The Big Stiff - Print Topic

This seemed like the opening scene of a feature length piece, Alffy. You set up a good story and then left us hanging with the punchline.. You set up some good characters and a good premise (meeting a girl at a funeral). Stretch it out. Your main character has a goal, now. Have him pursue it.

Your writing could be a little tighter here and there. You're a bit wordy. An example from page one:

A group of People of differing ages are gathered outside the church, they are all dressed in smart black attire.

could be reduced to:

People gather outside a church, all dressed in black.

Little things, like this make a big difference in scriptwriting.

Phil

This one was pretty cool, it had me chuckling quite a few times, which is pretty good considering it's only six pages. Your writing could be a little tighter and it does seem like the start of something more, cuz the girl just kinda disappears and goes nowhere. But all in all I liked it.

Other small stuff...

top pg 2 - Their should be they're. and you missed a couple of apostrophes. and you should have a question mark after the word "right" on the bottom of page 3

Alffy -- a good story. And I really like the ending. Funerals and Hard Ons are fabulous in any story. Always makes for some good humor.

I agree with Dogglebe that your descriptions need to be tightened. When you are writing a spec you need to only show the bare minimums. An agent or producer want a fast read... And they want something unique and interesting. A friend of mine (who has actually written and produced real films) told me a great secret. Want to know what it is. Email me and I will share with you.

Spencer

Alffy,

A pretty good script. Your dialog wasn't too shabby and there were a few laughs in there. Overall, a nice little script.

Cheers, Chismeister.

This script is, I think, well written. Still, there are a couple of lines that could be tighter. For example, "David removes some tiny earphones from his ears and lets them hang over the top of his jacket." The word 'some' isn't necessary. In fact, this sentence could be written with far fewer words.

As others have commented; A spec script should be a quick, easy read. One that doesn't include superfluous words.

Another sentence that stands out: "David turns and looks at the young woman again. He eyes her up and down, pausing on her large breasts trying to escape her blouse." We already, given previous discriptives, know that her breasts are bulging out. That said, there isn't a need to reiterate.

There are a number of other errors, as pointed out by Sryknows.

Still, over all, the writing is solid. There's something about the style that I like. As for the story, it has its humorous moments -- double meanings, etc. Still, Like others, I'd like to see this expanded.

Seth

There isn't much I can say that hasn't already been said.
The writing was good, but it could use a few tweaks to tighten it more.
Even though you had an amusing punchline, it seemed incomplete - like it wanted to say more. I wasn't satisfied by the ending.

You did a good job though. Keep it up! (heh)

pg 3
I bet their - I bet they're
the cars here - the car's here(?)
pg 4
I, he was son - Aye, he was son (possibly)
pg 5
Her there - Hey there(?)

Hey Alffy, when I first saw the title I was like, "Okay, that sounds a little weird."

SPOILERS!!!

Well, funny choice of title I guess. Got a few laughs out of this, especially the ending when realising the title meant more than it did at first glance. Could use a little tightening up. Some descriptions are larger than they could be but it didn't kill the read for me. Might for others though as already been stated above somewhere.

Even though I did want to know if he did find her again, the ending would be spoiled if you added more. I'm not entirely sure if most of the script was just a stall for the big punch line at the end but you did well with it.

Nice work. :)

Blimey guys thanks for all the reads already.

This is the first draft so I will try and tighten it up in the next draft.  I thought I'd picked up all the mistakes but I guess a few always filter through.

Phil, I do worry that I over describe, so I'll look at that.

Sryknows, I never thought of expanding it but you never know...maybe.

Spencer, thanks for the read and I'll defo email you for the secret.

Chismeister, my dialogue is something I worry about because most of the people on these boards are American, and being English, sometimes it doesn't come across right.

Seth, thanks for giving this the once over.  Like I said I'll try and tighten it up.

mcornetto, see above...maybe I'll expand it?

Parkster, hey a fellow Brit.  Glad you liked it, Knob jokes are a tradition in England. lol.

Cheers everyone.

This was a decent read but it needs more. The scenario of David hoping to get a girl at a funeral full with family members is hilarious. Funerals always make for "wrong place, wrong time" humor. However the story never seems to go any place. We never find out what happens with David and this girl. From the title and the end of the story, I can deduce that the girl isn't exactly the hook of the story but even the hook felt half-baked. We get the "big stiff" but we don't get the reaction. I'd like to see Aunty Judith recoil in horror and David make a lame attempt to explain himself. Something to that effect. You get the idea.

