Fake Plastic Girls by Gary Murphy - Short - A dark comedy about loving two women and the lengths that one man goes to prove his love for one of them is real. 15 pages - pdf, format

Thanks for posting this Don, much appreciated.

This is only my second script I have written, so still much to learn but would appreciate any feedback you guys can give me.

Cheers in advance

Murphy

hey just finished it.  pretty twisted.  here are my notes:

i think the action description is a little too wordy at times, you can definitely trim it and save a few pages.  also, both ray and marvin mention the phone conversation when once will do.  i also think you should get rid of the 'pulp fiction' reference.  one reason is it's kind of distracting, and two, it doesn't make complete sense because metric system has nothing to do with numbers.  (that, and the reason is because they speak french over there).  i did think the "do they speak french?" (i cant remember exact question), but when he asks him about what language they speak, that's funny.  i think that works as a good enough set-up for him having the french porno in the following scene (should u choose to omit the 'pulp fiction', but obviously, see what others say).  you have a strong beginning, and the scene at the gun shop is good, but i am still unsure why marvin would sell him the gun if he knows he's up to no good.  i know he gets a lot of money, but if he suspects that guy is gonna do something crazy (and i think he does by the "always a mailman comment"), then i'm not sure he would be willing to sell it.  one thing i feel i should say is you said this was your 2nd script, so i was very surprised that none of your scenes ever felt long to me.  you got in at the latest possible moment, and out at the earliest possible moment.  that's a strength to build upon.  as far as your end, not exactly my cup of tea, but it was set-up which is good, and that was the effect you were defintely going over, and it was effective.  all in all, i feel you have all your scenes set.  i do think there could be changes made to them that would improve it, but that's just my opinion.  regardless, i feel it's close to being a tight script.  hope these comments help    

Hey Murphy,

That wasn't bad. I liked the ending, thought it was creepy. I wasn't quite expecting that ending though I did catch on near the end. I thought you did a good job of foreshadowing it though you could have probably been a bit less subtle and I still wouldn't have noticed.  The sex shop scene was amusing and a nice little homage.

I had two issues with this script. The first was that certain scenes were too long - they just didn't need the length.  The scenes were: the gun shop, Lisa, and the sex shop.  You can probably trim these scenes without an issue.

The second issue was that sometime you over described.  You told us everything that was going on. Trust us a little, tell us less.  An example, ok, Ray removes his glasses and wipes them with the corner of his shirt before putting them back on.  There really isn't any reason to tell us this.  It doesn't really tell me he is nervous which is what I think you were going for, so why do you need to say it.

I would like to see what would happen if you tried to cut this down to 12 pages.

For a second script this was pretty good.  Can't wait to see what you turn out in a year.

Michael

Murphy,

A little too descriptive at times. “his extra large gut spares
us the sight of what may be lurking through the pee-hole
that is no doubt unbuttoned and open.” You can skip that whole bit. Ditto that for she’s probably dead. Only tell us what we can “see”. It looks to me reading the description of her laying face down with a shotgun hole in her back that she probably is dead. In other words, no need for that line.

Try to stick to present tense.  You have a lot of these types of sentences. “Ray is sitting on the couch wearing only a pair of white
jockey shorts.”   IMHO, it would read better if you wrote  “Ray sits on the couch. He wears only a pair of white Jockeys”.   I’ve always been told to avoid words that end with ‘ing. Just trying to let you know.  That usually makes the sentences shorter too which is good. You want LOTS of white space on each page. Some of your action paragraphs look very chunky. You could probably do a lot of trimming in those areas.

As far as the story goes, I guess it’s okay. I have to hand it to you that I did not see the ending at all. I’m dense, haha.
On the other hand, I didn’t care for any of the characters either. Ray isn’t exactly likable, neither is Lisa. Jake maybe, but they’re all pretty unpleasant.

