Manners by Bonginkosi Cyril Nkosi - Short, Comedy - One student's lack of manners threaten to drive him insane. 11 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Hi Bonginkosi,

Some notes on your script as I read.

Quoted Text INT. KITCHEN. -NIGHT

A slightly neater way to do this scene heading - INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT

Quoted Text A small kitchen. At first glance, we can tell that it’s a students’ res, a commune to be exact. A nerdy girl in her pajamas, stands around, paces and argues silently with herself. Her name is SPHESIHLE,18.

This first block of action is fairly over-written. No need to tell us we are in the kitchen again as it’s in your scene heading. Instead of saying "a nerdy girl" and then "Her name is SPHESIHLE,18", just dive straight in with SPHESIHLE, 18, nerdy... Although I would make nerdy more visual. How does she physically look that makes her nerdy? Is she wearing thick glasses, has she got braces, is she wearing a Harry Potter t-shirt? Hopefully you get what I mean.

Quoted Text saying "HI" Will cost you a rand.

Typo - Will needs to be will.

No need for the CONTINUED at the top and bottom of each page. We know it's continued and the pages are numbered.

Quoted Text SPHESIHLE (In Isizulu) Don’t do that. I ate everything.

Typo - (In Isizulu) - IsiZulu. Also the first word in a wrylie is generally lowercase unless it’s a proper noun, for example (In IsiZulu) would be (in IsiZulu) and (To herself) would be (to herself).

Quoted Text JABU (In IsiZulu) What’s your problem? Don’t tell me you ate my-

Generally broken or interrupted speech is shown by using an em dash, so "you ate my -" would be better as: you ate my --

Quoted Text Come on Sphe.

Whenever you address someone in directly you need a comma before the name (or nickname). So it should read: Come on, Sphe. It looks like you know that and this was just a missed one.

Quoted Text INT. ROOM. -CONTINUOUS

Again, this scene heading could be neater, also it’s a bedroom so call it that straight away: INT. BEDROOM - CONTINUOS

Quoted Text SPHESIHLE Jabu. (Then) You didn’t even greet me right now. You just woke up, started screaming and ran over her to disturb me...Manners dude, manners. Maybe that’s why whatever is happening to you, is happening to you.

One of the bigger issues with the script is the dialogue. It's quite on the nose. This is a prime example "Manners dude, manners. Maybe that’s why whatever is happening to you, is happening to you." As the reader I'm already beginning to suspect this is the case, but here you have Sphe really spell it out for us. The trick is to try and use subtext, you want your characters saying something without necessarily spelling it out for the reader.

So while this script does have a few issues, it's actually a great little story. It would be really cheap to make as well.

So we have a bit of a Groundhog Day/Russian Doll scenario based around manners, I like it.

I think the dialogue could use a makeover, but other than the few things I pointed out, it looks like you have a fairly good grasp of format and structure. I'd like to see another draft of this with a few fixes in place.

Not a bad effort at all.

Good to see another South African on the boards I sent you an email.

All the best.

Warren, Sir.

I have gone back and made a few changes. I have to say. Your critique has been really helpful. It looks neat right now. Thank You for your input. I appreciate it.

Bonginkosi.

Quoted from Bonginkosi Warren, Sir. I have gone back and made a few changes. I have to say. Your critique has been really helpful. It looks neat right now. Thank You for your input. I appreciate it. Bonginkosi.

Not a problem, Bonginkosi.

Just hit me up if I can help with anything else