Day 67 by Gavin Logan - Short, Drama - A young couple, still in the infancy of passion, have their feelings for each other tested when a dark secret emerges whilst travelling on a road trip. 11 pages - pdf, format

Hmm, I don't know about this one.  I don't hate it/dislike it, but I feel a little dissatisfied.

Your first 2 pages are very visual.  I can picture it all.  At the same time it seems "too much".

I was actually liking the writing.  It definitely has some style to it, and then your characters started to talk.  The dialogue wasn't horrible, but from those first 2 pages I was expecting cool lines and hip slang from Brett and Tammy because of the impression that they give off; young, slick, sexy.

I don't want to spoil anything for anybody but 6 weeks on the road and no one seems to say anything except for a delivery man?  Brett is pretty blatant and out in the open with Tammy.  Figuring in newspapers, the media and news reports on TV, one would think this fling would have been more abrupt.

I think you have some stylish writing on display here and your ending is sort of a WTF moment.

Hope to see you around.  

Hey Gavin,

Nice to see another script by you.

pg. 1, "Sunlight melts through drawn blinds." -- I would assume that this is a shot of the blinds with the sunlight coming through. Really consider changing the verb "melts" as I cannot get any visual of that at all. I don't even know what that means.

"Dusty, unkempt." -- These descriptors are vague. Are they referring to the blinds or the room?

"smothering" -- word choice

"lustful" -- word choice

"belonging to a young WOMAN." -- word choice on "belonging"

"Two bodies hidden underneath a thin bedsheet thrash savagely. " -- Cut hidden. Also "thrash savagely" is just an overload. Cut the adverb.

"Locked in the midst of passion. Not love making, fucking." -- Cut. Or if you want to emphasize the "not love making, fucking" just add a comma after thrash and place it there.

"climaxing moan" -- word choice

"A thin line of black eyeliner and subtle rosy lipstick
accentuates her natural beauty. She�s the kind of girl next
door who turns everyman�s head, and even some women."

This is too particular.

"Her big BABY BLUE eyes, (alive with curiosity) - cut, scan the diner
and it�s (its)customers, a mix of elderly couples (enjoying some
nostalgia) - cut and lone-wolfs passing through."

"There�s a root beer sitting opposite her, untouched." -- How can we know that it's untouched? Unopened we can see. Don't be vague. Tell us what we see.

"She peers out the diner window, beyond the sparse
civilization " -- I'm not a fan of "sparse" but civilization is really not the word to go with. And it wouldn't be "the" civilization but "a" civilization.

"She plays with her hair, childlike, WAITING on" Cut "waiting on"

"A moment of intense heat." What?

"Tammy fails to restrain GIGGLES
but never lets her gaze waver and composes herself again." -- Reword. This is not a visual sentence. "fails to restrain" is a poetic and abstract way of speaking about say, giggles that slip through her lips. You have to write more visually. Most of what I've read so far is abstract writing. It would work great in another form of writing, but in a script.

"Their silence is deafening, letting their eyes do all the
talking." -- Okay, isn't what comes after the comma redundant?

"The unrelenting highway that goes on for what seems like
forever." Cut unrelenting.

Okay, so I stopped at the CUT TO BLACK on pg. 2 because your writing is too poetic and abstract and not fit for a script.

"His eyes follow her smooth, never ending legs. The wind
tickles her thighs, allowing her skirt to dance. " -- Are her legs really never ending? Is the wind really tickling her thighs?

The language you use is poetic. And it's mixed with concrete things such as the car on the road and "his eyes follow" which is a concrete action (or at least, more concrete than "never ending"). Personally, I would advise against this type of writing. Not that you can't have it ever so often, but you have way too much of it. It stalled the read for me honestly. That's as far as I will go on justifying my aversion to it.

Sorry, Gavin. I'm just not a fan of this particular style. It's difficult to get through.

Best,

-J.S.