Anyway, not bad but I think a good once-over would make this story much more satisfying and, more importantly, complete.

Thanks for the read James.

I was hoping to imply that maybe David had an erection or maybe it was his mp3 player in his trouser pocket that pressed against his aunty.

I'm gonna tidy this up and repost it soon. As far as the girl, I've had thoughts of maybe continuing the story as maybe a follow up short. Moving it on to the buffet and maybe filling a bit of backstory of his dad and aunty Judith.

Anywho cheers for your comments.

I should have paid more attention to the title before reading this, Alffy. I wasn't expecting that until the last moment.

This was a nice short, more comedy than a drama, but, to tell you the truth, I did not like Trevor. He was annoying and shushed you up too much. But I guess that is what you get when you're at a funeral, horny, and sitting next to a fity-year-old man, who is your father.

A few spelling errors, but that won't hurt, and your descriptions were nice, just to point that out. Was it Aunty Judith's husband who died? Or father? Someone close to her, I can tell.

But one suggestion: you should have made whoever died come back as a zombie... :P

Sean

Thanks Sean, dunno about the zombie thing tho. lol

Glad you enjoyed it. I always proof read but I always seem to miss a few spelling mistakes, aint that always the way. To be honest I don't really wanna discuss the 'stiff' because I'm toying with idea of either expanding this or writing a follow up, and that might come up then (who he is I mean).

alffy

Well I suppose everyone has already pointed out the several grammar and format mistakes so I'll skip that.

Decent enough but I wanted more. Funny situation, it was but it had no real point really. Maybe try to make it longer and add some characters and other stuff going on in the funeral.

Keep it up!

Thanks for the read Daniel,

I'm working on it....

Alffy,

Looking forward to an expanded version.  I agree with all who said the girl is the interesting character.  In terms of a full story we're only at the end of Act I.  A short Act I at that.
Maybe in an expansion, he doesn't even see the woman until the service is over.  Perhaps he spots her again at the reception and learns more things about her, a turning point that would propel him into 'the chase.'
Enjoyed the humor, especially the fact that four men wasn't enough to carry the coffin.  Maybe six wouldn't even be enough and eight would be necessary.  It is important to set the comedic tone early for a longer work based on this premise.  The snide comments about the buffet are classic.  I can totally picture a guy in his 50's bitching about the new 'lazy' generation.

-Bob

Thanks for the review Bob,

I am currently trying to extend this, and a buffet scene will be included. I am though torn as to whether to extend this too much, a longer short a feature?

I think I have enough to continue the story, the chase, the buffet, the family, the dad's backstory maybe...

Hopefully I will have an extended version posted in the next few weeks.

Anyway cheers mate.

Hi Alffy,,

I did like it, but as everyone said there are a lot of things missing. What bothered me the most is the fact that David has an erection just by looking at the girl. I was expecting for some fantasy dream where he could shag the girl in front of everyone against the coffin, the coffin falls and breaks and they realize this is not the right corpse, etc...

A weird reaction from the auntie seeing (or feeeling) the erection would be worthless IMO

A good one anyway

Michel 8)

Thanks for the read Michel

I'm currently expanding this and hope to have it up soon.

I was hoping the whole erection thing to be more of a 'is it or isn't it' type arguement.  Meaning, does aunty judith press up against his erection or is simply his mp3 player in his pocket.  This has a double meaning I guess, maybe he has a big stiff or not?

I may clear this up in the rewrite though.  Either change the mp3 player to something bigger or drop the question altogether.

hey Anthony,

I just gave this a gander. by the title I should have guessed what this was REALLY about......LOL

This was a funny story. Your descriptions were good and the dialogue worked as well.

There was some big laughs and you set up the punchline to your story quite well.

Not much else to say that hasn't been already said.

anyways good job :)

Thanks for the read Jordan.

Glad you liked it.

Hey guys the extended version is now up if anyones interested in giving it a read?

I finally got the chance to read it and I enjoyed it alot. The interaction with David and Trevor was very funny and like what many have said earlier, the title fits the punchline very well.

The dialogue was fine and I could picture how the characters would say their lines in my head. There were some parts in the descriptions/actions that could be shorten and still get the desired effect, but those were touch on by other people.

Again, awesome story.

Thanks for the comments Raven4000 glad you liked it. I hoped the dialogie would seem natural and I know I do sometimes overwrite the descriptions.