In the restaurant Lisa comes across as a real bitch, but Ray comes off as a complete slob. I didn’t see what she could possibly see in him or he in her. I think you need to show us some affection between them or the whole thing between them won’t make sense.

The sex shop scene was pretty good and funny at times as well. Maybe trim the French stuff just a tad since it went on a little longer than necessary.

In the apartment, wouldn’t others hear the shot and cops be on their way? Ray starts playing with your “avatar” and don’t seem to worry about the cops. Just a thought.

All in all, not bad, but needs a little fixing here and there. Trimming mostly, but even some character work.

Pia

Cheers for reading guys, you all seemed to be in agreement on my descriptions, which is obviously something I need to work on. It just does not feel right not describing the scene or the characters as I see them in my head, but when I see other scripts I really enjoy you are right there is usually much less descriptive passages.

I agree with you 100% about using 'ing words Pia, I am really trying to stop doing that and you are right it does make the sentences shorter and flows better - I wrote a really short action piece at the weekend "Gunfight at an El Paso Motel" which i wrote primarily as an exercise to try and learn how to write action better, but in shorter sentences and it is by no means perfect but I can already see the difference to how I have described things in this one.

At the moment I am just trying to keep writing shorts, I am trying to write shorter shorts too! as I need to really nail down some kind of writing style that works with other people before I start thinking about longer pieces - I think I made a mistake having such long pieces as my first two scripts (24 & 17 pages) - my next two are 9 & 7. I am going to try and focus more on style and less on story for the moment too, If I can get to the point where someone says "it was written well but your story sucked" then I will be happy because I know i can drum a good story up if I try.

Oh and I have had enough of drama's for a while, especially ones that end dark, after "gunfight" is posted I think it will be a a few stories down the road before someone picks up a gun.

Cheers Folks

Whoa!!!!!!!! strongly disagree with you about style over story.  you'll find your style the more your write.  there's thousands of writers out there who have a style, but not many who can form a good story.  i think you should stick to try and making good stories.  when you get a good handle on telling a good story in 15-20 pages, you will be ready to move on to longer pieces because they involve the same things-developing characters, setting up situations, and delivering pay-offs.  but that's just how i feel

Hey Murph,

Got to admit, I knew that Ray was going to choose Laura over Lisa and that that was Lisa dead on the floor in the beginning.  I had absolutely no idea that Laura was who she was, though.  (I won't say it in case anybody reads comments first.)  Great!  Nice and creepy, but also very smart.  Glad to see Ray used common sense when deciding between Lisa and Laura.

Now I see why you had your avatar like that for a while.  :-)

Well, I did like the story, but did find a couple things that took away from the reading.  The main thing, though, was some of the grammar and your wording seemed a little awkward.  I'll go through it after the football games are over and point out each mistake or misspelling.  I think there's like an eleven hour difference between here and there, so you should be sleeping now anyway.

Now, onto the part of your story which I'm still thinking about whether worked or not.  Your 'Pulp Fiction' reference, parody, tribute-- I'm not exactly sure what to call it.

Honestly.  It was funny.  I'd keep it in there just because it made me laugh out loud.  And it made me think a lot, too.  (Do they really use mayonaisse instead of lube?)

You might even be able to take it one step further and name the African-American in the porn shop Marvin, and name the redneck at the gunshop Jake.  (In Pulp Fiction, Marvin was the African American who got shot in the face by Vincent Vega.)

At first, I thought Ray and Lisa were going a little bit overboard with killing Laura, so I didn't really care for what was going on.  But that made the ending all that much better when I realized Lisa just wanted him to get rid of his sex doll.  Kudos.

- Mark

Cheers Guys,

dkw208 thanks for your post, I appreciate the advice. I must admit I think I must of got confused between you and Mark (rc1107) as realize I owe you a read of some of your stuff, you have commented on both my scripts now which I appreciate. Thanks for the words of encouragement and I will have a read of something of yours today.

