The Truth by Zane Steves (zanej) - Short, Gothic Horror - A young girl moves to a new town. A house haunted by it's past brings up old news that was buried. 10 pages, 5 characters, PG-13 rating - pdf, format 8)

Hi

Too much directions and not much believability. Everything happens too quickly like how Becky and Peter are instantly partners or how Becky finds the Ghost. Also, introduce the characters in the beginning. Granted it's an OWC so I think this can be good once you have time to rewrite it and expand this a bit more.  

Hope this helps,
Gabe

I can see a lot of effort went into this but far too many directions that kept taking me out of the story.  They are heavilly frowned upon in a spec script.
The use of "we see" is also generally a no no, you see this a lot in established writer directors scripts from cameron, darabont, wachowskis, cohens etc but they can get away with writing in crayon on toilet paper cos they are cameron, darabont, wachowskis, cohens etc.
I can tell that you are eager and ambitious and that is good, keep writing and get your story tighter before worrying about transitions.

Right out of the gate, I am slammed with camera directions, we sees, (never needed because we see it anyway) past tense action, padding with armies of CUT TOs. Worse, most of these things are flush right and almot never align with each other.

Turn off the continueds, especially those flush right at bottom and flush left at the top of the page.

You lost me at FLASHBACK, and for what I could gather, the FLASHBACK never ends. Just like what I see and am supposed to follow.

Too serious to be a p-take, it could only be written by someone who is cherry to writing. At least thats what this reads like. Time to visit your local Barnes & Noble, hunt for some of Syd Field's books.

Everyone has touched on the obvious issues so I wont adress them.

The story itself is not too bad.

If this is one of your first efforts, you did very well. I'm actually a bit impressed if it is. If you were to go back to my first script, you would have as much fun with it as everyone else did and for good reason. IT WAS AWFUL!

You have the basic down and you know how to tell a good story. Now work on the finer details and polish your craft.

Good job! Keep writing and I hope to see more of your work here.

Shawn.....><

Hey -

Congrats on finishing the OWC.  I get the feeling that you're a relatively new writer.  Good work, given the short time frame that we have to work with.  :)

A few pointers for future stories:

* You only need to capitalize a character's name once.  After that, it's just written like in everyday use.

* The dashes in your dialog are awkward, and not needed.  Just let it flow.  If you want to have a sentence trail off, use ...  That's easier on the eyes.

* A few of your characters actions were a little un-motivated.  Like why did Becky go into the abandoned house and start playing with her phone?  

* With Peter, you switch from GEEKY KID to PETER.  Better to describe him as Peter from the beginning, rather than switch in mid-story, which could be confusing.

* Honestly, the story was rather complex, everything considered.  (Which is a good thing.)  But the characters are pretty one-dimensional.  Better to cover less ground in a story, but dig deeper into your character's personalities.  How do Peter and Becky cope with losing their parents?  How has it really hit them emotionally?  Stuff like that.

But it's a good start - congrats on the OWC!

This one feels like a transplant from last year’s OWC.
Leave the abandoned house, bring in a ghost and remove the rain.
I could be wrong, but that’s just how felt.
Lots of format and structure issues, but an ambitious effort.
Do a lot more showing and a lot less telling.
Find something small and explore that idea to its fullest.
Thanks for playing OWC.

Regards,
E.D.

The opening page suggests this is going to be packed full of errors so I'm going to try and let them fly and stick to what I feel about the story.
You've got a ghost that's misunderstood. Not much gothic.

I had to pop my head up and read what others have said about this because I was a bit lost for words. I'll agree that you appear new to writing and if so, this is a half decent attempt. Keep working, writing and reading.
All the best,

What kind of location is “moving”?

Obviously Goth? You can drop the obviously. Obviously, we’ll see that.

Way too many directions. This really makes you look like a beginner. There are so many, it almost feels like it’s a transcript of storyboards.

Obviously ignoring - there you go again with the obviously.

Yeah, you really need a format reference. I recommend The Screenwriter’s Bible by David Trottier.

