Adjustment Disorder by John Stone - Series, Thriller - A troubled detective, haunted by past mistakes investigates a hit-and-run. But does her adjustment lie with the victim or his killer? 61 pages

Treatment - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Dear John,
Kiki part 2. A cracking crime (continuation) caper. There's some system cock up in the early pages with the  ages appearing twice. Also a typo sued for suede boots!
As it's titled Adjustment disorder - a scene of Kiki with the Doc .
I think the Dev and Zane arrest could be ramped up as this is so visual and you almost gloss over it. Also I'd like a tad more of Kiki meeting Shelley once she's in clink (as they were lovers!) maybe S could throw in some misdirection . . .
Just look back and trim the dialogue that is explained twice (by reprobate then Police) certainly you can hint but your audience loves looking for clues. It's why crime is so popular. Great stuff - best -

Quoted from JtF Just look back and trim the dialogue that is explained twice (by reprobate then Police) certainly you can hint but your audience loves looking for clues. It's why crime is so popular. Great stuff - best -

Thanks JtF.

I'm working on this now.

Can you tell me which scene you are referring to here?

Many thanks.

I'm not going to break down individual examples of issues, because it soon becomes repetitious, so I'll just mention a few and make some general observations.

Weird formatting choices (eg "/" after character names);
merging character names and descriptions (eg "HELEN 50s", "NANCY 28");
numerous grammar, punctuation and spelling errors;
redundant scene settings, locations, etc. and descriptions of same;
poorly-constructed action lines bloating the page count;
on-the-nose and expositional dialogue;
action lines filled with a lot of what I assume is British slang, these words and phrases that mean nothing to me and no doubt to many other non Brit readers;
multiple looonnngggg speeches by characters;
Pages-long dialogue-only scenes.

All this and more made it difficult-to-impossible for me to become invested in the story, or even to really do more than skim it, which is what I soon ended up doing.

John, you can't continue to ignore accepted screenplay formatting convention while also writing only for your own narrow demographic if you hope to be taken seriously by a wider audience.

Regarding this:

action lines filled with a lot of what I assume is British slang, these words and phrases that mean nothing to me and no doubt to many other non Brit readers;

DB, could you give specific examples?

Standard formatting quibbles aside I see nothing wrong with a script that has jargon or colloquialisms, cockney rhyming slang etc. specific to a country or region.

It's colourful language that you will see in films like The Guard, Lock Stock, not to mention a lot of Aussie films too.

Note to John:

Something weird is happening with doubling up on ages:

Also at the table a selected (select) group of friends consist (consists) of his confidant- Glaswegian DS JAMES JOHNSON, along with his pretty Thai wife, TUCH 3131. His flat nosed henchman DOG 50s. Columbian DEV BAKSHI 30, 30, his pretty Columbian wife AMY 18 18, and cousin ZANE DELGARDO 20s.
His BRIEF and bearded HUSBAND 30s30s.

And a specific note regarding addressing Mum (example below) it should be capped when it can be replaced with a name:

I'm sorry, Mum.
There are four instances.
I'm sorry, Ann.

If you were to say: tell your mum I said, hello. That would be lower case. If you replace Mum in this example with a name, in this instance we'll call her, Ann, you wouldn't say: tell your Ann I said hello. Get it?

Quoted from LC DB, could you give specific examples?

From the first action line:

Quoted Text Capone lookalike KRIS SAVVA 50s stands proudly in a bib and tucker...

I have no clue what a "tucker" is or might be.

Quoted Text Standard formatting quibbles aside I see nothing wrong with a script that has jargon or colloquialisms, cockney rhyming slang etc. specific to a country or region. It's colourful language that you will see in films like The Guard, Lock Stock, not to mention a lot of Aussie films too.

The problem is when it's in non-dialogue elements.

You need to give more examples than that, DB.

Quoted from LC You need to give more examples than that, DB.

Ha ha, nice try, but you're not gonna get me to skim it again.