Anywho glad you found it funny, I'll give your script a read and leave some feedback.

Hey Alffy! Thanks for the review of Zest.
Let's start my review:
GRAMMAR/FORMAT
As far as I could tell, format was done perfectly. With grammar, you missed a few question marks at the end of sentences and commas etc. That could be go back and redone.
SPOILERS
STORY/CHARACTERS
Not much is said about the characters. I wasn't sure that Trevor was David's dad until the description said that. I wasn't sure what the main plot was. Was it Trevor being afraid of the Aunt after he slept with er? Was it David trying to get with Sarah (his supposed cousin (?))? The punchline of the short seemed too small for the script. There was seventeen pages of build up for that joke? But then again, there as alot of much smaller jokes before that, and I wasn't expecting a punchline as the script ittself was funny enough.
OVERALL
I think you have a nice script here with some funny dry humour and good dialogue. My main problem is with the punchline thing. I also think the script was too short for it's setup.

Bigwhoop :)

Cheers for the read Bigwhoop.

Maybe my characters could do with filling out a bit, this started as a 7 page short and I extended the story without really extending the characters.

As for the punchline, well it originally ended at the church when the punchline had more...well punch lol. I tried to keep that when I extended which is the reason for the second time round punchline.

Glad you found it funny though, this is what I wanted. I tried to keep the dialogue natural and awkward.

thanks again for the read.

Hey alffy,

This was pretty good though it doesn't feel complete. It feels like the opening of one of those movies where the guy meets the girl at an unusual place: wedding, funeral, baptism, etc. You can flesh this out more and break up the Trevor/David dialogue by giving us snippets of what that evening has been like for her. Don't let her lose her mystery, but have people she doesn't know talk to her.

Anyway, nice job.

Dethan

Hey alffy.

** Spoilers **
Overall this was much better than the first version but it still has a couple of issues. Your dialogue was good and you have fleshed out a story to hang your jokes on.  I liked the glasses joke at the funeral and then the reversal of it at the end -  excellently executed.

My comments are:

I think you take a too much time to get into the story.  The first page is precious something more interesting than the MP3 player needs to happen.

You spend way to much time having David fuss with the MP3 player.  Edit your lengthy descriptions.  We don't need to know where he sticks it - it doesn't have anything to do with the story.  The glasses case are a different thing entirely, we care where he sticks it.

Why is his father complaining that the glasses case weighs his pants down if he keeps it in his jacket pocket?

I want to know what Aunty Judith suggested.  Oh. I think I see what she suggested. In that case I find it difficult to believe his father would so easily volunteer that.

Some of your CAPS are strange.  SURPRISE - EYES WIDEN?  What's with that?

I don't think Trevor should so easily confess to his son that he slept with the Aunt.  For some reason this just does not ring true to me.  David should work for this information and perhaps discover it himself.  Perhaps a conversation with Aunty Judith.  Or maybe his father eludes to it. Maybe David jokes about it and his father wonders how he knew. It would not be confessed that easily.

The whole YOUNG BOY thing - while interesting and setting the scene - is begging to be a joke.  Make something funny happen with the young boy.  Spanking isn't funny.

The FRANK thing needs to be slugged as a happening in the past.  I stopped here for a while because I couldn't figure out when it was happening.  Also I had forgotten about Frank and since you dont describe him near this scene I couldn't determine if you were implying he took the lottery ticket.  I had to backtrack all the way to the begining to find his description and even after reading his description I still can't tell if he took the lottery ticket.  You need to make this clearer.  I'm not saying you have to state it outright but you need to give better visual clues that imply Frank took the ticket.

I think Trevors fling with Judith should somehow figure into David's justification for pursuing Sarah.  He should have more guilt about being attracted to Sarah until after he learns about his Dad's fling and then it should be full steam ahead.  I'm not certain how you might approach this but I think it would add depth to the story.

Anyway, good work.  You are certainly improving as a writer and storyteller.

Thanks for the read Dethan,

I've extended this once and I might, in the future, do it again.  At the moment though I'm working on a feature so this is on hold.  thanks for the review.

Mcornetto,

The mp3 player part was originally the whole bulge in the trousers but I changed it and so I could remove the description about that.

Glasses in the jacket pocket?  oops bit of a boob there then, I'll sort this out.

Trevor confesses too easily?  Maybe I can have Trevor confess later after having a few drinks at the buffet.

