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If you write a script in your native tongue, isn't there a forum for that as well? How about a service that will translate to English for you? Not belittling your effort in any way but as this is, it can't be receiving too many reads. Maybe you can collaborate with someone willing to rewrite this for you.
I read your script Edwin and I would agree with Tony that it needs quite a lot of tidying up. Also maybe think about adding a bit of humour, light and shade would be good in a story like this. It is a nice story keep at it!
And specifics can't hurt either, especially when you write about drugs. If you're gonna write about drugs, show us the dirty, dark horrors of it, or don't write about it at all.
When you're so "plain" about it like within the first pages here, the reader will check out thinking you don't know jack shit about it.
It's not even that, Tony. All in all, it's just poor writing. Shorts and features like this have popped up over time where the writer just says "does drugs" or "takes drugs" and it feels like it's written by someone who's never taken drugs or even been around it in the first place.
It's not even that, Tony. All in all, it's just poor writing. Shorts and features like this have popped up over time where the writer just says "does drugs" or "takes drugs" and it feels like it's written by someone who's never taken drugs or even been around it in the first place.
Ya, I get what you mean, but hasn't it all been done already... I mean didn't the movie: NEW JACK CITY invent the phrase: SUCKING ON THE GLASS DICK, in reference to doing crack? I mean, how many lines of writing does a writer need to spend on a drug user -- to convey the message that he's destroying himself?
Shorts and features like this have popped up over time where the writer just says "does drugs" or "takes drugs" and it feels like it's written by someone who's never taken drugs or even been around it in the first place.
I write about drugs all the time in a carefree way and I've taken loads. When I was growing we didn't smoke cigarettes, we smoked joints. When we went to a party we didn't just have alcohol, we had cocaine and ecstasy too.
It was nothing. Snorting a line of coke was like drinking a brandy. No dirty, dark horrors whatsoever. The same is true for most people that use drugs. Only a few can't handle it and get addicted. For those it can be horrific, I suppose. But it's certainly not true of all drugs and drug users.
I write about drugs all the time in a carefree way and I've taken loads. When I was growing we didn't smoke cigarettes, we smoked joints. When we went to a party we didn't just have alcohol, we had cocaine and ecstasy too.
It was nothing. Snorting a line of coke was like drinking a brandy. No dirty, dark horrors whatsoever. The same is true for most people that use drugs. Only a few can't handle it and get addicted. For those it can be horrific, I suppose. But it's certainly not true of all drugs and drug users.
I think for you to imply, as stated above, that drug use is no big deal - - would be to ignore reality. If you and your friends had truly zero fallout than you can consider yourself very lucky. I respond to calls every day and usually have to stick a Narcan needle into the thigh of a drug overdose who's foaming at the mouth-- and then watch them sometimes get violent because their high was destroyed. In my Country, tens upon tens of thousands die each year from overdose. Rehab numbers are higher and barely work. If young lives are not destroyed in their prime then lingering heath effects are certain to pursue. I've seen it happen to friends, family and large concentrations of certain communities. I'm sorry, but I don't buy your watered down, hunky dory, nothing to see here patronization of illegal narcotics .
I think for you to imply, as stated above, that drug use is no big deal - - would be to ignore reality. If you and your friends had truly zero fallout than you can consider yourself very lucky. I respond to calls every day and usually have to stick a Narcan needle into the thigh of a drug overdose who's foaming at the mouth-- and then watch them sometimes get violent because their high was destroyed. In my Country, tens upon tens of thousands die each year from overdose. Rehab numbers are higher and barely work. If young lives are not destroyed in their prime then lingering heath effects are certain to pursue. I've seen it happen to friends, family and large concentrations of certain communities. I'm sorry, but I don't buy your watered down, hunky dory, nothing to see here patronization of illegal narcotics .
