Tempest of Time by Nema Niroomand (nemo) - Drama - A man who commits acts of euthanasia falls in love with one of his victims. 90 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hi:) I didn't do a thorough read, just kind of skimmed through. You've got quite a bit of black space because your action lines are heavy on the descriptives. It reads more like prose and so a lot of your narratives could be trimmed back.

I was a bit disappointed from the start because you used so much 'we'. Granted, there's a lot of debate about the use of 'we', but I think either way, you went a little overboard with it.

Also, you'll want to tweak your formatting of the dialogue - it should be centered but with wide margins, so it looks like a narrow column of text down the center of the page. That'll add to your page count, making up for some of the trimming of the action lines.

HTH:)

While this is at the top of the portal I'll go ahead and interject something.    Nema you can download Celtix screenwriting software for free.   Highly recommended.  The Word document just doesn't cut it.    Try this: http://celtx.com/

I like the premise of your script, though.   Sounds original.  Marketable.

All the best.

Agreed, the concept is interesting.  Quite, actually.  I'm interested in seeing how it plays out.

But first, as rdhay suggested, you should work on format.  Not just the physicals -- stuff like indentation, the width of dialogue, stuff which can be easily fixed using a screenwriting program (as screenrider pointed out, CeltX is a fine program and is absolutely free).  But also format in regards to what you're writing, the language, the syntax of a screenplay.  

Some for-instances:

When you type (V.O.) by a character's name, you don't need to also include O.S.  While they both indicate a dialogue not being physically spoken by a visible character, they're not the same thing.  VO is a narrative device; the person doing the VO may be in the scene, but we don't actually, physically SEE him doing the talking.  So you're actually using VO correctly.  OS, on the other hand, is dialogue spoken by a character in the scene, but not visible on camera.  The dialogue can only be VO or OS; it can't be both.

Punctuation -- Stuff like separating sentences with a period.  There are a number of instances where you let sentences run into each other.  Gotta work on that.

passive AND progressive verbs (take that, dogglebe!:D ).  Stuff like "is seen," "can be seen," "is doing," "are looking"...these are big no-nos.  Screenplays are told in the present, and require present tense verbs.  "He is looking at such and such" doesn't work.  "He looks at such and such" is the way to go.  

we can see/we see/we are seeing -- no need to tell us that we are looking at something.  We already know we're looking at it, because it's in the screenplay.  "We are watching the clock change time," doesn't work.  Simply right what we're supposed to see, as it happens:  "The clock changes time."  

Watch out for repetition in dialogue and action/descriptions.  One instance that stands out is when a character is asked if there's anything worth stealing and he responds, "Maybe.  There might be."  Either "Maybe" or "There might be."  They mean the same thing; both would be redundant.  

It's very important that you learn the "language" of screenwriting.  One thing you do have going for you is your grasp on the story and what you want to say.  Now you just need to learn how to say it the right way, how to properly execute your tale on the page.

Check out simplyscript's movie scripts page and read all the pro scripts you can get your hands on.  Study format and structure; memorize it.  Internalize it.  Once you've accomplished that, structure and format will be second nature and you'll find yourself writing more efficiently, which in turn makes it easier to focus on your storytelling.

Don't give up.  Keep writing.  Best of luck.

-- Lon