but way to rushed. This is more feature material because you have numerous relationships that need to grow. Andrea is WAY to accepting. She seems to just go with the flow of things. Seems a bit unrealistic. Jasper was funny, a good comic relief. The Alien too was a bit cliche. The way you described him and the way he talked he just didn't seem that special.

Also there was very little conflict. It kind of feels like this is just half of a story.

The end came quickly. His mother's mood shouldn't change so suddenly. It should be a little by little thing.

Anyway, A decent short that could be a great feature. Good work.

Nice story so far.

Pg. 2 - nice visual motif showing the picture coming alive in Billy's hand as it segues into a flashback.  Perhaps you could make him hear his father's voice as well or the sound of the waves crashing.  I read once that our memories are triggered predominantly by our auditory  senses.

Pg. 3 - Nice job with all the local referrences you threw in there (Stanley Park, the Canucks).  This creates a sense of time and place.

Pg. 4 - It does seem a little odd that Billy's mother never noticed or made mention of the bright lights or loud music from his stereo.  Perhaps Billy can come running to her only to realize she's passed out on the sofa.  He goes to wake her but then decides not to bother her with this, figuring it's probably just his imagination running wild on him again.

Pg. 11 - When Andrea says 'Well, life's full of surprises.' - that seems pretty deep for a twelve year old to say, especially after being asked out on a date.  I might lose that line.

Pg 13 - I like your writing style generally.  At times I think your thoughts get broken up into too many sentences though.  You wrote 'Billy slowly walks through the woods.  The snow crunches with every step.  He heads deeper into the woods.  Up ahead is a large tree.  In the tree is a tree house.'  

I might just shorten this to:  'The snow crunches with each step as Billy walks slowly through the woods.  He eyes a tree house perched in a large tree up ahead.'  or something like that.

Pg 19 - Jasper's beginning to feel like a third wheel.  This is where I might have him start to harbor a few feelings of resentment.  I might also have Billy and Andrea bump noses or something when they kiss.

Pg. 28 - 'Aline' should be 'Alien'.

Pg. 31 - 'wit' should be 'wait'.

I'll leave you with this for now.  I hate breaking up my review but I have to go to work so I'll post the rest of my review when I get back.  Stay tuned...

Right off, the first line to me seems worded oddly. "The sun tries to shine through the dark clouds that hang
in the grey sky." How bout the dark clouds that blanket the sky instead. As the clouds would be making the sky grey in the first place.

bottom pg 1 - READ wine - Red wine

pg 2 you describe that their in the boat in the lake twice. Once in the picture and once in the flashback. Once is enough, just take the flashback from "they're fishing in the boat"

I think it'd be better to just cut to Billy crying on his bed with music playing, without describing all the posters on his wall and what he's wearing. Or the Canucks banner I know you're just throwing in a little personality and tipping your hat to your favorites, but it doesn't have much to do with the story.

Describe the FIGURE a little better. Is it human like? deer like? small? big? ect. Even if it's shadowy, I'm sure Billy could still get an idea of what it was in his head. Or does he just see bushes rustle?

At breakfst, there should be some exchange between him and his mother. Even if it's just Billy asking, "do you wanna say something, mom" and her saying "no". Something should be said. Or her telling him to get ready for school.

pg 9 - I think it'd be better if Jasper said "wanna SEE me write my name in the snow." Saying "wanna watch" just seems kinda weird to me.

Jasper giving the thumbs up while relieving himself got a chuckle outta me.

Making the point that Billy is now 10 at the top of pg 13 is irelevant, since he wouldn't look much different than at 12.

Jasper saying "Wow, my first Ménage À Trois." May be a tade too racey a comment for a family story. Not sure exactly what your target audience is for this, but Jasper's already pretty obnoxious, this may be pushing it over the edge just a little. And then the Catholic commment afterwards to boot.

What's the alien sound like?

The alien saying Billy won't pronounce his name, and then screeching is from a movie or a show who already did it. It's gonna kill me trying to remember what it was now.

I like the discourse between Billy and the alien. I like the "an alien sleeping in my tree house is pretty weird" line. And the snoring alien was a nice touch.

I think you could do without the flashback of the car accident at the bottom of pg 28. I'd much rather just stay in the conversation and here Billy talk about it.

the Alien reminds me of Jesus. lol. That's odd.

In the end, I liked this, cool concepts and very emotional, kinda gave me an "A Christmas Story" kinda feel. but didn't feel there was much of a complete story. It seemed just as thought there were the little stories of Billy and his father, him and Andrea (which was a pretty sweet relationship by the way) and it centered around an alien, but none of the stories seemed to connect really. I feel like there's more of this story to be told and explored further, so if you get anymore ideas for this, I'd suggest expanding it to feature length. I feel like Andrea needs to meet the alien, and Jasper just kinda seemed to disappear. And Billy's mother just came around too quickly.

I liked the ending though, with the message of hope, but isn't the alien gonna die? that's kinda a bummer actually.

Descriptions could be shortened significantly I think to move it along a little better. There seems to be a lot of unnessecary facts given to us. Like you make many referrences (I think like 6 or 7) to how the sun and clouds look in the sky. You refference flags, banners, posters, what the scenery looks like, that Billy has eggs, toast, bacon and orange juice when you could just simply say "Billy eats breakfst at the table." I don't know, there's always a debate about how descriptive and emotive descriptions should be, but personally I just like getting to the point, and would much rather read more dialogue. So, maybe it's just a personal preference, but I think the overdescripton of things drags the story a tad. It's like you're cutting things in your head, which is fine, but just try to progress the story a little faster. You could probably cut 2 or 3 pages of description and be just fine in my opinion.

There are many spelling mistakes sprinkled throughout so give it a good once over for those. The character development and conversations were great. And the relationship Billy had with the alien. I just think the story needs to be expanded and tied together a little better. It just seems too random. And the overdescription needs work. But a very good effort Jordan, as usual.

Thanks for the read Alex.

This was a little rushed, I was trying to make it not so long, which then made me think it would work better as a feature and I could develop the characters and their relationships a it more.

The Alien is a bit generic, I kinda went basic with it, maybe I should make it a little more unique.

Thank you again

Thanks for your comments Steven,

I know it gets a little wordy at the beginning, I wanted the first few pages to be visual with little dialogue.

I described his bedroom like that to give it a sense of place, I did throw in the canuck poster, I just wanted people to know this is a Canadian story, for me that was important.

I never intended this to be a little kids film, more like 12 and up, the line by Jasper is a little racy, but I don't think it crosses any line, I felt it to be more silly than anything.

You're the first person to notice the Jesus thing, and that was intentional, I was surprised how over looked that got...LOL  good one.

and yes the alien will be killed when It is brought back to his world, but if you got the Jesus thing you may be able to figure out the outcome there.

I do need to expand this, I would love to do this as a feature, I think it could work well.

Thanks again for the read.

MGJ,

I'll post my comments when you are finished.  thanks again