Betrayal by Quitterie Hervouet (Quiou) - Short, Gothic Horror - Louis is coming back home after 10 years in prison, but everything has changed from Marie, to his father, to his brother Jean and to his home. 12 pages - pdf, format

Hello Tammy,

Are you from France by any chance?

Look this comes across as an early effort so there is a bit to learn with formatting. Some may be a bit rough with their feedback on this.

Remember to read and review and before you know it you will know how to handle all that is required.

My comments

Gothic - yes
Ghosts - yes
Misunderstood - sort of, the twist was rather easy to see.
Overall story - the core was simple but the rest was complicated and could be simplified
Your use of continuous is incorrect. I understand this should be used when a single scene, that doesn't stop, moves around locations. Not for actions within a scene. Again keep reading to see.
The name of characters when first met should be CAPITALISED
You use a phrase that the house is as old as the family. Remember a script is about what you CAN see. How can we see that?

Overall this needs work BUT the idea of a family at war, twin brothers and hidden secrets has potential.

All the best.

Sorry a couple other points,

Front page doesn't need the word - script
Needs a fade in on the left, first page

I'm not sure what to say. I'll start by mentioning that I'm not sure if this was a misunderstood ghost so much as a confused ghost, which is very different. So I'm not sure you've met the challenge.

It's obvious English is not your native language, and I admire the effort. The setting was certainly Gothic and beautiful.

Formatting, writing, and story are things you really need to work on. There were a lot of things that just didn't make sense, but I don't really know where to begin. There is a good story here that's in an embryonic state, but it needs much development for it to be clear and logical. Part of that is the language barrier, I'm sure. This is a difficult story to pull off, also. You have the switched twins, which fools the wife and the father, and a ghost that doesn't know he's dead. That's a challenge to pull off. Keep working at it.

Sorry...1/2 page in and I'm out.  Way too many things to go into.

Congrats on completing an entry for the October OWC!

I really wish I knew what the hell was going on in this one.  It seemed like a twist on "The Man in the Iron Mask," but this was so confusingly written, it was hard to tell.  Here's an example:

"Louis de Sultri is a young and handsome man in his 30s
limping and hunchbacked, he has some difficulty walking.
Despite his thinness and poor appearance"

So, he's handsome, yet he's hunchbacked with poor appearance.

There's also this constant overexplanation in your action paragraphs:

"At this precise moment Marie understands that the man she
thought was Louis for 10 years was in fact his brother Jean.
He pretended to be louis for a decade!"

If you have to actually tell us that, then you're doing something wrong.  The characters deeds and words should tell us what we need to know.

Also, what's up with the [SUITE] at the top of the page and the [.../...] at the bottom of the page?  Very mysterious.

Sorry, but this one just didn't work for me at any level.

There are a lot of problems that need to be sorted out with this one.  
I did manage to read the script and can see that the idea you tried to present has some promise, but it's gonna take a huge clean up.
I think you've got a decent idea - not overally original and made more complicated than needed to be but you can work on this. I could see you losing four of five pages easily once you to get a more solid grasp of screenwriting.

Best of luck,

This one had a lot going for it - a classical, gothic tale.  Lost love, betrayal...and good writing.  Everything one needs for a satisfying OWC.  (Correct me if I'm wrong, but for some reason I got the feeling that English was a second language for the writer.  If so, the writing's even more impressive.  Kudos..)  

The ending is good, the twists also good (though I sensed early on that Louis was a ghost...from the point where his father didn't talk directly to him.)

One technical item - you need to chop up the descriptions a bit.  Definitely no more than three lines per paragraph.  Anything more is too dense for a screenplay.  Also, no writing anything in the character's minds.  As they always say - film is a visual medium.  Show it, don't say it.

That aside - the script didn't *totally* come together for me.  This one needs a bit of polish - streamline the dialogue, make it a touch more natural, and cut out anything that's extraneous.

But still, very nice entry into the OWC, one of the more satisfying entries...  ))

The descriptions are more novelistic than screenplay friendly.
Some nice visuals, but I want to get to your story.
Have Jean just read the inscription? Beats writing it twice.
The expository dialogue about mother’s crypt is a bitter pill.
Too much dialogue that doesn’t move the story forward.
Ten years it went on for? I find that hard to believe.
Far too much explaining and not enough active actions for me.
Show us more action, tell us less. Was there a ghost in this one?
Thanks for playing OWC.

Regards,
E.D.

You use a lot of the same words over and over in close proximity. It gets redundant. I think you should pay close attention to this during the next revision and snip it down.

Do we really need to know the exact words on the vault?

I really like some of the dialogue in the earlier parts. Feels like I’m there. Good job with that. Near the end, however, it gets more on the nose.

Overall, I generally like the story but I think the writing can be tightened up quite a bit.


Breanne

Lots of atmosphere, the beginning reminded me of "The House Of Seven Gables" in its feeling of dreaminess and ruin.  But the script doesn't work in this short form, in my opinion, the priest-brother tells us too much of the story, we don't get to see enough, I think.  This is worth expanding into a longer, fuller story, I think, it could be a beauty.

Consider me confused on this one. New to writing? Just curious, I'm not accusing this of being poorly written, just a bit of a mess.

Only write what is necessary, you seem to overwrite a lot in this piece.

Good idea, poorly presented. I felt like I wanted it to go somewhere and the end result wasn't where I wanted it to go.

Cheers on completing though.

Obviously English is no your first language and considering, this has some nice moments lost in a sea of over writing.
With some trims and rewritten in your native language then decently translated, this has promise.
Loved the setting - a prison - and actually wished I'd thought of that.

If this is your first attempt at writing a screenplay, you did well.

It does take some work.

Trust me, I'm still new at it too.

Your story is good and you have the basics down for writing whether English is your first language or not.

You will want to Intro your main people in a slightly different mannor. If you are reading some the scripts here, you can compare what others are doing with regards to introducing them.

Good job!

Shawn.....><

You definitely have the gothic vibe here. I think I would like to see more of a clear set up though with regards to the two brothers and their relationship.

Here:

>The door of the mansion swing open and a young elegant aristocratic man walks in. He is the spitting image of louis de Sultri, but more confident and with cleaner clothing. A diabolical smile distorts his handsome face.

I thought it was a very good description.

Yes, there are some format problems etc with this one, but I feel that it's loaded with spirit. And that's a good thing for Halloween!  

Sandra

I think this may be by an author who submitted two.  Maybe.  

I think there's some good ideas in here but it's very convoluted and hard to read.  Half of the problem is the formatting.  It's a good page and a half of description to start things off - not pretty.  That, and key parts of the story are in the description, such as Jean impersonating Louis for a decade.  I think that idea could be fleshed out to something good but as of now it doesn't come off clear at all.

Dialogue is also a challenge because you're going for something dated but it also comes off as very stiff, making it twice as hard to get through.  

Keep writing, though.  Look into the format and then come back to this.

Greg