Glad you commented on the Frank situation, if you find this hard to follow I'll redo it.  I thought it would be a nice funny side to the story, sorry if it wasn't clear enough.  Again I'll work on this.

Your comments are welcomed and I'll probably do one more rewite, trying to incorporate all the suggestions I've had.  Hopefully I can tie them in properly this time lol.

I thank everyone for reading this.

Great story

It was a bit of a tease. This would make one helluvah feature. I'm new to the sight and yours was the first thing I read. Keep it up and think about expanding it mate!

One step ahead of ya there, I'm just finishing off a rewrite which does expand it slightly. Hopefully it'll be done by next week.

Anyway thanks for the read Tony.

Well another draft is up. Again I've filled it out a bit more providing a bit more to the characters.

If anyone fancies a read, I'll repay the offer.

allfy,

For the most part your descriptions were really good, they conveyed the action without overdoing it...just one of them was too much though, the food "jumps" off the plate on pg. 13
think you meant to write "happened" instead of happen, pg. 4.
David's father xmas line was great...also the guys legs buckling when they take the coffin out was really funny.
Not sure if you could add a little more description to Judith, besides being overweight, maybe she has something extra unappealing to her that would make her even less desireable.
The flashback with the lotto ticket was perfectly described.
I had never read your original version of this so I can't comment on the difference between the two, but overall it was entertaing and well paced. While some of the jokes worked better than others, they all still worked, none of them bombed. Plus having the little visual jokes with the coffin, the legs buckling and the stand at the church was well thought out.

I rember I actually read half of this a while ago but never got around to finish it. So I shall give it a complete read & review now that it's a new draft.

You have several punctuation mistakes scattered throughout the script, along with some flat dialogue. The funny bits work well but I cannot picture someone saying to himself something like "Oh, Bugger, looks like I've had a bit of an accident." to himself, or a guy in his mid-twenties saying "what have you done" when that line doen't match at all with the rest of his witty dialogue. It sounds unnatural, something a robot would say compared to the jokes he makes.

Most of the jokes were funny, but it was extra hilarious when Aunt Judith confused the glasses case with David's--ahem--big stiff. And I almost choked on some juice I was drinking when David's dad said he slept with Judith just like David choked on his sandwhich. Bad mental image :S. ?

The guy's death was hilarious too, even though it was, well, a death. I laughed a lot throughout this script, so I could easily get past the grammatical errors.

I did think the flashbacks were overdone, though. There were way too many of them for 25 pages. Some of them were even back-to-back, which got annoying after a while.

All in all, the script had faults, but it was highly enjoyable regardless.

Thanks guys,

n7 glad you liked it. Thanks for pointing out the mistakes, I don't know I've read this over many times and somehow I still manage to miss some.

J. Gomez, yeah I included a lot of flashbacks but I wanted to show some background of the characters, maybe I over did it? The dailogue you refer to as seeming strange is maybe just a geographical difference, 'oh bugger' is a very northern english thing and the 'what have you done' was meant to sound very sarcastic.

Thanks for the pointers everyone, this script has grown from a 7 pager to 25 pages mainly down to suggestions from you guys so I do have to thank everyone.

Hello Anthony, I read your screenplay, and I don't have too much to say about it other than it was 'entertaining'. The dialogue between the father and son was great, it had me laughing out loud at times.

I also feel like I really got to know who they both were, which is a superb job you have completed.

The best part for me was the bulge in his pocket, the punch line was probably one of the funniest I have read in my few years of writing.

Other than that, there's not much to say about it.

Great job!

Thanks for the read Stigmata, I'll keep my eyes open for when you submit something and I'll give it read for you.

hi, don't know if you still work on this but i thought i'd give it a read. i thought it was whimiscal and light and had funny parts. i felt the opening scenes could be trimmed because the conversations go on for a while. some of the flashbacks were funny, but others didn't really pay off exactly. the big issue for me though is the lack of change. an essential part of any story is that there needs to be a change from the beginning of the story to the end, and i didn't really feel that the characters had been changed. i guess he knows his dad slept with his aunt, but other than that, there really hasn't been a dramatic change that the plot took them on, so i feel for 25 pages, more needs to happen. you have comedic parts, i just think it would be stronger if they led to a bigger payoff

Thanks for the read dkw208

I haven't looked at this for a while but I have thought of rewriting it sometime. It was one of my first scripts and at the time was happy with it but I think I could improve it now. You're right about the characters, It started as an 8 pager and then grew through 2 or 3 rewrites but I mainly worked on the comedy so I guess I overlooked the character arcs a bit.