Descriptions are too vague and they read like a shopping list. You need to work on punching them up.

Characters need to be more distinguishable. They often use the same phraseology. And a lot of the dialogue is on the nose.

Did I miss something? Do they know the guy driving the sports car? You should show somehow that that’s Peter’s uncle.

Okay, maybe I missed it but who the heck is the ghost? Just someone completely unrelated to the rest of the story?

Hmm. Yeah, read up on format. I’m presuming you’re new. Not a bad early effort.

Keep writing.


Breanne

Well this kinda fit the challenge, didn't realy feel that gothic, but at least it had elements of it. I could have done without all the camera direction, really takes the reader out. The dialog is a bit clunky, sometimes a bit cringeworthy. The story itself isn't bad, and you were able to push one of these out in a week which is an accomplishment of its own. Good job on finishing the OWC.

I'm really sorry that I couldn't read this one. I'm in between a lot of work right now and I was going to step in and do another read.

Generally speaking, don't use a lot of directions unless you're going to direct it yourself. What I need to see is creativity on the page, some theme and story and just juicy stuff. With all those directions, I feel like some military dude or dudette is shouting at me.

If you rewrite this and want a read. Don't hesitate to P.M. me.

Sandra

Hello Cindy,

Yeah there is a long list of format issues as a starter most of which have been covered by others.

Two fish out of water kids, disturbed pasts, a hidden mystery and a solved crime. Not a bad portfolio for a script.

I would recommend you keep going with this script and use it as a training exercise to get format, characters, dialogue etc all in order.

It has potential.

All the best.

Because this story is told from the teen characters' perspective a feature version of the script could have a good reception from a young audience.  I think the basic elements of an exciting story are here but I suggest  that Becky and Peter bond a little too quickly and they follow that ghost pretty trustingly, too.

For starters, Cindy (if that is your real name), never include camera angles and director's shots in a spec script.  Your job, as the writer, is to tell the story.  By taking out all this stuff--and the we see's this script would be about five pages long.

As I mentioned in another thread, don't describe anything with the word obviously.

Quoted Text We see a fifteen year old female. She is dressed in all black and is obviously GOTH.

Based on the fact that she's wearing all black, she is not necessary goth.  She could be in mourning.  She could be Amish.  She could be considering convent life (a la Winona Ryder in Mermaids).  Don't tell us she's goth; show us!  Make up?  Jewelry?  Fucked-up hair colored with India ink?

The story had no flow to it.  It was all these choppy little scenes, most of which aren't needed.  You need to develop a flow between scenes.  Transition points.

The story was unbelievable.  Girl moves into a new town.  While walking at night, she finds an abandoned but fully furnished house that she casually enters.  She finds a ghost.  The next day, she meets with the son of the ghost.  They visit the house and are led by the ghost to surveillance equipment that still works (the electricity is still running?).  

Maybe if this was feature length and you had the time and the page count to have the girl find all these things, instead of just handing it to her, the story might work.  This script, as it is, is just a bunch of raw ideas and plot points.

I recommend that you read some script to learn about storytelling.  Don't use the OWC scripts for this as they were written under time constraints.

Hope this helps.


Phil

Ummm...not sure what to say here.  If you're a SS vet writing a pisstake, all I can say is well done.  Haha, awesome actually.  This script wins the prize for most Fade Ins, Fade Outs, Cut To:s, POVs, CLOSE ONs and Flashbacks in a single short.  This thing is a piece of work.

But, if you're just getting started, heed the words of all those who posted above.  You really, really need to learn format first.  

Ditto what Ryan said:)

Seriously, though, aside from all the formatting issues that've been mentioned, story-wise, my biggest problem with this one was the pacing. They seem to jump from one stage to the next, to the next, without little or no transition at all. And the dialogue lacked believability, so that only made it seem worse.

Still, you wrote more than I did for this OWC, so good job! :)

Review the format.  That'll make your script that much easier and also chisel about 3 pages off.

