Parliament "Pilot" by Duan Bailey (dbailey) - Series - A political operator with a tarnished past, a young idealist and a parliamentary page try to navigate the tumultuous landscape of the Canadian government. 100 pages - pdf, format

Hey Duan,

As you’re a newbie like me and looking for reads, I thought I would be the first to crack open your script here and take a look at the first 10 pages.

The first thing that strikes me is the length, 100 pages sounds long for a pilot of a series? I guess some pilots are longer but this would go nearly 2 and half hours with ad breaks. How long would you intend future episodes to be?

I think it’s fair to mention that I have no interest in politics which this is story is obviously about so if I don’t like it, don’t take that as a sign that nobody is going to like it. We all like different things right.

Anyway, I got to 9 pages and have to say that the story hasn’t done a lot for me I’m afraid to say, it didn’t make me want to keep reading anyway. I’m not too sure whose story it is? Who’s the protagonist? It felt very dialogue heavy which isn’t a problem if you’re interested in politics but like I said before, I’m not.  This may be great but unfortunately you just have the wrong reader in me and if I’m honest, found it quite boring, sorry.

I took some notes while reading:

No fade in.

Try to tighten your action lines, keep them at 4 lines max if possible.

What software you using?

    “The man he’s a addressing” This line starts with a space before anything is written? Also take out a before addressing, it reads better.

I don’t understand why you didn’t call him Miller in his description instead of “man”, Tanner just mentioned him by name?

“he surrenders folds.” Missing comma or and here.

“He makes to stand, but one of the other men intercepts him.” This reads awkward IMO.

Try to get rid of the continued on the top and bottom of your pages.

“Do you think I’d *just* approach you?” What’s going on either side of "just?"

“bil” A typo here in Miller’s dialogue

“Suddenly, the door to the motel room CRASHES open” Suddenly is not a good word in a spec script IMO. Also you can take out “motel room” in this sentence. We know it’s the motel room door as that’s where the scene takes place. It’s little things like this that will shorten and tighten your action.

The parentheticals are all wrong when in the middle of dialogue, again maybe the software you’re using.

Again, break up your action, 9 lines is too long and looks blocky.

“trio of youth” Youths would read better.

“He’s accompanied by a youth” This is in the same paragraph of action as the line above. You have already mentioned they are youths but you don’t really have to mention this once because you give us their ages in the same paragraph. Like I say, tighten the action.

“With her back to him, she can let her disgust at his misfortune show.” Didn’t understand this line?

You have to work on your character intros, they’re all over the place to be honest. There’s just no consistency which is a pet peeve of mine. Example

“CARTER GAGE stands in front of a mirror, deliberately tying
his garish tie. He’s a black man in his mid thirties, with
a perpetual five o’clock shadow and thick-framed
glasses. He’s wearing a grey suit that looks quite old
fashioned, and gives him the air of a used car salesman.”

This intro is too long IMO…while this:

“A mousy assistant sticks her head in the door.”

Is too short and wrong because for me “assistant” should be capitalized. Why I’m on the subject, how come you didn’t name her in this intro, she is called Joy in the dialogue that follows which seems strange to me.

Another point would be the ages in intros, it may not matter to everyone but some intros are written like this (50’s) and other’s like this, “middle fifties” I don’t mean to carry on but again, consistency is a pet peeve of mine and it distracts the read for me.

“A First Nations woman in her mid 30’s sits behind a desk
covered with various FILES and FOLDERS, with a flatscreen
COMPUTER MONITOR pushed to the side. She’s got a desk PHONE
cradled against her ear and shoulder while simultaneously
typing away on a keyboard. The woman, EMILY PROUDFEATHER,
nods as if the person on the other end of the phone can see
her.”

I saw another thread the other day where someone mentioned about not capitalizing too much or not at all except for first character intro. Why I agree with capitalizing to empathise something in the action or for sound etc. You’re capitalizing things that don’t seem to matter. Look at the paragraph above and tell me why you have empathised on those items? It’s a mystery to me?

Take out all the CUT TO:’s. Not needed in a spec script.

Cut down on the parentheticals, there is too many in the first nine pages.

Okay, I’ll leave it there. The main thing for me would be to work on your action descriptions and character intros; they need a lot of work IMO.

I would just like to say well done for giving this genre a try, it’s a difficult sell no doubt.

Hope this helps.

Good luck and keep writing.

Steve.

First of all I'd like to thank Don for posting this.

Second of all, I submitted this when I originally joined the site.  What a difference a couple of weeks makes.  While waiting for this to show up I read a lot of other scripts and picked up a lot of pointers and what not on how not to write a spec script.  Frankly I'm kinda embarassed about my submission now, but I still value the feedback.

Now to address your concerns:

This *is* overly long for a pilot.  In fact the original plan was to split it into a two parter.  Also, I get that politics isn't everyone's thing.  In fact I'm not particularly political myself, but I wrote the script in response to a challenge from a friend to include a parliamentary page (it was part of a brainstorm to break my writer's block).  So I tried my best to fake a lot of the political stuff with the minimal research I was able to get done before I started.

Though I'm quite willing to accept the reason you don't like it has nothing to do with the political backdrop, it could just be boring :)

At this point I switched over to Celtx but the formatting issues are pretty much my own ignorance.  Thanks for catching them.

Oh, and using asterisks is just how I denote emphasis.  I didn't mean to put that in to the actual script, it's just second nature for me to type it (and I can't believe I missed it on the reread...)

Pretty much everything else you mention are rookie mistakes - most of which I've learned are frowned on by just perusing the boards and reading scripts.  To say that I really should have done a lot more reading of this forum before posting something is an understatement.

Thanks again Steve for taking time out of your day to look at my amateurish efforts.  It really is appreciated.  If you've got anything you want read, point me to it, I think I owe you a few for slogging through this one alone :)

:Duan