I've got a couple of features to read for people at the mo but if you want me to check out one of your scripts let me know and I'll get round to it next week.

yeah, if you could take a look at 'canyon lake' for me, that would be helpful. thanks

Hey alffy, There was some good set piece gags in this, reminded of the imbetweeners in the dialogue. The David story was a bit weaker than the the father's story and i liked the flashback. I got the feeling before she was interupted by David that Sarah was about to mention she was a lesbian?

SARAH
Yeah, I thought you had a...you
know. And that would have been
weird cos we�re probably related
and also I�m...

Hey Richard thanks for the read, this is a real oldie and one of the first scripts I wrote. It's kinda strange reading them after so long! Anywho thanks for the read and your thoughts mate.

It had a good ending but with a good setup..
But, you can streamline and improve your writing even more
-a little wordy, needs more emmotion, and the dialog is
on the nose ,ect..

EX:
The sun shines in a pure blue sky.
A group of PEOPLE, all dressed in black, are gathered
outside the church.
could be written as:
On a sunny day, a group of PEOPLE, dressed in black; solemnly stand outside
the church.

EX:
Among them is DAVID, he is in his late twenties, average
build with short spiky hair. He stands with his hands deep
in his trouser pockets and bounces on his toes.
Sould be written as:
Among them is David (late 20s), average biuld with short spiky
hair, stands with his hands deep in his trouser pockets while
bouncing his toes.

EX (on the nose dialog and too wordy):
TREVOR
Do you have to listen to that
now, son?
Should be written as:
TREVOR
Show some respect.

EX:
DAVID
What, why can�t you keep hold of
them?
Sould be written as:
What, why?

Michael David..

Hey Michael, thanks for reading this oldie of mine. Actually I think it was the second script I ever wrote?

I was contacted about this earlier in the year and really thought it was going to be produced. The guy wanted to shoot it in its entirety so wanted some funding but unfortunately didn't raise enough so it's currently on the back burner. He does still seem keen to come back to it at some point but when, I don't know and I won't hold my breath. Anyway, I realised that I didn't have the current draft on SS so submitted it.

Thanks again for checking this out and it could do with a touch up but I doubt I will go back to this.

So I was contacted twice last year about this script, one to shoot the whole thing and one for a few scenes.

The guy who wanted to shoot the entire script unfortunately couldn't raise the funds he wanted and so it's on the back burner, for how long....who knows lol.

Here's the scene that was produced by a film student called Tiara Coleman. She informed me that one of her actors, who was to play Trevor, let her down on the day so only one scene was shot and I'm guessing that's why Trevor doesn't show up at the end of the scene, oh well.

Anyway here it is.

Good for you Anthony! ;D

And they got your writer credit correct to boot.
Well, you're way ahead of the game already with that one!

Socializing on gloomy occasions always provides nice contention.
So good call on subject matter too.

Always a pleasure to see new content from SS lifers! ;D

Regards,
E.D.

Cheers brett.

Yeah, at least I got a credit:)

I was a bit disappointed when the guy who wanted to shoot it in full backed out as he couldn't get enough funding. At 30 minutes it would have been a big deal for me but hey ho I'll stay positive that he might come back to it.

So Anthony, first of all, I'm glad this script got pushed back to the top.  I read it over the last couple of days and thoroughly enjoyed it.  To me, this reads almost like an episode of Arrested Development.  A lot of Jason Bateman/Michael Cera type of dialogue going on.  I could even see this is as a potential pilot for a comedy series.  You certainly have a knack (and eye) for comedy.  Maybe some things are a bit overdone, like the series of flashbacks toward the end, but that's minor stuff to me.  Probably one of the best pieces I've read in my short time on this site.

Not sure if you were writing for a British audience, but the uses of "mum," "git," "rabbit on", "hoover" etc. sort of stand out.  They don't bother me (I use to live in London for awhile, so I'm a big fan of UK television, especially comedies), but for others it might be a stretch.

Just some grammatical glitches here and there:

P. 18 "wrinkled skin hangs lose" s/b loose

P. 22  "your not happy" and "your gonna rabbit on" s/b you're in both cases.

I was hoping Sarah would have more of a role and there could be more interaction between she and David earlier, so when the big moment comes at the end, there's more of a payoff.  But hey! Make it into a series and there's always time to develop her character, right?

Again, great job!

Gary