Mark, Cheers for the read dude, I am glad you liked. I am really amazed that nobody guessed the little twist at the end, I really am, I thought the title might have given it away - but I did try to have a couple of red herrings in the build-up, mentions of plastic girls etc.. to try and steer people away.  But you are right it has faults, the big one really is the whole idea of Ray shooting her anyway I know it is a bit silly really, a bit throwaway, but I did have fun writing it and I guess at the moment that is all that matters.

I am currently trying to come up with something that is a little more straight down the middle, good guy climbs a tree and gets rocks thrown at him kind of story. I am just struggling to come up with it at the moment, hopefully something will come soon.

I am more than happy if you wanted to take the time out to point out issues with grammar/wording I am here to improve my writing not to get smoke blown up my ass all the time (though of course sometimes is good for encouragement) SO I am not the kind of person who gets easily offended by someone pointing out mistakes, I have got pride but not so much I am an ass (I hope anyway!)

Are you in Youngstown, OHIO?  If so your timing is probably out a bit, I am 15 hours ahead of EST - is Ohio central time? then it is probably 16 hours. Long way away!

Cheers all

Murphy

Holy shit, I really fucked my math up on that.  You're right, it's fifteen hours.  I don't know why I was thinking 11.  Even China's 13 hours, and I knew Australia was farther ahead than that.  I guess I'm just another example of how dumb Americans really are.

Anywho, I'm afraid I have to go through your grammar in the morning.  (Ohio, morning, that is.)  My sister called and asked if I could babysit tonight while she goes out.  The Cowboys lost tonight and I figure spending some quality time with my nephew will help deter me out of my suicidal thoughts right now.  :-)

- Mark.

P.S.- I'm not really suicidal.  But if things don't work out next NFL season, no promises.

All right, damn it, let's try this again.

I had went through the first fifteen pages this morning with all the grammatical errors when my computer went down.  I'm thinking about getting everybody's home addresses on here and just writing my comments and sending it to them through the real mail.  That's how fed up I'm getting with this computer.  My poker software hasn't even been working.

Most of the mistakes, I've noticed, are the words ending in '-ing'.  Pia had already brought this up, so I'll only mention those errors every now and then.  She is very right.  Not only will it bring the script into present tense, but it'll trim out a lot of unnecessary words and make for a quicker read.  I'll provide examples throughout, but I won't mention every single '-ing' word.

Okay, Pg. 1 -

'Except for a pair of round glasses all he is wearing is a pair of white jockey shorts,'
(Would read better as 'He only wears white jockey shorts and a pair of glasses.')

'He stares at the shotgun on the couch next to him.  -skips a space-  Sitting there quietly he shows no emotion in his face, no movement.'
(Would read better as 'He stares at a shotgun by his side, no emotion on his face.')
-It cuts something that took you three lines to tell into one while still getting the same information across, and makes for more 'white space' on the page.-

'Laying face down on the floor about five foot in front of him is a woman, a large hole in her back and a puddle of blood slowly seeping around her.'
(Would read better as 'A woman lies on the floor face down in front of him, a gaping hole in her back.  Blood pools around her.')
-True, 'gaping' ends in '-ing', but notice how the hole had already happened, so it's not in present tense.-

'Being careful not to step in the blood that is making its way across his carpet Ray gets up from the couch and slowly walks to the other side of the room.  -skips a space-  He opens a door.'
(Would read better as 'Ray stands and walks toward his bedroom door, careful not to step in the puddle of blood.  He opens it.')
-Turns four lines of action into only one or two, without skipping a space.-

'At the back the store is a counter, Ray nervously looks around him as he approaches it.'
(Need the word 'of' between 'back' and 'the'.  It also might read better as 'Ray nervously glances around as he approaches the counter.'  There's no need to tell where the counter is, since that's pretty much up to the scouting and location manager, anyway.'

'As the noise of the SIREN fades it is voice that now makes Ray jump.'
(Would read better as 'As the siren fades, a voice startles Ray.')


Pg. 2 -

Marvin says "Come again."  (This is a question and needs a question mark.)