Why pick on illegal drugs when prescription drugs kill more than all of the illegal drugs combined? Prescription drugs kill more people than road traffic accidents. The only distinction between illegal drugs and those prescribed by a doctor is that more people become addicted and die from prescription drugs. I imagine that all those millions of people killed by pharmaceutical profiteers don't have a very good time of it either. They go to the doctor with one problem, rather than cure it, they exacerbate it and cause even more problems. One tablet for this, another for that, and so on and so on until they're dead.
There are two sides to every coin. There are the people that abuse drugs and there are people that use drugs. Just like people that drink alcohol... another massive, yet legal, killer... some will drink socially and do no harm to their body and then there will be those that die of liver failure through excessive alcohol.
Why pick on illegal drugs when prescription drugs kill more than all of the illegal drugs combined? Prescription drugs kill more people than road traffic accidents. The only distinction between illegal drugs and those prescribed by a doctor is that more people become addicted and die from prescription drugs. I imagine that all those millions of people killed by pharmaceutical profiteers don't have a very good time of it either. They go to the doctor with one problem, rather than cure it, they exacerbate it and cause even more problems. One tablet for this, another for that, and so on and so on until they're dead.
There are two sides to every coin. There are the people that abuse drugs and there are people that use drugs. Just like people that drink alcohol... another massive, yet legal, killer... some will drink socially and do no harm to their body and then there will be those that die of liver failure through excessive alcohol.
That's what you come back with? We know the "other" hazzards you mentioned are bad too -- doesn't justify your poor point.
What you are doing is classic -- it's called "dialing deviancy down." or same as saying, well "that stuff is bad, so is this stuff, while maybe bad, isn't as bad as that other stuff, so you know, why aren't you looking there instead -- you should REALLY focus there instead and leave THIS stuff alone." WRONG!
That's what you come back with? We know the "other" hazzards you mentioned are bad too -- doesn't justify your poor point.
What you are doing is classic -- it's called "dialing deviancy down." or same as saying, well "that stuff is bad, so is this stuff, while maybe bad, isn't as bad as that other stuff, so you know, why aren't you looking there instead -- you should REALLY focus there instead and leave THIS stuff alone." WRONG!
That wasn't actually my point it was yours. I merely told you that prescription drugs are worse. Your point was that illegal drugs are bad and I merely pointed out how much worse prescription drugs are.
Ya, I get what you mean, but hasn't it all been done already... I mean didn't the movie: NEW JACK CITY invent the phrase: SUCKING ON THE GLASS DICK, in reference to doing crack? I mean, how many lines of writing does a writer need to spend on a drug user -- to convey the message that he's destroying himself?
It has nothing to do with "being done already." It has everything to do with just don't be a lazy writer. Introducing a character "sucking on a glass dick" paints a better picture than introducing one who is "taking drugs."
I don’t think a writer should feel a duty to portray a character’s drug use, or alcohol use, or tobacco use with a slant towards moralizing. Especially since this is usually done in a way that is inconsistent with reality. I mean, check out this graph....
I don’t think anyone would say that every character that drinks with his buddies has to discover the destructive nature of alcoholism by the end of the story. There are writers who make their characters smokers just to give them something to do in the scene. To affix the two leading causes of substance related deaths to our characters without a care, but demand that every joint puff and line blow become a dissertation on the destructive nature of substance addiction is inconsistent, and a bit hypocritical.
Besides, if we want to write a story about addiction, then it’s best to acknowledge that addiction doesn’t need to come in chemical form. People can be addicted to gambling, or food, or shopping. Substances obviously have the additional factor of potential chemical dependence, but the root cause of addiction isn’t a substance problem, it’s a personality problem and cultural problem.
Personality in the sense that humans have a tendency to try to mask internal unease with some sort of external stimuli and, upon finding one that works, just keep hitting it over and over. Cultural in the sense that certain behaviours are given legitimacy regardless of the harm they actually do. In the case of the graph above, alcohol, tobacco and prescription drugs are given legitimacy over illegal narcotics, despite being just as harmful, addictive and deadly as some of the most powerful narcotics available.
I do agree however, that simply saying a character “takes drugs” is way too unspecific and would adequately describe someone breathing through an asthma inhaler just as readily as someone with a needle in their arm.