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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board  /  October, 2010 One Week Challenge  /  Turned - OWC
Posted by: Don, October 16th, 2010, 10:37pm
Turned by Kenneth P Matovu - Short, Horror - She is determined to stay alive to see her 18th birthday but will the 'Things' let her.  It's a story about a night a family is killed by cannibals called the 'Things'. - pdf, format 8)
Posted by: TheUsualSuspect, October 16th, 2010, 11:49pm; Reply: 1
I read this because the log line was interesting and no one had commented on this yet.

Now, I can't be one to say this because my script was full of grammar and spelling errors but this one was particularly hard to get through because it was extremely hard to get a sense of where I was. The writing was messy and it seemed fragmented. Spelling errors everywhere, I nearly stopped reading.

I didn't get it because it felt like it was going in too many weird directions. I didn't care about her birthday, which is only mentioned twice and never seems important. The Things were never there nor scary. The 80's ending seemed weird and obvious at the same time. You also give away the ending in your log line. What for?

I didn't get this script because it was too hard to follow.

Sorry.
Posted by: DarrenJamesSeeley, October 16th, 2010, 11:58pm; Reply: 2
I want to be a good guy.
I want to play nice and fair.
I want to....I want...

I'm sorry. I cant. I understand it was a OWC. I know it wasn't an easy task to come up with a story, characters, ideas. But during the week, if you'll see that ol' thread, you'll notice, Ken, that some people went back for whatever reason and rewrote stuff. Could have been one or two words. Could have been a complete makeover.

Your submission needs the makeover.

First, knock out the WE SEEs and the WE HEARs.  In darkness, you can even write 'a scream' without the 'we hear' for, in essence, we do hear it. You can show me Jessica in fear for her life. In essence, "we" already "see" that. It's redundant. Some might even argue camera direction. I wouldn't hold them to account if they did.

Countless grammar and spelling errors litter the read. But there's a bigger problem. I'll list some of them:


Compassion must have over come her terror.

Anymore questions?

Grandpa does not move. Of course he can’t move, he is lame.


These are  internal, not external. You can't really "film" it. I can't see that. In the latter two examples, you're actually bringing me out by asking me questions and breaking a fourth wall.


Jessica is out of words or she just can’t find a good way to phrase the ones she got.


Choose one or the other. I can't choose for you. Just say, "Jessica stutters:" that , or something like that might work better. Don't be indecisive about a character's actions. You have to show me those actions. Don't ask the reader to guess.

You can improve. This sort of task wasn't easy. We all err at one point or another. But readers are going to notice these things, and if this was a full length, they probably wouldn't even get to the characters. Who, by the way, I felt were paper-thin. Who's Carol, and what's she doing with an offscreen-line? (Challenge called for three characters, two guys, one lady)

I know this may sound a bit harsh, but this is a rough draft of a OWC. I suppose one could make a case that most OWC's are, but we can also make a case that scribes took time, even a little bit of it, to make the quick script even better.

Keep writing
-DjS
Posted by: greg, October 17th, 2010, 12:23am; Reply: 3
Kenneth,

This was rough.  The grammar in here is so horrid that this is a beast to read and I honestly couldn't tell you what was going on.  I think there may be a good story in there somewhere, but I was so put off by the sentence structure (or lack thereof), typos, grammar, and punctuation that I couldn't get into it.  From beginning to end it was tough.  

Sorry.

Greg
Posted by: Electric Dreamer, October 17th, 2010, 10:08am; Reply: 4
Kenneth,

Congrats on completing the challenge.
I will try an not repeat others sentiments.
I'm sorry to say I could not get past all the grammar errors here.
This piece definitely needs some extensive spell checking.
I had a hard time reading through your sentence structure.
Perhaps looking through some professional scripts would help you out.
Best of luck and thanks for posting. Sorry I have nothing else nice to say.

Regards,
E.D.
Posted by: screenrider (Guest), October 17th, 2010, 2:02pm; Reply: 5
Keep trying.   Read other scripts, good ones.  Study them.  Mimic them.

You'll get it.   Just takes practice.  
Posted by: Dreamscale (Guest), October 17th, 2010, 6:37pm; Reply: 6
Wow!  Maybe a new level of terrible...or a pisser.  Hard to say really, but since there doesn't seem to be any attempt at humor, I have to assume it's a serious entry.

Kenneth, I don't know what to say, other than start reading all the scripts and books on writing you can get your hands on.

There are most likely well over 100 mistakes within these few pages...maybe over 200 even.  Shocking...downright shocking.

Don't give up though.  Keep at it.
Posted by: Baltis. (Guest), October 18th, 2010, 12:01am; Reply: 7
Out of the 17 scripts I've read and commented on so far this, sadly, is the worst of the bunch.  It's not that it's all out a bad idea... Other than it kind of is.  But it's just a lack of structure and pace.  It's how everything kind of blends together.  

Don't get me wrong, there are worse movies being made right now.  Believe me, there is.  But the dialog is stiff here.  The characters are rather flat.  I just, I hate to be like this because I know you put effort into it and tried to get it in on a deadline.  I just feel you didn't take it 100% serious and thus cared little about the time others were going to be spending on reading it.  

And, again, I've read a couple scripts in this challenge that I felt the author just shot it out and didn't think twice about it.   It's all I got, man.  I'm sorry.
Posted by: KennethP (Guest), October 26th, 2010, 1:03am; Reply: 8
Hi,
First I want say thank you all guys for those comments. I really appreciate the fact that you all sacrificed sometime to read this and from the way things look you're all disappointed in me. So I really apologize for that.
This is not my best work but it is a very special script for me because it is the second of my work that someone who is not me has read, and again I really thank you for that.
It really was not my intention to take you guys for granted. I got the email of the OWC from a friend on the real deadline, which was a busy day for me, but i was too excited so i rushed into it to try my luck, luckily here in Africa we are sort of in the future so I had some few hour to write something. I did not have enough time to read through and my grammar is not that one would call good, it requires sometime of revision for me to perfect it. And all this is not an excuse by the way, it's an explanation, am hoping it would help you all understand that my intention was not to waste your time.
Lastly I learnt a lot from the comments;"New level of terrible", "WE HEARs, WE SEEs", "This was rough", which is a good thing because now I know where I fall and what i need to put more emphasis on.
This was really helpful and I promise the next chance I get I will surprise all of you all.
Thanks a lot guys.
Kenneth
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