See Jane Crack by Julie  Howe (jho) - Short - Everybody has a breaking point; even mild, mannered suburban mom, JANE BELOFSKY, 40. When holiday pressures build, Jane takes matters into her own hands in order to save her own sanity. A darkly funny look at the therapeutic benefits of "losing it."15 pages - pdf, format 8)

Quoted Text lawns are adored with holiday decor.

I assume you mean "adorned" - typo

Quoted Text Hey, how about one of those Chia thing?

Do you mean Chia "things"? (plural) - typo

Quoted Text One false move could mean a tsunami of holiday cheer and she takes no chances

The "tsunami of holiday cheer" is a great line.

Quoted Text With every step the top boxes threaten to abandon ship.

Another great line

The action in Jane's Living Room at the start of page 3 is 9 lines long.  The golden rule is a max of 4 lines.  I would try cleaning that up a little or maybe breaking into 2 graphs.

Quoted Text She plug in the giant orb.

should be "plugs" - typo

Quoted Text As she creeps long,

as she creeps "along" - typo

Quoted Text She put on her turn signal,

"puts" - typo

Quoted Text As she stuff the money

"stuffs" - typo

Quoted Text Jane arrives at her car spent and out of breath. In crude capital letters in the grit covering her back window, someone has written: FUCK. Jane calmly removes a tissue from her purse and erases the offending sentiment. We rise high into the perfect blue Southern California sky, where it never snows, not even on Christmas and back down again on the familiar suburban street where Jane lives.

You need a new scene heading here.

Quoted Text He spring from the couch

"springs" - typo

You write comedy really well.  Your descriptions are vivid and humorous.  My only suggestion is to tighten up a little.  Some of your action paragraphs are a little long.  I already pointed out one example.

Watch your typos.  I pointed out several, but there were more.

The ending was strange, not at all what I expected.  I liked the "if I can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude.

Overall, a real good read.  Thanks for the post.

Thanks for reading my story and for pointing out the typos!  This is my nemesis as I have the patience of an amorous rabbit.  How does one correct these offending mistakes?  I'm new at this.  Any insight is greatly appreciated!!

Quoted from howejulie Thanks for reading my story and for pointing out the typos!  How does one correct these offending mistakes?

Print your work out on paper -- a computer screen is no good -- then read it aloud to yourself.

Works like a charm.  You'll be amazed.

Another tip is to read backwards.

I personally prefer to read all the even letters followed by all the odd letters.  Much like a television.

And now for a quick review.  It wasn't bad.  You did quite well on the main character, you put a lot of obstacles in her way but she remained likeable - that's a big achievement. Matter of fact most of your characters were pretty good and they had dialogue to match.

Now for the issues I had with it.

First off there were enough typos for me to mention that there were typos.
There were also a couple of scene heading issues...I think in a number of places you could have used LATER just to make the time clearer.

But the main issue I had with this was Jane cracking - It didn't satisfy me.  I spent the whole story waiting for it and when it happened it just wasn't enough.  Besides that I think you let the story fall flat just before it happened so not only was it too little cracking it was without a valid reason.

You  built up the story really well until the family Christmas and then there wasn't enough conflict there for Jane to crack about. I can see what you were going for, they weren't having the Christmas she had hoped for and so she burnt the tree.  But she really needs to verbalise that and loudly. Have her family give her more of a problem.  Have her scream shrilly at her family and get them all worried about her then have her burn the tree once she is at her highest energy output level.  You need to build this up to a fever pitch then have her lose it.

And the subplot about the Chia pet should go.  It doesn't really add anything to the story.

Hope this helps,

Michael

Hi Julie, welcome to Simply Scripts!

I think the typo's and slugline issues have been covered well enough already so no need to go into them now. I want to try and split the script into 2 parts if I can, the writing and the story.

First off the writing, I must say I really like your writing, some of your descriptions were really great and think they are probably the best thing about the script. It is so nice reading a script that injects some humor and personality into the action. The issue you may face is that depending on is giving the advice this can be a good thing or considered a big no no. Even though you are new to Simply Scripts I guess from your writing that you are not new to writing scripts so there is a high chance you know much more than me anyway and have probably stumbled across such criticism but my honest answer is that I still don't have a clue - advice on sites such as this do sometimes contradict each other so it is probably best to do as you do until something happens that makes you think otherwise. But In places  found some of your action a little bit too tell'y and not enough showy - if you get what I mean, but the fact that you wrote it in such an entertaining way certainly helps make up for it.

The story I was not too keen on, It was Interesting enough to begin with and I was eager to see how the breakdown panned out but was left disappointed. To be fair I was starting to lose interest before then anyway, there just did not seem to be enough conflict or interesting developments for me. I think it probably needs a real conflict of some description to set the ball rolling towards the climax. But this might just be me.

Overall It was a great script really, well written, engaging character and dialogue just the story never really worked for me.

Thanks for sharing it,

Regards Murph

PS - Not sure you really want to be putting your home address and phone number on the front cover, your email address is probably enough for anyone to contact you. It is fine I guess for sending out spec scripts but for a public web forum I would say no chance, be careful about your personal data!! - you should probably resubmit one and ask for someone to replace it.

Thanks for your feedback!  I appreciate the time you took to offer your thoughts.

About the conflict... any suggestions??  My goal was to show this really mild mannered woman who does something very out of character yet somewhat benign.  Her family is clueless.  You mentioned more conflict.  As in conflict with her husband?  Her kid?  Or maybe she's just more verbal in her meltdown??  Mcornetto also mentioned this.

I've gone through it to correct the numerous typos.  Thanks to all who offered suggestions.  I have also taken your advice and others with regard to overwriting the descriptions.  I've tightened them up quite a bit.

Now I want to repost it but don't know how to get rid of the other one.  Does anyone know how to do this?  

Thanks again to everyone!!  

Quoted from howejulie Now I want to repost it but don't know how to get rid of the other one.  Does anyone know how to do this?

You can submit a revised version the same way you did the original, and when Don uploads it he'll just overwrite the older draft.

Thanks so much!  I'm glad to know I have a second chance.