Two Wrongs by Julie DeStefano - Short, Drama - Justine's husband never comes home on time and forgets important events. She suspects him of having an affair. He denies it but can she still trust him? 16 pages - pdf, format

@Julie,


Welcome to SS,


Your story, so we have the wife (JUSTINE) she's unhappy with her husband (PHIL), he works late, too much, and doesn't pay her any attention.  So she thinks he's having an affair, but he says he's not, and the straw that breaks the camel's back -- when he forgets their second wedding anniversary.

It's a pretty pedestrian story, nothing wrong with that, but I was hoping for something more, maybe a nice twist at the end, but didn't get it.

Code PHIL ([i]Takes the dishes out the sink and puts them in the dishwasher, slamming the door shut)[/i] I�m going to bed.

This should be an action line... along with this one...

Code PHIL (talking while chewing his food)

And the other, I'd get rid of it all together.

All I'll say, read up on the proper use of (wrylies) and only use them sparingly and only when absolutely necessary.   Best advice I can give you.  One effective way to utilize them -- when the subtext of the dialogue is not otherwise clear.

Another thing, your dialogue, give it more punch.  A lot of it is on-the-nose, you know,  when a character is speaking precisely how they're feeling or thinking, without leaving any room for the reader/audience to fill in the blanks when it comes to a particular character's emotions, thoughts, and so forth.  We all have, even the pros, at some point has done it.  Writing dialogue is hard... and you have a few emotionally-charged scenes with Phil and Justine.

Examples... I'll use your character's name.

PHIL: Because it's not just about you, it's about me and my own problems.  I love you.  I do. I'm just really upset because you slept with my best friend, Roger, when I was at work, so I need to move out.

Or. . . .

PHIL: I left a key for you. . . I figure Roger can use the back door, like usual.

See what I mean. The latter gives away the same amount of information... Phil cares enough to leave the key for her, yet he's still bitter about the affair, but with greater nuance.  Yea, it might be out of context, but you can get an idea of  where I'm coming from when writing dialogue... especially in emotional scenes.

I hate to assume a writer's intentions, because more times than not I'm wrong... the scene where Phil brings home the flowers and well, you know... Yes, I see what you were trying to do, but JMHO-- you didn't set it up properly... that is, if you wanted the audience to be surprised too, if not then disregard.  And if it was, I know how I would have done it to achieve what you originally intended.

-- Your first few slugs could use a bit tweaking.

-- The writing needs polishing, but all of ours can.  You could definitely trim a few pages here and there.  Don't know if you're a novice, or how long you've been writing, and I don't care to speculate, so I won't.

All I'll say, again welcome to SS, and keep writing. If you have questions just let me know.  All the best with this.

Ghostie

Ghostie, thank you so much for the feedback. This will definitely help me when I write my next draft. Writing twists are challenging. I wanted the audience to be surprised in the end, but if the current ending is not working, then I'll play around with it some more. I'll try to work on improving the dialogue. I consider myself a novice writer. I've written one other short screenplay a few years ago, which I made into a short film. But I'll keep working this. Thanks again for the suggestion.

Julie,

Hi. I'll try and give you some quick notes here.

This read very quick, and while that's a good thing it needs quite a bit of work. You have numerous unfilmables throughout. Remember this is a visual medium, and we need to SEE everything that is happening, not read it. A feeling, or a thought written out does the reader no good.

I forgot which page, but you have a series of CU, CU...followed by action. I think it was when Justine was getting ready for their anniversary dinner. This should be SERIES OF SHOTS, or preferably a MONTAGE, with your following images numbered or lettered. You can look it up. It shouldn't be too hard.

Justine's character was pretty well defined, IMO. Early in the script with the dishes in the sink--I can definitely relate to that! Sounds like someone I know. Anyway, as decent as her character is, she had no edge, no attitude. She starts off like she might have a fire in her, but it fizzles out and she becomes poor, poor innocent lonely wife. Now, she did exact her revenge, but according to end reveal it was really unjustified. Guess what? That makes us not like Justine. She is your protagonist, right?  We need to like her, to sympathize with her and rejoice in her triumphs. Can't do that here. By the end we don't like her at all, I think.

Just me, but I'd go about this a different way. That's up to you, of course. But remember how I said Justine was not edgy? Well, the entire script is not edgy. Your writing needs insistence and urgency in places, and this is also very much overwritten. We get a lot of useless details in three sentence action blocks that could easily be trimmed down to two.

Anyway, hope I helped a little. Take care and good luck.

Steve

I thought this script dragged on a little too much.  You went too far in dropping hints about Phil's secret activities, only to reveal the truth.  And it was a let down (for me, anytway).  If you want to suggest something in a story, be more subtle.  Phil's cheating was about as subtle as a twenty pound sledgehammer to the groin.


Phil