Insightâ„¢ by A Vulcan - The pursuit of tearing down barriers by truly sharing perspectives leads to some unfortunate oversharing.  Short, Sci Fi

Dear A Vulcan,
Limitless meets Minority Report - these mind meld drugs sound exciting but are always misappropriated! Connor's in deep doo-doo. God damn the pushin' man!
Excellent stuff --

Written in a hurry, perhaps? Right out of the gate, Brett's 2nd dialogue was difficult to decipher. Also, when offering the shots of insight, I think you meant for Brett to offer Connor the shot. All easy fixes...

The story? Loved it. Great concept and twist. Nice work. I thought the quick intro of multiple characters might be difficult to keep straight but it wasn't an issue.

Great work, writer.

Spoilers

I loved the twist.

I hate to be nitpicky, but 4 shot glasses for five? people - Brett, Stacey, Conner, Gregory, Nichole. I kinda lost track of the characters in the middle and had to read twice.  Twist was killer (ha, ha). It would not take much to tighten this up.  

Don

I enjoyed this one, interesting premise very Black Mirror and the initial writing, whilst rushed, had a good rhythm to it.

But then it started to get a little difficult to keep track of the characters, and then the twist within a twist, or was it atwist and a red herring, not sure - but it didn't really land for me.

Decent effort

An interesting concept which didn't quite deliver for me. I would have liked some additional futuristic embellishments description wise at the top.

I also thought the intro with them all drinking was an odd choice. It didn't quite gel with what comes next in terms of them all agreeing to trial the drug.

BRETT
It bridge cultural divides, hurdle
language barriers, and really
share personal experiences.

This ^ needs a bit of a tweak - probably due to the deadline.

Also, the use of a 'sewing needle'? Hmm, I think you could have made this a lancet needle.

I had to read this twice cause I was unclear on exactly what went on. I thought I got the twist but I'm not sure now. 🤔

The strongest element story-wise is Connor, and Nicole witnessing what he did. That bit made me sit up and take notice. I was however confused, cause he would know this would happen. I'd punch this up and simplify this by reducing the amount of characters and make it a more one on one threat ala Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Shue's characters n The Invisible Man.

The final scene is clearly the twist but I remain in the dark.

I think I know who wrote this. We shall see...

Great premise!

it's a good story, but i just don't think it's suited for the 6-page limit. it's hard for me to keep track of all the characters. who is melanie ? why should i care that she's been killed ? for all i know, she could've deserved it.

I feel like opening to a boardroom/office setting with douchey tech bros is always a little bland. it's not a place anyone wants to be, yet it's common on TV, and thus difficult to make distinct, and you open without a whole lot of panache. I mean the idea of doing the social network as a sorta sci fi deal is kind of interesting but I think this would actually benefit from being MORE sci fi and less social network. it's already kind of out there premise-wise, might as well go for something visual too.

maybe it's an after-work outing, everyone's out drinking, annoying tech yuppies bumping up against regular bar patrons...homeboy pulls out The Substance, stupid idea but they're there to have fun off the clock, so they all get fucked up, except now they're not in the safety of the office, they're in a crowded bar, it's a whole spectacle...idk. then you could have the reactions of the outsiders while it's all going down, it might be funny.

not really big on the second twist. I feel like it detracts from things when it turns out everything technically wasn't real. I like everyone having revelations and freaking out, I think you could do more with that and take it somewhere that builds on your premise rather than just pulling the rug out from under everything. there's definitely something good here.

A mind sharing drug trial - fertile territory.

For me the first twist was good enough and believable, the second in the labs threw me a bit.

Also, if kept in the first scene, it could be a well contained, easy ish to film script.

Nice idea.

The doc name shows up as "A Shared Perspective", not "Insight", so right off the bat, I'm thinking this was rushed in and the writer forgot or didn't have time to rename the doc.

Opening Slug is humorous - "BOARDROOM ROOM".  Obviously no reason for including "ROOM".

Then we jump into a 4 liner, introing 4 characters.  It's going to be pretty tough to keep these characters straight, as nothing at all is really given about them.

"Nicole tears her eyes off Connor to roll them at Brett." - This is a strange line, IMO.

Page 1 is literally all dialogue and IMO, the way these peeps talk, it just doesn't sound real, and none of the characters have any character, nor do I know what's going on.

Think about this - there's a board meeting going on and we know they've been in here for a while, based on the "half eaten food" and empty beer and wine bottles.  It's like all of a sudden, they start throwing out all this info, as if earlier, before the scene starts, they were all just sitting around drinking.