Marvin leans towards Ray and gives him a slow look up and down.
(Would read better as 'Marvin sizes Ray up.')

'Ray cautiously approaches the counter, looking around him as he does.'
(Don't need this at all.  Ray has already approached the counter on Pg. 1.)

Marvin says "Yeah That’s me. I guess you the fella on the phone this morning?"
(Should be "Yeah, that's me.  I guess you're the fella on the phone this morning?")
Ray replies "Thats me."  (Should be "That's me.")


Pg. 3 -

'Ray looking a little deflated brings his arm back to his side.'
(Would read better as 'Ray, deflated, puts his arm back to his side.')

'Ray digs into his hip pocket and pulls out a brown envelope, he hands it to Marvin.'
(This should be two different sentences.)

'The box is full of ammunition, or rather was full of ammunition as now the bullets are bouncing onto the counter and rolling onto the floor.'
(Would read better as 'Ammunition spills out of the box, bounces off the counter and onto the floor.')
-Takes 26 words and cuts it down to 14.  Remember, less ink and more white makes for a quicker read.  And, you don't lose any information.-

'Ray scrabbles around the floor trying to pick them all up.'
(Would read better as 'Ray scrambles to pick them up.'


Pg 4 -

Marvin says "Not those, I’ve put two boxes of 12 gauge in the bag.  (beat)  Should be enough for a day shooting rabbits."
(This might be more of a personal thing, but I try not to use (beat)'s in the middle of dialogue.  The period at the end of bag should be enough of a pause between the sentences.)

Marvin says "Oh and mailman."  (Should be "Oh, and mailman?")

'The BELL RINGS again when Ray pulls open the door and carrying his new gun re-enters the sunlight.'
(Would read better as 'The bell rings as Ray exits'.)


Pg. 5 -

'Marvin comes out from behind the counter to closes the door and peering through the dirty glass as he locks up he flips the sign to the CLOSED position.  -skips a space-  Marvin returns to the counter chuckling to himself.
(Would read better as 'Marvin locks the front door and peers out the dirty glass as he flips the sign over to CLOSED.  He chuckles.'

Also, you don't really need Ray walking to his car and putting the gun into the trunk.  It doesn't really move the story at all.  We already know he bought a gun, so we can move on to the next scene with Laura now.

'Wearing far too much make-up and dressed like a 21 year old hooker she watches Ray eat with her mouth and nose screwed up in disgust.'
(Would read better as 'She wears far too much make-up and very revealing clothes.  She smirks in disgust as she watches Ray engulf his burger.')

I just wanted to get the point across to you the importance of speaking in present tense and chopping a lot of unnecessary words, and how it'll make for a much smoother read.  I won't be as detailed for the rest of the script.

LISA: And another thing, If I move in you stop eating this crap.
(Should read "...And another thing.  If I move in, you have to stop eating this crap.")


Pg. 6 -

LISA: We need money dumbass, You need to start pulling...
(Should read "We need money, dumbass.  You need to start pulling...)


Pg. 7 -

LISA:  You know why i needed these.
(The 'i' should be capitalized.)

LISA:  You can be hurtful sometimes, you really can.
(Should be two different sentences.)

LISA:  Besides, You’re a fine one...
(Should be "Besides, you're a fine one...)

Once again, there's a couple unnecessary 'beats' in the dialogue.

RAY:  It’s under control, it will be over by tonight.
LISA:  I need to get back to work, you go do what you need to.
(In both these lines of dialogue, the comma's should be periods.  Both lines of dialogue should be two different sentences.)


Pg. 8 -

'Lisa grabs the key and getting up from her seat leans over giving Ray a very slight kiss on his cheek before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.'
(Would read better as 'Lisa leans over and gives Ray a small peck on his cheek.  She wipes her mouth as she grabs the key from him.)
-Just a reminder, try and avoid '-ing' words as much as you can.  They're all over the place in this script.-

Also, I noticed you've done this quite a few times, but I haven't mentioned it.  If a character says something two times in a row, the second time they speak, you have to put (cont'd) of (cont.) before their second line of dialogue.  For example:

     LISA
Ray.