The word "ambo" was repeated numerous times, which I assume to be an abbreviation of "ambulance". Then there was a lot of initialism, mostly related to law enforcement, much (or all) of it a little (or a lot) obscure to those of us unfamiliar with the minutiae of Britain's police force(s).

Anyway, unnecessary and avoidable problems.

Quoted from Shakespeare on Toast Drongo thanks, but no thanks. Wreckers of the world unite.

John, you used to complain because I didn't provide feedback, yet you reject any you receive if it isn't flattering.

Or maybe you only reject feedback from people you don't like.

Either way, it's amateurish behavior. I don't say that to offend you. It's just a fact. You submit scripts with a request for feedback, only to pick and choose which feedback you'll accept as valid.

It's not the route to improving.

Quoted from Shakespeare on Toast Thank god you don’t work at the BBC.  I’d be doomed, if you know what that means.

We know what you wish we believed.

Quoted Text And by the way there is no such thing as bad criticism.

Actually, there is.

For instance, something like, "OmFg u suck @ skr33nwitiNg kill urself!!!11 lululz!!11" is terrible criticism. It's completely worthless.

Quoted Text I appreciate the exposure you’re giving me. Keep it up.

Exposed to whom? How do you think anyone reading these comments sees you?

Relentlessly bumping your own scripts to what end? Is the director of the BBC browsing this site? Do you think he reads through these threads and says to himself, "By God, this Shakespeare on Toast fellow is just the man we need to get us back on top! He refuses to accept any feedback he doesn't like and calls people names if they don't share his every opinion! Somebody get him on the line, immediately! We can never have too many childish and petulant types here!"?

John, you're one of the reasons people are reluctant to provide feedback. At best you'll ignore them. Maybe you'll offhandedly dismiss their opinion. Or, you will angrily meltdown and become hostile and rude.

Listen, it's way too easy for us to fall in love with everything we write. We want to believe everybody thinks it's as great as we do. It can be tough to discover others aren't as invested in our work as we are. That they don't see it through the same lenses we do. That they see the things we didn't because we didn't want to.  This is something that punishes us all at some point, and usually at all of them. However, you have to take it on the chin like an adult and think of it as a learning experience. Pretending only you see the genius and everyone else is stupid and blind is not the way to deal with it.

Quoted from Shakespeare on Toast Where Dongo goes Libby goes. Are you guys joined at the hip? Libby I have adjusted the double up on ages...

John, I actually defended your choice to use colloquialisms and local jargon and I disagreed with DB's assessment. I alerted you to some typos and another miscellaneous thing I thought you might want to know about. I should have learned my lesson from the last time I gave you feedback. Message received. I will stay off your threads in future.

Quoted from LC I actually defended your choice to use colloquialisms and local jargon and I disagreed with DB's assessment.

And you were wrong! So wrong, you couldn't have been more wronger on the wrongiingest day of the year if you had an electrified wronging machine!

So there. Now quit following me around.

Treatment available to read here for anyone interested.

LC what do you mean by standard formatting issues? Please expand on this as I have no idea what you are talking about.

At first I thought this was the anticipated fifth episode. When Mr. Savva gave his long goodbye speech, I realized this was previous material. Near the end I realized that this was Nancy's story rewritten from a different point of view.

Looking back at the original versions of the episodes, they were more independent of each other. They focused more on the criminals and their actions with Kiki being a common thread between them. My favorite was The Blue Room which was spun out of this series. Now it's more like a traditional series that focuses on the lead character's perspective. I guess that will make this an easier sell.

I looked through the previous comments to make sure I didn't duplicate any of them.

Personally, I didn't have a problem with the (London) British slang in the action text. Keeping it in the context of the overall situation, it seems to me to be appropriate. You are writing a story for a British television audience to be produced by the Beeb. You are writing in their language. On the other hand, if you were writing an American show to be produced in Burbank, you could lose them. This also needs to be kept in mind if you are writing for the big screen. Hollywood is only twenty minutes from Burbank and they speak the same slang. The British slang would help to narrow your market to British production companies.

P.S. - Any news on that fifth episode?