Prison Scope by Jonah Black (d-fender) - Short, Drama - John Doyle sits in a cell in the Preston E. Smith Prison Unit out the fate that has been dealt to him by misdemeanor. In the sheer will to reconcile his past with his newly found clarity, John explores the memory of his life prior to his iniquitous act. In doing so maybe he can find some redemption. - doc, format 8)

sorry but I couldn't get farther then page 2, the formatting needs work.

This is a bit of a puzzle. Who is the man that shares John's face? Is it John himself? Does he, in "exploring the memory" reconstruct the "instance of misbehavior", the misdeed in a way that allows him redemption? This would be interesting... but there is a car following him. Is it his twin?  WHO IS IT?! : )

Hi, the formatting issue and poor action/dialogue made me want to stop reading but I carried on. The dialogue reads very boring and on the nose early on.
Once John flips it really improves as a story, but again the formatting lets you down. Is the man sharing his face meant to symbolise his inner turmoil about what he's done? If he could go back he would have stopped what he was doing? As I'm presuming that it's a flashback yeah?

A decent idea but very poorly executed sorry.

This tried to have a really psychological twist at the end but I think it wound up provoking more questions.  Was this all in John's head?  Maybe, since he's in prison, his whole crime is replaying in his head, and then just as he's about to commit it, he sees himself.  Is that really what he wants to do?  Who knows.  That was just my interpretation of it anyway.  I think you tried for something deep but I don't know if it necessarily worked.  I think you're pretty new to the screenwriting gig, so just keep at it.  First thing you gotta do is look up some formatting tips.  Good luck to ya.

I'm with Greg when it comes to knowing that this author is new to screenwriting, so I won't be too harsh.

All I have to say is that you need to take a look at formatting. It was way off. I was going to stop reading because of it, and partly because I was confused at what I was reading, but I continued on. My question is who the man who shared John's face was? Like what other people said, could it have been a possibility that he imagined the whole fight with himself (like, good versus evil?), or maybe multiple personalities? This does need work, and hopefully you can make this better.

Oh, also, don't use camera directions and stuff like that unless you plan to film this.

Sean

  Had to reread this one.
  Technical concerns aside, it is hard to read. I'm still trying to figure out why. I'm constantly pulled out of the story.

an example.
"John you seen what these boys have done to the struts on east pillar?"

  Is this accent? typo? Is it the East Pillar or it it "East Pillar".
  
  It probably doesn't matter... but it makes it difficult to read.

First of all thanks for taking the time, and having the patience, to read the script past its technical inaccuracies.

Secondly, yes, I am very new to the process and submitted it here without really reading through it out of fear i may chicken out! :P

To the questions!

The story was an allegory for what christian theology calls baptism- where the old ways are put away and a new man is 'reborn' by the baptism of water.

In prison John re-enters his past as his guilt and want for redemption is so powerful that he is able to change the events.

He works within this past world ( follows himself to the diner, trails himself in a car) to find himself and stops himself from committing the act that had placed him in 'prison'.

However, he waits until the final moment because the 'choice' of the action to kill or not was still there. He drowns himself and leaves.

In 'killing' his old ways he is given 'freedom' - symbolised in him opening his eyes at the end and seeing only blue sky- he is no longer 'inprisoned'

Ariel-
Thanks for reading it- the man with John's face was John.
Zombie-
thank you for your constructive crits- and i have improved the idea  (i hope)
Greg-
i don't see anything wrong with leaving an audience guessing and finding their own interpretation within the context. You seemed to have grasped what i was going for even with the stinky formatting! :P
Stebrown-
thanks- i have hopefully improved my execution for future entries
Cybercelt-
yes that was a typo- and no i dont think it was integral to the story.
thanks anyway, i know how difficult it is to stay in flow when things like that keep tripping you up.
BPeterson-
i think i will miss you most of all!- Hopefully i can do better in future competitions and have you stay around past knowing the title! :P

Psi

Quoted from Psi BPeterson- i think i will miss you most of all!- Hopefully i can do better in future competitions and have you stay around past knowing the title! :P

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be harsh at all but with 30+ entries to choose from, the formatting automatically turned me away and made me invest my time elsewhere. I've said this many times but I truly stand by this: once a writer gets comfortable with formatting, he/she will become a lot more confident with their writing and it will show. If you seriously want to get into screenwriting, do some reading and research and you'll be an ace in no time. Don't let one man's opinion deter you from your aspirations.