Ray looks up.

     LISA
   (cont.)
It’ll be OK.

Oh yeah, and 'OK' should be 'okay'.  I think that might be more of a preference thing, though.


Welp, the rest of the script just pretty much has the same mistakes that I mentioned above in the first 8 pages.

Just remember, avoid '-ing' words as much as possible and don't say something in 20 words that could be just as easily said in 10 words.

Just remembering those two rules will make for an easy and very smooth read not only for the reader, but also for you when you go back and do the proofread.

I hope this has been of some help to you, Mr. Murphy, and I'll talk to you later.

- Mark

P.S. -  Oh yeah, do you prefer Gary or Murphy, or does that 'Mr. Murphy' have a nice ring to it?

Bloody hell Mark, I never expected all of that. Thanks very much, I mean it.

I am going to be re-writing this tonight so will sit and read through your comments then, Just had a quick scan and see nothing I do not agree with. You have been very thorough and I really appreciate your help.

Funny thing about the car scene, I have actually decided to cut that completely, you are right it adds nothing.

Cheers again, and if you are willing to spend your time helping me with my writing you can call me anything you want!!  - note: that does not apply to you Shelton!

Thanks

Just paying it forward.

Haven't read the previous comments so excuse any redundancies.

I don't know if it was your intention, but after reading the description of the woman next to Ray, then "she is probably dead", I laughed my ass off.  It's too bad things like this never translate to film, but I got an enormous chuckle out of it.

Is he saying it's over to the girl?  He should turn back.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that a couple of the previous reviewers had a problem with the Pulp Fiction dialogue.  I can't say that I did.  I was worried that ti was going to feel forced as it progressed, but it actually ended up working out better.  The topic of conversation helped make it interesting.

On the whole I liked this.  I felt a lot of the subtle comedy throughout was well done without trying too hard.  The murder definitely brings it into the dark comedy range, but for a story like this I think it works.  Near the end I was actually wondering if Ray didn't have himself a homemade dead body sex doll, but you stuck with the normal one so this didn't go full on creepy.

Anyway, good job.  I enjoyed it.

Shelton, Thanks for the read. I honestly do not expect people to read my scripts just because I read theirs, I do enjoy reading different peoples work and just feels rude not to comment on them once I have.  But do appreciate anyone who takes the time to read my work.

Yes it was my intention that the "probably dead" was funny, it was an attempt at some dry humor, I am glad you laughed co's its the kind of thing that makes me laugh but I guess it is not really the kind of humor that everyone gets.

No he is saying "it's over" to his friend in the bed.

Not everyone had a problem with the Pulp Fiction dialogue, I have thought about it and going to keep it in, It makes me laugh and thats enough for me!

I am not sure I could write comedy but this kind of thing seems to just come easy to me, dark dry humor and It is probably the sort of stuff I will write more of as i progress and write more, just hope more people find it funny I guess.

Mark, I have re-written this script tonight and re-submitted. There were some subtle changed to the dialogue that I wanted to make, Taking some of Pia's advice into account I wanted to make Ray less of a slob and also just wanted to tighten up some of the scenes, the gun shop scene I think is much better now with less dialogue.  But I never expected to make the changes that I have done, not until I read your post anyway! It was weird reading it again tonight and noticing all that needed changing, stuff I just never picked up on!

So thank very much, I think this script is much better off for the changes (many of which you suggested) It is amazing but apart from the short parking lot scene  I never really cut that much else out but it has shrunk from 18 to 13 1/2 pages and not a single element of the story has been affected. This is an area I will be concentrating on more from now one.

So anyway it has been re-submitted it is now called just "Fake Plastic Girls" and it is much improved. So thanks everyone who has offered feedback.

Cheers Murphy