Kittens by Christopher David Bate (christopherbate) - Short - Aaron is a young man who, as a consolation prize for being dumped by his girlfriend, is given a box of kittens. This usual gift causes a considerable head ache for this already heartbroken man who, in his quest to ease his loss and get rid of the cats, meets a parade of strange people. 16 pages - pdf, format

Hey there Christopher,

First off: There are a few things like - I believe you mean FADE IN instead of OPEN.
You have no character descriptions and the start of a few of your descriptions sound gramatically wrong ie: Aaron is stood should be Aaron stands, Aaron is sat should be Aaron sits, etc.
But, looking through the formatting issues and so on, I liked a lot of the dialogue and did like the story. There are a few laughs in there and with a little tweaking, this piece could be excellent. I also loved the ending. To be honest, when I started reading it, my first thought was that I wasn't going to enjoy this, but by the end I really did. I'd love to read it again after it's been tweaked.
Good Luck.

Renee

Hi Christopher,

I’m going to agree with bflywings on the formatting issues etc but apart from that I really liked the storytelling in this script and how the box of kittens was used as a centrepiece.

Kellie

So I stopped after the first paragraph. Here's why.

OPEN:

EXT. HOUSE - DAY

Aaron is stood outside the doorway of his girlfriend
Justine’s house. The girlfriend part is something that she
is hoping to change.

There are a TON of mistakes in this first paragraph.

First, fade in. not open.

Second, ext but in a house? i'm confused. should be int/ext

"Aaron is stood?" come on dude.

You didnt capitalize anyone's name.

You didnt really introduce any of your characters. How old are they?

"The girlfriend part is something that she
is hoping to change." - This is telling and not showing. How can you show any of this on screen? you can't.

The first paragraph of your screenplay HAS to be perfect if you want the reader to continue. read some more screenplays, edit this, and let me know once it's reposted.

Hey Christopher. Hope you're doing well.

I'm gonna be short and sweet: I'm actually kinda fond of this one. There may be a couple of (tweakable) black spots here but overall, it's simple and I laughed. I'm assuming that's what you set out to achieve. This is probably a script I would have set out to shoot in my film school days - it's lean and not overwrought.

ONE thing though. The scene with the fighting couple? Yeah, it seemed to carry on a little long for me. After the "punchline", I just wanted to move on. You tend to catch superfluous dialogue and over-long scenes in your rewrites though.

Good job, man.

This piece made me really happy.  I laughed quite a bit at some parts and the ending was excellent.  I could list some complaints but I enjoyed reading it so much and everything has pretty much been covered.  Great job.

Hey Chris,

I'm at lunch and this was top of the list so decided to check it out but I'm afraid I stopped at the first sentence. You just shouldn't start a script this way.

"Aaron is stood outside the doorway of his girlfriend Justine’s house. The girlfriend part is something that she is hoping to change."

Aaron should be capped here for starters but what does he look like? How old is he? Give me something to visualize here.

You go onto repeat information by telling us we're outside a house. Then comes the telling and not showing.

We haven't even really been introduced to Justine yet, but you're telling us her thoughts which is impossible to see on screen.

And that's the major problem here, your not telling the story visually enough. I'm guessing there will be other issues but if you start a script like this then readers aren't going to make it far enough to see them

If you're around and would like to me to elaborate, let me know?

Good luck and keep writing.

Steve

Hi all,

Thanks for your feedback. I really appreciate your comments and the fact that you took the time to read it.

I agree that I do need to work on structure and the prose elements. I've spent most of my time working on more 'mumblecore', incredibly low-fi productions and I do need to improve. I have an odd lack of confidence with regards to describing action. I'm not sure why but, yeah, there is work to be done.

Thanks again.

Chris