Gav, you've read some of my work, so it's time to return the favour.  I liked this peice.  Visual.  Artsy.  I decent filmmaker could turn this into a stunning short.  So, the best of luck, lets hope you get some contact.  One things for sure, lets hope it's a non-Irish based filmmaker, because setting wise it just would not work here! Lol.

Anyways, onto the story.

Not sure of the "melts through" on th first page.

I will say this though.  I'd consider changing the start.  I think I've read nearly half a dozen shorts on here that begin with two people having sex in a sleazy location.  Maybe have them post-sex, smoking.  Or maybe showering together afterwards in the bathroom.  IMO.  Keeps it fresh, because you're opening scene has been done to death.

The first few pages were all visual. Too visual.  Cut to the chase.  You could cut half of what happens in the dinner out.  Who cares if there's a root beer on the table?  Who cares about the elderly couple.  Seriously, I'd just have that scene with Tammy and Brett looking at each other.  Desire.  Lust.  Close ups of their faces, mouthed, etc. and then just leave it.  It was too much.

The open road scene following I thought was nice.  I like Tammy.  Feisty.  However, the writing here is too novel like.  I'm all for prose and description.  But it has to be balanced out.  Fr me it was too much.  Like never ending legs, tickles her thighs, her skirt dancing.  No need to complicate the scene with that sort of writing.  Keep it simple but interesting.

Also, when you FADE IN after this scene, I would advice a slug.  "EXT.  ROAD - LATER", so then it saves you having to repeat yourself in the action text.  This scene I'm talking about at the bottom of page two is just too descriptive.  You almost lost me here, but I kept going.

Also, random note, nothing major, but why don't you double space your slugs and double space following the end of a sentence?


DINNER -- FADE IN to a slug.  No need to have a cap at the start of "sun" in your first sentence here.  I wouldn't cap motel either.  When Tammy said she wanted to see the sights, it felt out of place.  She comes across to me the type of girl who doesn't give a shit, and is a while chick, and wouldn't give a fook about the sights.  I'd consider changing this, just to fit her more.

Bottom of 6 - "A Muffled conversation"... don't cap the M.

Totally love the delivery guys line.  Nice foreshadow to the paper/shock later on.  Nicely done.

"The morning Sun" -- again, don't cap the S.  I feel like you've used this line before.  I would just change it to... "Hazy sunlight seeps into the room..." IMO, or something to that effect.

I noticed at the start you used "CUT TO BLACK" and then al the rest are "CUT TO BLACK." with a full stop.  I would just fix it up to general consistency.  But that's just a nitpick.

Why is WATCHING in caps on page eight?  

You write passively a lot to.  Instead of "...she isn't paying much attention...", try, "...she doesn't pay much attention."

Why is SOMETHING in caps on page nine?  I've learned to only CAP sound.  Like, when you write AGAPE in capitals, like, what's the point?  It has the same effect in lower case.

Hmm.  Shock twist end.  Not sure, as a WHOLE, I love the ending.  It's interesting alright though.  It makes me wonder if the sandwich he had early was something... more human.  I would have preferred just a normal, he left for a much more normal reason, but then it wouldn't be as quirky and the overall story wouldn't have the same effect.  

And the V.O ending with the journal.  Loved it.

Overall Gav,not much to complain about story wise.  Loved the story.  It just could be like, two or three pages shorter and it could be tightened up much better.  To me, it felt like a first draft from the get go and it could be perfect with some more work.  Thanks for posting!

-- Curt

Hi Hi Gavin,

I'm not an expert by far so take my comments with a pinch of proverbial salt but here they are!

That would make a great short story from a descriptive point of view . You have a knack for describing things so well I can visualise them perfectly in my head. And that's the problem, it's too descriptive. From what I've read about scripts, especially the first draft, less is definitely more. The director and producers want to put their  own vision on the screenplay and you've done their job for them, there's no room for them to add their spin.

