A Smile Behind The Tears by Christiaan Laan - Drama - Kate wakes up from a coma to find herself in an orphanage where she is befriended by a handicapped girl named Ellie.  Her father, a useless drunk tries to commit suicide and after therapy wishes to have a second chance with his daughter.  Everyone connected tries to get Kate to see and accept her father one last time, but will they succeed before it is too late? 116 pages - pdf, format

Hello Christiaan.  I've read up to page 30, and it's interesting, but the logline is a little misleading.

I feel the Dr. (Trent) is the main character, and he has a back-story, and it needs to be revealed a little sooner.  A Doctor who cares... is not strong enough for the hoops he's jumping for Kate.

If Kate is the main character, then she needs to come out of her coma by page 10-15.. maybe sooner, and Trent's appearances need to be shortened.  IMO, I feel 17 is too old for Kate's character; one more year and she's grown.  Fourteen (14) would be a great age for her.

Not sure if you have more back-story ahead for Kate, but her father staring at the family portrait reveals some.

Assuming Peter turned to Alcohol after losing his wife (Kate's mother), you need to make him a little more Sympathetic to Kate.  At least realizing his alcoholism.  Instead of him requesting them pull the plug, or just not caring anymore... Just turn her over to the state for her own good, or something in that nature.

As far as the logline goes, as of page 30 the only thing I see is the Coma and the Alcoholic father, so far the logline doesn't match up.

"A young Doctor with compassion for his patients, helps a young comatose girl reunite with her alcoholic father after three years."

I thought I'd take a shot.  

Hi Christiaan

I have a lot to say about this one. I want to start off by saying that I really liked the idea behind the script. You told a great story very well, indeed   I think it does need some work on the smaller things, if you want to get this script perfect. There are a few typos and there are some things that did annoy me (Which I am about to go into).

I agree with justwrite with the logline. It doesn't match the script that you showcased...

At one stage in your script, you say "Pain is visible through Peter's facial features..." Great! You know your character's emotions! Personally, however, I'd rather that you specify HOW the pain is showing on Peter's face. Pain is an abstract noun, which means the only way of showing us this is through the characters expressions or reactions.

You have a tendency to use on the nose dialogue such as "A good doctor wouldn't let this happen..." or "Don't give up hope." Try to stay away from those.

Your excess use of parentheses is annoying, sorry to say. It distracts your audience from the conversation, breaking any flow you might have developed. Only use a parenthetical when absolutely necessary.

You also have a nasty habit of telling rather than showing. I'm assuming you know what this means.

On page 43 you have a chess game going on, which is fine. You don't need to show us every move that the characters are doing, though.

On page 74: "He takes a sip, it is still too hot" - How do we know the coffee is hot? Show Edward's reaction to the hot coffee instead.

Page 76: "A faint smile betrays Kate. " - What does that mean?

Page 92: You are overly descriptive of the board game. We don't need to know what's happening outside the conversation.

Page 93: "Edward gives him a pat on the shoulder. Peter shakes at the sudden jolt." - If it was just a pat, Peter wouldn't have jolted... Just saying.

The dialogue between Kate and Peter when they first meet each other again is terribly cliche, sorry to say. You might want to have a look at that.

Page 97: "He is clearly angry and yelling something at Kate." - I love the use of a flashback here and I think it's incredibly effective. Having said that, I think this scene could be more effective if we could hear what Peter is saying/shouting.

On Page 99, Kate says "I haven't been happy since she died." - I'm not sure if you intended for it, but it sounds like Kate was happy when her mother died...

Page 101 I actually laughed out loud the way Trent dropped the adoption on the two girls. It just seemed like such a random way to say it.

Page 113: "Kate's face is filled with mixed emotions" - I've heard of feeling mixed emotions before, but how can you possibly show that on screen?

I hope you took all of that as constructive criticism. I really did enjoy this script. If you are hanging around somewhere on these forums, feel free to pm me with any questions that you may have.

Keep up the writing!

Daniel

Hi, was in the mood for a drama so picked this up.
Critique first:
The dialogue is a bit on the nose and didn't read very realistic to me.
The opening images could be stronger, obviously you're setting Peter up as a drunk bad dad and I did feel for Kate but after the first page we're already seeing a 17 year old Kate so "not cooking Kate any dinner" hasn't the impact we need to catapult us into Kate's present.
Some of the action needs editing.  You have a skill with words but some of it is just fat that can be trimmed back, especailly because those two pages of nothing but action are a chore to get through. The NURSE for example has a description, not really needed for a bit-part and also the chess game as mentioned above.
Lose the scene numbers, not needed for a spec script.
A few unfilmables pop up, how do we know Richard is an accountant for example before he starts speaking? And a few other tells not shows crop up.
Also, I'm from the UK but when they are talking about cost, don't Americans have insurance to cover the costs?
SOmething I recently learned when writing descriptions is to watch for "are" and "is". Think about how you write an action while not using these words and it really helps with the flow and helps you avoid the "ing" words.
For example: "She is reading a hard cover novel" instead "She reads a novel" saves words and reads better.
Anyhow, what I liked:
The story has a nice bitter sweet twang to it and I cared what happened to the characters.  If you get to adress the dialogue issues, think about individual characters voices and write them and you can end up with some really three dimensional characters.
I enjoyed the scenes in the asylum and believe this is where the crux of your story lies, get there a bit sooner and bring the story out from here.
Anyway, keep writing.
Daz