The Other Side by Dale Saxton - Short, Post Apocalyptic Thriller - Two brothers try to cross an open field, in search of anti-biotics, but are stopped dead in the sights of a hidden sniper and his rifle. 10 pages - pdf, format

NOTES ON THE OTHER SIDE


Page 1

DALE is undercover of a LARGE CHESTNUT TREE, peering around
the side. He is accompanied by LUKE, whom is looking over
his shoulder.

Both men are rough and ragged. They wear un-matching, dirty and worn clothes. Neither look clean or well kept. They look early to mid-twenties of age.


When introducing a character for the first time you should put the age range in parenthesis. So... DALE (20's). Also in the second paragraph you tell us the same thing three times. They are rough and ragged is enough.



DALE is pale, dark-eyed and carrying a terrible cold. Most
likely a fever.


Just a little too much voice for me. I'll be the last to pick on flowery prose in an intro, I just feel that the 'most likely a fever' thing doesn't work. It can be a good tool for connecting with the reader. However it has to be done perfectly. Others here will tell you not to use it at all and that is good advice if you don't know how to use it properly.


He is equipped with an old SEMI-AUTO RIFLE; wooden and
sentimental.


The above is an example that would fly with me. Sentimental is an unfilmable some will scream... but I don't believe it is an unfilmable. It just takes a bit of imagination. Sentimental says a lot without saying much at all.


LUKE harbours a SCOPED BOLT ACTION rifle; hunter’s choice.

Harbours is a poor choice of word. From now on I will just make basic notes rather than going through your whole script and correcting everything.



You are overly writing everything. You go through each movement, he turns this way, then turns that way, scratches his nose, scratches his butt... lol. You get the idea. Describe what is happening as succinctly as you can. Often you start new action blocks and write a lot more which could have been dealt with in fewer words in just one block.

Also try to avoid writing things like he starts to do this or that. Instead have him doing those things right now. So instead of he starts to run, you would write, he runs.

Pages 5 and 6 you get into a nice flow although the other sniper could be explained better.

OK, well the story has no real ending. Two guys try to make it across an open area covered by a sniper. One of them is killed the other guy then takes out the sniper by page 5. After that we have 4 or so pages of he burying his friend. I don't know what the significance of the wedding rings is?

It's not bad, I just feel that it could do with more story. You should also read lots on screenplay structure and format.