To put it into context, you spend about a minute of screen time describing Tammy, Brett and where they are sitting. That's a whole minute of the camera just focusing on two people doing nothing which is a lifetime on screen.

Some nice dialogue, creative. This would actually make a good arty piece.

Don't like where the story leads though. As was mentioned above, 67 days with the guy and she's no idea about this? Such a long build up I felt disappointed at the end.

Mark

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the comments and advice.

This was an old idea I had floating around. To be honest I was unsure whether I should post this up here because I was kinda aware of the style of writing but still I thought Id get a few bits of advice so thank you. It only took me a few hours to write and Ive been working on a feature so I wanted to get something up here.

Also, this was originally written as a novel idea. When I adapted it into screenplay format i guess i didn't do a great job making it more readable.

The ending was a killer for me, I played about with it for ages and I realise it could be seen as a bit of a let down. The original idea was to be a bit more specific and actually show Brett kill the delivery man at the end but I was against that, then I decided to just have her find the journal and make up her own mind. I also had a few more hints throughout about his possible addiction to a particular type of food but decided to omit that and go with a more subtle approach.

I specifically wanted to be more "arty" in my approach with this one. And I also specifically didn't want a lot of dialogue. I wanted to set a particular tone and pace without using dialogue (i.e. descriptive) but I guess it didn't quite work. I kinda knew i was gonna a bit overboard with the details. I still think theres something here but maybe this would work better as a novel.

Thanks again to you all for the reads. Really appreciate all your thoughts.

-Gavin

Hey J.S. thanks for the read.
Just to clarify something, I like to sometimes change my style of writing depending on the particular idea or tone Im going with. I realise you thought this was too poetic and that was exactly the style i was going for here, but I do agree with you that I went too far at times.
It just felt like the right piece to explore a slightly more artistic style ya know. i think that if I stuck with the more conventional style of screenwriting then this would easily fit into about 5 pages, which wouldn't be bad because then I could expand on the story a bit. Thanks for your advice man.

Curt, thanks again for the read. This was definitely aimed at the more American indie type director lol. Ive already mentioned above that I agree I've been way too visual with my descriptions and also my reasons behind it. As fas as the caps go, I tend to underuse them so Im not sure why I've capped so much lol. I do cap sound but i also cap a word that needs to stand out (without the need for a direction) maybe I did too much though.

Mark/Purple - thanks for the read and comments. You mention that theres not much dialogue and as I say above, i really wanted to limit the dialogue so as to set a particular tone. I was probably being too specific with my approach and maybe a tad pretentious but it felt right at the time. Also day 67 refers to the days he has been on the run. Maybe 6 weeks is too long to have them be a couple?? I was trying to imply that brett had been doing a good job of driving around small motels in remote areas to keep himself in some sort of hiding without giving away his identify to Tammy. I'll need to rethink this.

Guys thanks so much for your input.

-Gavin

Hi Gavin
I like the direction of the piece. I think you used a unique style here that may or may not have worked. Everyone has pretty much pointed that out so I won’t go into that except for the use of adverbs was a bit distracting for me. It read more like a novelette than a script that may have been your goal however a lot of real estate was wasted. I feel as if the end could have happened earlier, it was more like the inciting incident than a story ending. What happens if she has to continue the journey knowing his little secret? How do they interact? How does their relationship change? Where do they go from there? Does she confront him with her new found knowledge? A little bit of drama that shifts your story and allows you to build character depth through conflict. Just my two cents for what it’s worth.
Stefan  

Hi Stefan, thanks for the read and the comments. I agree that the ending was possibly a little dissatisfying and Im gonna explore the possibility of expanding this in the future.
-Gavin

Gavin, Great, can you send me a copy when you’re done? I’d like to read it.  

