Mississippi Exchange :: SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board

I thought that this story sounded a bit different from the norm, and was surprised it had been neglected as it has been, so I took a look.

Some notes that I took while reading it:

#When you introduce Hollis, you don't mention he is white, or that the men he meets are black. I understand what you are trying to do here, which is to treat it with an element of surprise for the reader. But this isn't a short story - it's a screenplay. It's intended to provide an outline for a Producer and Director, so they can see, in their heads, what the film will look like.

The trick is to write for an audience - imagine yourself watching this and record what you see. So the audience will see that Hollis is white and that the men are black, and you should say this in your script.

#I should say that I am as guilty as the next man for including what are sometimes called "asides" - comments that can't be filmed. What people are thinking, for example. I am not entirely convinced that there is not a place for them in a script, as I have read produced screenplays that contain them - but it is probably best to remember that you are writing a screenplay, and not prose, and try to avoid them unless you feel it adds to the whole for the reader.

Here you have Hollis smiling and then his smile fading when he sees the unfamiliar face amongst his friends. This needs only a basic description, and having explanations as to why he is doing either is unnecessary.

#You need here to list all the men from the beginning - you can introduce them individually in detail as they join the conversation, but you should give us all their names at least, in capitals, at the start.

#Sweetly introducing Hollis as "the white boy" is redundant - the audience will already have seen he is white, and Junius can see he is white, so a more realistic line would be "This is Hollis Ray we I was telling you about" or something like that.

#Again you tell us information that you need to reveal through the dialogue and action - that Pendleton is Sweetly's grandson. It strikes me that this may have been a short story originally? Or are you more used to prose? Either way this does read like a story rather than a script in places.

#Some of the dialogue here is really good - I was particularly taken with the rabbit story. It also sounds authentic (though as my only experience is "To Kill a Mockingbird" I am no expert!).

However, this opening sequence may last a bit too long. Usually you judge a screenplay's length at roughly 1 minute per page. So, this is a half hour script - and the first seven or eight minutes of it are taken up with a group of men sitting and talking. There is also a feeling that it is, while well done, rather exposition heavy - you cover the fact that Hollis is a bit dim, that he teaches reading to the others, that he is learning to dance, that he likes Patty and Patty may like him...perhaps it would be better to spread this out through other scenes in the script, rather than lump it all here like this?

#Again, I am no expert, so excuse my ignorance - but if this is the 1930s, would there have been a Puerto Rican in the group? Obviously, there were Hispanic communities in the US, but weren't they either largely Americans or Mexicans at his time, and would they have been mixing with the African-American population in any case?

And if he is speaking Spanish as you indicate, would Pendleton know what he was saying?

#The scene with Willie running through the wood is nicely done - here you describe what we are seeing but also keep it mysterious - the audience won't know who he is or who the men are chasing him, and the first assumption, is that it is a lynch mob. You should, however, state that this is Willie.

#You have already mentioned Patty, but as this is here on screen intro, it needs caps for her name.

This may be where you could move some of the dialogue from the introductory scene, and would save you mentioning in the action what could be stated in dialogue by characters.

#Would the Sheriff not have done the talking from the start? And would they have used the term negro, rather than something more offensive? They seem very polite! I was also not convinced that, given the period and location, this confrontation would have happened like this. The Sheriff's injunction to set the joint ablaze seemed the most realistic part of the scene!

#Some of the dialogue in this scene becomes rather literary, again making me think this may have started out as prose, or that your background is in prose. It is quite nice to read, I will say that, but I am not at all sure it would sound as good when be spoken by actors.

#You need to be more specific about this group - how many are there, those who are going to speak in this scene should be indicated from the start. As it is written, characters, including the sheriff, are just popping up!

#This scene is huge! I make it a staggering 18 pages! So you have one long scene, then a shorter scene inside the joint, and then this one which completely dominates the script. Ideally, it would work better to have some of the opening dialogue merged into the interior scenes, and lengthen the dance sequence.

As for the Sheriff scene. I wonder if you actually need Willie Carr? The fact that they are looking for him and find Hollis would not be altered by his actually being cut out. And maybe then you can cut to the chase - which is how the sheriff and his men react to Hollis being at the joint. what Willie Carr's subplot does it actually lead us away from the principle plot strand.

#When Alonso speaks in Spanish, do we see what he is saying in subtitles? if so this needs to be indicated - but given the amount he speaks, this may make for a lot of reading to do!

#The sequence when they drag Hollis out and beat him is the meat of this story, and this is what you need to emphasise - the Willie Carr intrusion simply draws out the scene unnecessarily, and delays this.

While some elements of this scene are powerfully written, there is a tendency for it to be far too blunt and obvious. Some of it doesn't ring true either - I can't believe that a white 1930s sheriff would have a conversation like this, justifying himself and his beliefs, with a black man.

It definitely needs pruning down.

#The ending is powerful - no doubt about that, a really striking cinematic image - but because of some of the top heavy scene that precedes it, it seems to happen far too fast. We have pages and pages of dialogue and argument, and then, in a couple of paragraphs, it's done and dusted. And as the white group is never clearly described, we don't know how many there are, so the overpowering of 7 people seems a bit unlikely (if the group is that big, would Sweetly even have been able to stand up to them in the first place?).

This is a very good idea, and has a lot of good points in it - what it needs is to be edited and restructured, to avoid tipping over due to the weight of one scene. Maybe you could have the sheriff coming along in the day, looking for Willie Carr, and have some of the dialogue then, before returning at night as he doesn't believe Sweetly, and finding Hollis.

You definitely need to expand the scenes of Hollis within the joint with Patty and the others, and the teaching scene, as we don't get a real idea of his fitting into the group.

But this was still a very interesting and different piece, and it certainly has a powerful ending.