Stuffed Burgers by Keith Lewis - Comedy - A college student is secretly in love with a girl from his class; he later realizes that his crazy boss just so happens to be her step-father. 95 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hi guys.

Congratulations on completing a feature. No mean feat in itself.

Now, I don’t know you and don’t remember seeing you around the boards. If you are new, welcome! Please try to give a little back in reviews. It’s a great way to learn. I don’t know how old you are; with that in mind, here are a few pointers:

The professor is going over Shakespeare’s play, Measure for
Measure. The class is about to end when a girl on the far
left side of the class sneezes. Rashawn, 22, Caucasion is
sitting on the opposite side of class.

Your opening scene is full of mistakes. It’s no good telling us what’s going on. You have to show us.

Your dialogue, or more accurately duologue, is far too clunky and way over the top.

The action scenes need to be kept to four lines or less. If you have to break the four line boundary, make sure it’s absolutely necessary.

Every line and every word needs to move the story forward.

You use exclamation marks like periods.

CUSTOMER 1
This is the worst burger joint
around! How can you turds mess up a
simple order! Is a medium-rare
bacon, mushroom, cheese burger that
hard to make?! What I ordered
wasn’t what I got! What I got was a
pile of manure! Now I want a free
one! And it better be perfect!

Seriously – not a good idea.

Advice:

Don’t rush it. Take your time before posting. Read scripts. As many as you can get your hands on, there are plenty to be had right here.

Get yourself some good screen writing books. If you look in the Sticky section on the discussion boards, you will get good advice on the best ones to buy.

Good luck with  the rewrite.

Thanks for posting the script for and thank you Malcom... by any chance did you read past page 5? I am new here and appreciate the acceptance of my and my friends script to the board. Besides the punctuation errors and everything in the first 3 pgs I would like to know what people think of the story not just the grammatical errors. But thank you anyway.

I understand wanting notes on the story and I was going to give it a shot but I am not into gross out humor and when I got to the pubic hairs in the burger I hit my gross out point. Sorry. There are a few specific format pointers if you want them if not Good Luck. I hope you find someone who's idea of fun this is.

Ok guys, you're absolutely right. I didn't read much more than two or three pages.
Here's why:

Firstly, A great many newcomers just post a single script, then run. Never to be heard from again.

Secondly, the truth can be a bitch to hear.

I try never to be too negative with the newbies. Many of us started with a script just like it and you don't need to be crushed on your first time out. You also need to know, that not everybody sees it like that.

There are two definate ways to get your script read on this site.

1. Is to make it so darn good, no one could stop reading it once they started.

2. Put some work in. Comment! Give critique on others scripts. Most people will return the favour. It also doesn't hurt to introduce yourselves.

Asking someone to take an hour out of their day to read your script and as many as two to three hours giving critique on it, is a lot to ask first time around.

Like I said. "Take your time." Everybody here will help, if you show willing.

If you do manage to get a review, be grateful. Even if it's negative.

Quoted from KLEWIS22 by any chance did you read past page 5? I am new here and appreciate the acceptance of my and my friends script to the board. Besides the punctuation errors and everything in the first 3 pgs I would like to know what people think of the story not just the grammatical errors.

Malcom3 gave you some good advice.  Hang out on boards, give people a chance to get to know you.  We also have a script exchange.  You request someone read your script in exchange to read one of their features.

If you want your readers to get past page three, then give us a reason, and I can't find one.  Having said that... I read the first fifteen.  

Between the both of you, neither bothered to proofread this...?  You want to put your best foot forward and clearly you two didn't do that here.  It's also apparent to me, you haven't read a screenwriting book.  

I'm talking about the basics of formatting.  Bad punctuation... spelling mistakes.

Another mistake and it's common... overwriting descriptions.  It's better to get the stuff out quick -- clean -- and clear.  So before you put this back out on the market... take a look at your scene descriptions.  Be honest and brutal in your assessment.  Less is more.  Less is everything.

I'm at page fifteen and I don't know who's your main character.  Rashawn or Jackson?  If I was to take a guess, it's Rashawn.  So Jackson should be the groovy sidekick.  But instead... there's nothing to distinguish them.  They look the same.   Talk the same.  Same agenda.  Who do we root for?  At this stage in the game... I'm rooting against them.

There's nothing likable about either one... yet.  Just two inmature thugs, thieves.  Most of your audience wont be able to identify with them.  There must be a rhyme to the reason.  Fiction, unlike real life, has to make sense.

Also you need to intercut that phone conversation with Jackson and Taco or use a (V.O.).

"Enters the scene... leaves the scene... enters the scene... leaves the scene.  Cut all that stuff out.

Where are we at?  You keep moving us to different locations but you've got to let us know that.  

Page#3, Rashawn and Jackson are inside the car.  How do we know they're going back to his apartment?  Don't tell us... show us.  When they get to the apartment and go inside.  Missing slugs that should be there.

Page#15, you have Rashawn and Jackson leaving Perry's office, but I never knew we were there.   The good thing here... they got fired.  Okay, fair enough.

And at this point... I'm pullin' a Palin.  

Underneath it all... you might have a decent story here.

Some good books to read...

"How not to write a Screenplay," by Denny Martin Flinn.

"Sreenwriters Bible," by David Trotter.

Read some scripts.

Good Luck,

Ghost

I made it to page 10.  Formatting aside, I just couldn't relate to the characters (nor did I like them) and i just couldn't see where the story was heading.

I believe that 10% of the way through the story, I should either have an idea where the story is taking me and want to keep reading to find out what happens or be so intrigued by the characters that I want to keep reading to find out.  I'm sorry, but I didn't have either with this.

Keep at it.  There were 10 other before Apollo 11.

Thanks everyone for your helpful comments. I really appreciate it. I have a question though, can we update the scripts on this website?

Quoted from KLEWIS22 Thanks everyone for your helpful comments. I really appreciate it. I have a question though, can we update the scripts on this website?

Re-submit and add a note:  updated version.

Good Luck

Ghost

Thank ghostwriter and my boy seen your pic and said its from this godly show called bleach. He said I should check it out... I'm guessing you would recommend watching it too. And I am a first time script writer, my best friend is a director and has movie connections so I figured I'd try my hand at it. I know I'm not good but practice makes perfect and I will revise the script according to all the feedback and update the script. I love this site!!!!!

Quoted from KLEWIS22 I am new here and appreciate the acceptance of my and my friends script to the board. Besides the punctuation errors and everything in the first 3 pgs I would like to know what people think of the story not just the grammatical errors. But thank you anyway.

For me it's not funny in the first 10 pages.  Waiting had the same (but better) food gag.

KLEWIS22

It can work out to be a funny little feature. Try showing us what's happening and  not describing. And cut your 'showing' a little bit, don't let it get too long.

Malcolm gave you some great advices and I can't put much more to it than he said.

Stick around there's many great people around... and yes, practice makes perfect.

I'm new here, and this is my first time I'm commenting on any script.

I only read the first few pages and I already don't like the characters. They sound like a group of immature high school boys, but they are supposed to be university students. I'm in university and in my literature classes there are no boys like in the script.

The log line is good. You start reading the script thinking it's going to funny and charming, but then you get to the gross out pubic hair in the hamburger scene which really put me off reading the script.  

The dialogue is not really believable either, but if it is your first writing attempt, I see the potential though. It's just getting the right tone for your script.