Hey Gavin
Try to slim down on the descriptions. Just make it more compact. I know it’s a problem that I find very difficult. But it still flowed nicely and was enjoyable to read. I thought that the first few pages could be cut down dramatically, previous comments have gone into detail on that.
The ending did leave me wanting more however. I liked it. I assumed he had run away and abandoned her.

Hi Gavin,

I enjoyed this to a point. I think from a general writing perspective, it's quite good. You have a strong vocabulary and are able to conjure up images and atmosphere rather effectively.

Unfortunately, from a screenwriting perspective, the writing doesn't work at all. It's overwritten, as basically everybody else has said, to the point where I'm not even sure why you chose this medium to explore this kind of writing style. It's all well and good as literature but translate this to film and the bulk of the words you throw at us become meaningless. Take your first couple paragraphs for instance. Before Brett arrives, how long does it take to communicate what's happening and by that, I mean what's happening onscreen? It's all instantaneous because all that's happening is a girl drinking a milkshake. Reading it is not instantaneous and since the writing is so dense, you're immediately throwing off the pacing for the whole script and bogging your reader down.

This is all a disservice to you, of course, as well as the reader. You need to scale it back hard. I think in this case, it'll be extremely easy. Some lines need to be tweaked for wording but you've also got rampant unfilmables and redundant descriptions that can be scrapped outright. That said, I think with the right word choices and a little bit of restraint, you can still create the immersive atmosphere you want. You just need to be choosy as to what instances you're going to give yourself leeway as far as flowery language goes. This takes practice but it can be done. What you have now is actually the opposite of immersive because it puts all the focus on details and minutia and takes it away from the story and characters, leaving a slow-motion kind of feel to it.

As for the story itself, meh. I thought it was okay. Not much to say about it really. I've read this kind of thing before. The dialogue was alright although I hated the "raging alcoholic" line. It's generic, not funny, and unrealistic. I think even just dropping the "raging" would improve it. At least, it wouldn't feel so token.

Also, the way the story pans out sets up the whole cannibal reveal to fail. The whole thing is a McGuffin. You could've picked anything to be his secret because the only way cannibalism factors into the story is a double entendre Brett makes earlier. That's it. It's actually a waste because the idea of cannibalism is so extreme. I'd try to expand on it. At this point, it feels meaningless.

Anyway, hope this helps.

Hi Gavin

Interesting read. I don't want sound like a broken record and repeat what everybody else above has already stated about some of your descriptions, but I will add a little small nugget of a suggestion.

Your screenplay definitely reads like something very artsy, which is great...and I can attest, I like writing artsy flicks myself. I think you happened to be in 'live directing mode' (aren't we all, lol) when you wrote some of your descriptions, which may sound great in your head while writing, but for other people reading, it sounds very expositionary, and may lose some of your intended readers if they think they are reading a novel rather than a screenplay.

Otherwise, I thought the story was great...nice ending, though I would try putting some more punch to it...maybe one of those M Night Shyamalan endings that really make you go "WTF!!". Keep it up, bud

-Silva Sly-  

Beckett, James and Silva - thanks you greatly for all your input. Im currently working on a few other projects right now but when I get the chance I will definitely rewrite this and cut out a lot of the uneccessary descriptions. I completely agree that I was slightly in "director" mode when writing this, the funny thing is I kinda knew I was in that mode but just went with it. Like I mentioned above, I was just exploring that style.

WOW, all your comments are so much appreciated. The community on here is really great and it'd defo been one of my best decisions joining a few years back. So much insight. Thanks again.

-Gavin

Hey Gavin,

Alot of things I liked, the writing was very discriptive and would give the art director a much easier time trying to fill it in. I was going to comment on all the descriptions but i think the other posters have said enough.

I liked the story but found the twist at the end a bit far fetched, 67 days is a long time without running into someone else who thought "this guy looks familiar".

Really liked the dialogue, could picture them saying this on screen.

You should try your hand at writing a novel, I think you could really pull it off.  

Enjoyed it none the less and the best of luck to you in the future.

>Praneel<