The Lonely Londoner by Jason Young - Short - Julius Soubise - a young professional black Englishman - is invited round for Sunday lunch, only to have his presence ignored and be relegated into the shadows. 11 pages - doc, format 8)

Jason

This is actually a good story dealing with indifference with an element of misunderstanding of history and ethnicity and for this you tell the story well..

There's nothing wrong with your ability to tell a story and from reading this short script of yours I'd like to suggest you have produced other creative writing peices because you have a good style of writing, there are examples of methaphors, poetic references and the exploration of inner thoughts - all things of which are difficult to write about and pull off successfully..

When writing a short script or screenplay, you need to try and find alternative methods of describing the above elements in your writing so it translates into camera shots.. If you want to provide some exposition, or explanation about something, an event, or back history, then this can be discussed in characters dialogue for example..

In your script you have mentioned the "camera" word and in a SPECULATIVE SCREENPLAY format we do not mention the "camera word".. It is considered a "no, no".. You have to be creative and describe in the shortest possible way or means of that event of how this would look to an audience watching that event without mentioning the dreaded word we don't mention..

Similarly, we don't talk about thoughts unless these are vocalized in dialogue by the characters.. Moreover, we don't use the words "protagonist" and or "antagonist" in screenplays because these are theory terms used and practiced by us writers and not for the consumption of readers or viewers for that matter.. So, we don't employ them..

There are considerable occasions when you describe not only thoughts, feelings, inner stuff of your characters and unfortunately this cannot be filmed by a camera. What you have to do is actually describe the characters reactions in situations of how they act and react to their environment and indeed, to each other.. A screenplay is not a short story novelette or a novel but a blueprint for a director to realize into a drama on video or film.. You need to write without using shooting script conventions and this means no mention of camera, capitalized slug-lines, only mention DAY and or NIGHT for time of day, of course use INT or EXT for interior or exterior for your locations within the drama..

Your dialogue is pretty good actually, when I read this piece of yours I thought, "hang on I can see this on the screen" so I did get the story ok but what you have to do is write this script a certain way adhering to particular script formatting conventions. This will ensure that script reading professionals, such as agents and script readers for production companies will read it for you, otherwise the paper will be recycled after they read a script which resembles a script which you have written here..

Like I said, you’ve written a very nice  story here, and despite the previous poster mentioned the word “racists”, I don’t particularly think this is correct. What you’ve written is quite a complex drama which illuminates the difficulty when somebody from an ethnic minority background attempts to interact and or socialize with his professional peers only to discover he is a fish out of water because his peers simply are unable to empathize with his reality and they fail to understand that this man’s reality has been, in part, socially constructed by their forefathers and indeed, themselves..

I would work on this some more because you have written a great little story here.. In fact I would suggest this would make a fantastic play for the stage but don’t let my view of high art put you off, you can make a screenplay out of this, all you need to do is start writing better descriptive action in your scenes in which your actors act and react to conflict inherent within the drama.. And work on your formatting because you need to take onboard as much as you can before you write your next draft..

Have a scoot around SimplyScripts and you’ll find a section which is devoted to the craft of screenwriting moderated by one George Willson. In this section there is a wealth of information and help on screenplay formatting together with links to external sites containing articles and published books on this very subject..

If you feel you’d like some personal help on this then I’ll help you and if you ask I’m sure George Willson will too.. There are others on these boards who can spot a good writer at one hundred paces so don’t be put off by my ramblings here.. Like I said, you’re a good writer but you need to take onboard this formatting issue.. Just email me if you’d like any help towards re-writing a new draft of this fine piece..

Kevan

Hey Jason

after you read Kevan comments mine would be so short and inconsistent one, but I have to say your piece is very nice one.

As I read it I thought that your comments about the characthers fillings could be in Voice Over - maybe by Lizzie or who knows Angela. Maybe it could be a way you don't lost the nice comments.

About the talk-battle between Steve and Julius it was so great. As Kevan said your write could be a play also.

So you have two options here: go back to rewrite it in a screenplay format and forgotten camera directions or transform it in a play extending the dialogues and inserting others characters inside the plot. Post it again and I'll read it one more time.

good luck with your story! As Kevan said ask for any help on someone here in SS.

I have no idea if you are still active on this site but:

Are you the Jason Young that wrote "How to Disappear Completely"? 8)

Anyway, nice little script. Nice dialogue and interesting, despite being so low key.

Wasn't completely sure that the story rang true. It seemed a slightly contrived at times.

How did the guy end up there in the first place?

The interchange between Steve and Julius was excellent though, very well written.