The Stranger by Stephen Brown - Short, Action - A young Australian woman works at a bar. A strange man has been in for the last 3 nights without saying a word. Finally tonight she finds out what he wants. 4 pages - doc, format 8)

Hey Stephen,

I didn't like this very much.

Format was decent, although it could definetly be improved. You really need to trim your descriptions. In screenwriting, less is more.

The ending made NO sense to me. The Stranger, who Kate didn't recognize what-so-ever was her father the entire time? Then, after her father dies(suicide?... heart attack?), Kate decides to burn the place down?! What the hell is going on?

Sorry man, but I didn't understand this.

~Zack~

OK, this was an odd little short.

Your formatting was all right, but improvment is needed. You should get yourself a good writing program. If you're just starting out, then I suggest Celtx. It's free to download and easy as anything to use.

I agree with Zack about the ending. It came completely out of nowhere, and not in the good way. I think it's good that you tried to set it up earlier -- with Kate expressing her exasperation for owning the bar and wanting to give it up -- but it's not enough of a set up for her to suddenly burn the place to the ground. A little more padding would benefit the script greatly.

I didn't get this script either. But I think you've got a good idea for a short here. Extend it. Maybe you could have her recognise her father before she dies, and they talk, or have a fight or something. I don't know, but there's a solid idea here, you just need better execution. Keep trying and good luck. ;D


Matt.

Hi, thanks for your comments. I am using Celtx but Don asked me to change it onto word as not enough people know it. Got lazy and just pasted it onto a word doc, sorry.
The old man isn't her father, hence her not recognising him. Don't know exactly who he is but for some reason he has a note from him. What is said in the note leads her to panic and torch the bar including the old man. Maybe her father isn't dead and there's something i nthe bar that needs to be destroyed?
I'm working with someone else and his idea was to send each other 3 ideas and to write a scene based on the other persons idea. I maybe tried to fit too much of a story in too short a script, because I accept it isn't explained very well. I went for a kinda Shining sort of leave it upto the viewer to make up their own mind, but it's probably too short. I'll pad it out a bit more and resubmit.

Stephen,

We've got problems here.

Quoted from stebrown The old man isn't her father, hence her not recognising him. Don't know exactly who he is but for some reason he has a note from him.

Say what?  Stephen, you're the writer.  If you don't know, then how are we supposed to know what is going on?

Quoted from stebrown What is said in the note leads her to panic and torch the bar including the old man. Maybe her father isn't dead and there's something i nthe bar that needs to be destroyed?

If that note causes her to lose it and torch everything, then we have to know what's in the note.  Because her actions are way too crazy to figure out.
Instead of the note, can't the old guy just tell her what he needs to say?  Because we need to get this information so we understand why.

Quoted from stebrown I went for a kinda Shining sort of leave it upto the viewer to make up their own mind, but it's probably too short. I'll pad it out a bit more and resubmit.

Yikes, don't do this.  Don't mess around with "leaving it the viewers to draw their own conclusions."  "At this point in your writing, you need to practice good techniques.  Keep this simple and concise.  Know your characters, your story and come up with a logical ending.  

OK, before I read your reply, the following is what I had written.

Stephen,

Your story falls short as is, but could succeed if re-worked.  Know your story.
Some grammar problems -- Pg. 1,

Quoted from stebrown KATE, a once pretty girl is standing behind the bar chatting to one of the two customers

An age of Kate would be nice.  How about if she's working as she is chatting.  Should be chatting with rather than chatting to.
The contradiction here is that you tell us she was once a pretty girl and then Customer 1 says, "you're still young... "  This is why giving us a general ballpark age would be helpful.

Quoted from stebrown Looking up at her customer with a sense of pessimism far beyond her years.

How do you show this?
Why doesn't her dad speak to her?  Maybe he should try to make contact, but gets cold feet.  I think by dad doing the same thing three nights in a row is baffling.  
I too didn't get what's going on with Kate.  The old guy dies and she takes his key, then quickly gets some vodka and pours it on the dead guy's body. Sets him on fire, which leads to the burning of the bar.  Kate runs out, right?  What's that about.  What's in the letter??
It would be better if the old guy approaches her outside, maybe to give her the letter.  But Kate's friend Barry intervenes and beats the old guy to death.  What you have here lacks conflict.  Kate complains about the old guy and then he dies.  
I dunno.  Work on this and see what logical spins you can come up with.

Your formatting tends to go off kilter with regards to character dialog.  The speaker is too far to the left and should not end with a period.  Dialog runs too far to the right.  Check out some good scripts, written by good writers.  Take a look at the members with the most posts at SS.  Most if not all of those writers understand good formatting.

Keep writing, absorb feedback and good luck.

Abe

Thanks Abe for taking the time for your comments, will take them on board.
How about if I add a following scene where she meets/telephones her father and this explains what has been said in the note?
I was really interested in getting feedback, just to see where I was starting out from. So the two scripts I've submitted have been 1st drafts. Also really this script is more a couple of scenes from a feature script - see my reply above regarding the idea my friend had. I'll definately resubmit this after a lot of revision and hopefully will be able to get more of a plot across.
As for the Shining idea, I just really love that movie.

Hey Ste

I gotta agree with the other posts here, not really getting it.  

You built up a good mystery situation but failed to give us a conclusion.  Just left to many questions, who's the man, what did the note say, why is she burning down her bar?  Also where is her dad?

With so many unanswered questions it becomes nothing more than a confusing read.  Expand this and explain more of the characters

If this is a few scenes from a feature, it could explain it's problems but I would suggest you never submit a first draft.  If you submit too many unfinished scripts people won't read your new ones.  

Best off to let a script stew in your head for a while and then read it back to see if it makes sense.  The problem being that you know the background on your characters but we don't so it's easy to assume we know as much as you.

Oh I love the shining too, strangely though as I was reading your script I was listening to a song by 30 seconds to mars called The Kill.  The video to this is a mock of The Shining, very spooky lol.