The "KNOCK-KNOCK" obviously needs its own line, as the way you have it, it's odd.

"What up, bitches? You ready to get fucked up?" - LOL!  Sounds like the guy in "The Cabin".  Classic.

"Four shot glasses are brought out in a line. One vial is dumped into each." - Are brought out by who?  In a line where?  Visually written, this is not.  Write what you want us to see.  I can't see this at all.

Why are they pricking their fingers and dropping blood into the shot glasses?  Did I miss something?

"Gregory flashes a huge grin and holds his finger out.  Stacy groans, but relents. Finger pricked, Gregory drips into his shot glass." - Here we have 2 completely different things going on, meaning, it's 2 passages (at least).

"Her head cranks back, eyes and mouth gaping wide as she gasps air into her lungs. Gregory curls over, fists balled as if trying to contain a tremendous outburst." - Same deal here...2 passages, 2 completely different shots.  And, missing "for" before "air", and you should just lose the "into her lungs".

Page 5 - Your FLASHBACK is extremely problematic and not well written.  In a POV, only what the person or whatever it happens to be sees should be written.  Who's POV is it?  Don't mention "the camera", as that takes your readers out of what they're supposed to be seeing.  How do we/anyone know it's Connor's hand removing this knife from this woman's chest?  If it's his POV, we're not going to be seeing his face, remember.  This whole thing needs attention.

OK, so then, based on this revelation that Connor killed Melanie (who we have no clue is), Connor just whips out a gun, shoots Brett, Stacy, Gregory, and then Nicole, after a little speech that means nothing to us, because we have no clue what he's talking about.

And then, we basically Fade to White - BIG POINTS whenever someone fades to white!!  

And now, on Page 6, we're ready for our twist, I presume.

1st 2 passages again contain multiple ideas and shots and both needs breaking up.

And then we have a bunch of dialogue that for me, makes very little sense.  I really don't get what just went down here, but it appears that what we were seeing leading up to Page 6 was all in their minds, but how was it being manifested?  On Brett's iPad?  I doubt that, but I seriously am trying to figure out exactly what I was seeing.

IMO, this is just WAY WAY too big for 6 pages, and I bet a lot either got cut out or just never made it to the page.

I don't buy that any of these characters are real.  I don't know any backstory, so I don't understand this "interrogation" idea that's been  thrown out a few times.

All in all, I was confused and for me, it was a tough 6 pages to get through.  There's a twist, of course, and you constructed a full story here, but this is much bigger than a short short.

Appreciate entering your world here.

I read this and had no idea what was going on, so I looked at the other comments and apparently I wasn't the only one that was a little confused. For me, the confusion really came with the number of characters. They were all introduced in a rapid manner and about the same age and nothing to set them apart other than male or female. IMHO, this would work better if you had just two characters. Two scientists or whatever and then they test Insight on themselves and then they find out some ugly truths about the other person. That way we would get to know the characters a little better. Six pages is too short for an ensemble cast. At least IMO. So, great idea, but not an ideal execution.

I’m another that will admit to confusion about exactly what’s going on to whom. That said, I do like the premise a lot. Also agree that this needs more than our 6 page limit to really flesh it out. Hope you will consider expanding it after the OWC. Would definitely like to see and understand more about your ideas for this.

Insight Trademark by Spock. Fascinating...

Is the whole Fade in/Fade out thing falling out of vogue?

You use boardroom twice.

Quoted Text BRETT It [could] bridge cultural divides, hurdle language barriers, and really share personal experiences.

Quoted Text She shakes her head no.

Redundant.

Okay that was... different. Not really sure what to make of it. I have wondered what it would be like to be able to directly record one's thoughts or esp. dreams.

No real complaints about the writing. th finger pricking reminded me of the blood test from The Thing.

Enjoyed the read.

I won't go into the issues since they are already pointed out. While it was a little confusing at places as to what was going on exactly, the basic concept and moral to the story was clear. We are not meant to share our thoughts because everybody has secrets that shouldn't be shared.

I liked how that came out.

Yeah, there is confusion here. But the basic idea is sound. I would consider, as pointed out
by others, to reduce your characters. Go with two scientists and two subjects. The subjects
can act out their thoughts. If they feel aggression, I can see the scene visually shifting to a
world where the combatants square off. Maybe one subject dies. Something like that.
Just simplify it, narrow the focus and the results.
You have something here, but it's too big and confusing at this point. Good luck.