Return To The Lightning by Chad Fleagle - Short, Psychological, Thriller - Mark Langstrum is an ex-executioner who finds himself tormented by his past. 20 pages - pdf, format 8)

Alright to start I'm going to have to say that the dialogue needs work in parts. It seems a tad to expository. And the formatting could be tweaked.

However I do like the story, where it's a prisoner haunting the executioner, I like the dialogue and interaction between Mark and Joshua. The other characters seem a tad dry though.  

**1/2 out of ****

This was a pretty good read. You had a lot of good twists here and they flowed quite well.

A few things...

1. You call Mark Michael on the first page of the script. Fix this.

2. Mark doesn't need to tell Joshua what he's being executed for or that he's being executed by electrocution. It's pretty obvious already. This happens again with Mark and the guard near the end of the story.

3. Sarah takes getting hit awfully light. Surely she'd think Mark was nuts. I know this is just a hallucination but I think fixing this would make the scene more realistic and make it harder to predict what happens next.

4. When Mark tells the doctor he's killed Sarah, the doctor says he'll be right over. This is unrealistic. Psychologists are legally obligated to call the authorities if the patient states they have harmed or mean to harm themselves or somebody else.

Other than that, this is a nice, trippy script you have here. Good job.

I had several problems with this script.  Some are easily correctable; some are not.

The formatting is off.  I'm assuming you did with with word, or some other otherword processing software, so I'm just gonna let this go.

Very often in your scripts, you describe things in ways that cannot be recorded by the camera.  And example of this is on page two, where you wrote:  "A digital clock reveals the time to be twelve.  One minute past the time he'd usually carry out an execution."

How does the camera film that it's one minute past the time he usually carried out an execution?  There are several other instances where you did this.  The general rule is if the camera can't record it, you don't write it.

UYour description above implied that executions were done at 11:59.  Is this intentional?  I don't think that executions are done at midnight anymore, anyway.  But 11:59?

Your dialogue is very on-the-nose.  You write everything as if we need to know everything right away, and it sometimes sounds like an encyclopedia reference.  On page two, Mark says:

"I don't want to talk about it, Sarah.  I do enough of that with Schnider (check the spelling on that name, btw), how does talking about my past regress the horror of what I did?"

In two sentences, you described everything we need to know about Mark.  It's like something out of Encyclopedia Brittanica.  People don't talk like this in real life.  They give a little bit of information at a time when casually talking.  On-the-nose dialogue is dull as it leaves no surprises and because it also sound very artificial and forced.

Speaking of which....

Sarah, on page 5:  "Don't do that Mark.  You're making me sound like a liar.  Was this flasahback about a man named Joshua Thorn?  Was it so vivid that you had to hit me?"

Mark, on page 10:  "Reality seems to warp itself at will.  One moment, I'll be home, the next and entirely different location... The time on the clock never changes.  Yet day will shift to night and vise-versa."

No one talks like this.  Even the most educated people in the world resort to casual dialogue.  After you write a script, read all the dialogue aloud.  If you even suspect that it sounds forced or artificial, it probably is.

A couple of small things:  Mark would call himself an executioner.  His title was most likely 'corrections officer.'  And given that he was a C.O., he wouldn't refer to the police as 'pigs.

The psychiatrist would would not run to his house.  He would call the police.

You shifted reality/delusions too many times.  Combine some of these scene.

Don't use upper case when characters are screaming.  Use exclamation points!  And only use one.  Multiple exclamation points are wrong!!!!!!!

I recommend that you read some scripts here and see how other people write.  It'll help you out.


Phil

Spoiler Warning…

On page 1:  MARK LANGSTRUM, 40, wearing wire rimmed glasses : Is it important that he wears wire rimmed glasses? If not I don’t think it’s needed but it doesn’t hurt it so that’s up to you to decide.

Sentenced to die through way of electrocution, may God have mercy upon your soul? – isn’t it by way not through way?

SARAH Have you been taking the medication DOCTOR SCHNIDER prescribed? – You don’t have to capitalize a characters name through dialogue, it just looks odd. Only capitalize descriptions and only when he enters the first time.

One minute past the time he'd usually carry out an execution. – I understand this is important but if you cannot show this from the dream or whatever don’t use it because it’s you telling us details that a screenplay shouldn’t.

Through a small hall he walks into the kitchen. Nearing the fridge he grabs the handle. – How did he get here, your scene heading has him still in his bedroom. You might have to add a scene heading in there.

You have a large gap on page 5 between dialogue, any reason for this?

DOCTOR TOM SCHNIDER grabs Mark arms reseating him on the couch. – You need an S on Mark’s name.

Did you do any research for this screenplay as of how this kind of thing weighs on the conscious of an executioner or is it pure fiction?

Joshua is no longer visible, and Mark realizes he's been
talking to himself. Joshua Thorn had never existed, he was
an extension of Mark's unstable mind. Only the image in the
mirror is Joshua Thorn's. - Again you tell us the plot instead of showing it to us. This works good but YOU keep telling us.

This was a really good story, a little overused by todays standards but I still enjoyed it. Entertainment value is what matters to me and this one was very entertaining. It has a few flaws in the format, dialogue is not always coherent, scene headings get confusing but overall a really good read.

I actually didn’t see that ending coming which is probably what you were going for, good job and good luck in the future.

I see where most of these errors found by you guys could hurt my script. And I'm glad that you noticed them, but some are a little nit-pickey for my taste. A camera could easily show us a digital clock reading a certant time. Even if that clock had to be set by the producer or director himself for each shot, or broken to stay at that time.

I'm still a little fuzzy on not telling to much. If the Director doesn't know what I have in mind for each shot in detail, he's not going to read my mind to find out. I'd like to post this one over again and see if I can get different reactions. I've been editing it here and there, perhaps I got some things correct this time, or you guys could show me my errors.

Thanks,
Chad    

Quoted from SacredSix And I'm glad that you noticed them, but some are a little nit-pickey for my taste. A camera could easily show us a digital clock reading a certant time.

That's not what Phil meant. Showing us a clock won't tell us that it is one minute past the time he usually carried out an execution.

Oh, and better late than never, huh?

Oh, I see what he meant by that now. I'm working on an even better revision of the short script.

My newest revision of this script has just been posted, and I could use some comments please.

Try the script exchange thread or get cracking reading other people's scripts.

This script raised alot of questions at the beginning but by the end I realised why you did it.

Even though you felt people were picking up on tiny errors, a good script wouldn't have these tiny errors.  But we all make them.

One question though,

Why would a guy who killed women care about the treatment of Mark's girlfriend?  Is he being sarcastic and if so, why can't Mark see it?

Overall, a script that was entertaining to read and the ending was good.  I was happy to read it.

Takecare & all the best with the future.