A lot of the issues are things that come from a lack of experience, so don't be discouraged.  For example, Becky convinces Peter to investigate the house...at 11 at night?  Why?  Who's the ghost?  Why did the uncle want the parents dead?  Why is there a video monitoring system in the house?  All kinds of questions that need addressing/revising.  

Since I'm pretty sure this is one of your first scripts, it's a good effort.  And it had a happy ending.

Keep writing.

Greg

I don't want to be mean and hammer all the mistakes on display here into your head.

I stopped reading after the first passage, glanced down and saw that it was going to continue throughout the entire script.

As others have brought up, there are mistakes on every line.  As Ryan said, if one didn't know better, this would sure qualify as an awesome pisser, but I know that's not the case.

As I've said before, IMO, an OWC is not the time to attempt screenwriting for the first time. The quality of reads and feedback is not what it is for normally posted scripts.

No offense, but no one wants to read a first time writer's script, in this arena (OWC).  SS is a great place to learn and all you have to do is ask...and read and provide feedback, yourself.  I'd suggest reading highly read and commented on scripts in here to get an idea of how a script should look.  It's not difficult, per se, but it sure does take time to understand the ins and outs of screenwriting.

Hopefully you are doiing your fair share in reading and commenting on these OWC enrtries, otherwise, peeps will be pissed off.

Best of luck.

Hey writer

Hang in there. Read scripts, get the format down, write some reviews, read others reviews. The bad news: you have a really long way to go. The good news: you'll get there incredibly quick if you want to. Put in a little time and you'll start to learn what you need to learn.

Sorry I am not commenting much on the story itself. I got about half way through it. There's just too much wrong. But it really only takes a few weeks or even days to learn how to do things close to right. The story itself didn't really strike me as sensible, but that's common with a first effort. Hang in there and hang around here, you'll be all set.

Kevin

this one is riddled with mistakes. unfortunately, like most readers, i couldnt get through it. read some professional scripts and come back. dont get discouraged, just improve your craft.

way too distracted with your formatting errors to concentrate on the story istelf. sorry.

Its not easy to write a script under the gun.

When you have the time you could flesh this out a bit more and make it even better, cause its not a "bad" premise at all.

The CAMERA directions are not needed at this point until filming.

Locations & Sets  -   EXT. highway drive (consider substitute), INT high school hall & cafeteria, EXT & INT furnished abandoned house (permission to deface), EXT burning  house
Actors  -  BECKY (15), BILLY (20s), dozen teen extras, JOCK (17),  PETER (15), GHOST (40s), cafeteria servers, UNCLE (40), POLICE OFFICER (30s)
Costumes  -  change of clothes from day 1 through day 5, police uniform
Props  -  MP3 & ear buds, textbooks, cellphone, plastic wrapped furnishings for house, cafeteria food in trays, flashlights, bike, camcorder or cellphone, secret panel wall/door, safe, video surveillance set up, kitchen knife, pistol,  police belt and pistol
Audio FX  -  CLUNK!, door opening, door sliding, police sirens, multiple gunshots
Visual FX  -  ghost man walking, escape from burning house, ghost in the corner, ghost at door and leading to closet, ghost attack on UNCLE, squib blasts, return of ghost
Other  -  Truck, U-Haul trailer (need release from U-Haul corporate), side-of-car camera rigs, spray paint, lights for fire effect, sports car, spotlights for police lights, colored gels for cop lights,
Comments  -  Severe need of learning spec screenplay format. At the top of pg 2 I'm not clear on where they pulled into. The school? No mention of B & P actually recording anything on their return visit. Brutal murder just kicked this up to rated R. To the writer, this is a decent enough first go at both writing a screenplay and creating story. Please, keep working at your stories and format.

This free online resource has helped me a great deal:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/12721428/Professional-Screenplay-Formatting-Guide
GL

I saw all of the camera directions, "we see", etc., and was immediately turned off.

I still continued reading.

The abandoned house ghost was really kind of cheesy and sudden. I'd have liked some build-up or something before that.

BECKY
(sad)
Well my parents died six months ago -- in a house fire.

I don't like this at all. I really don't. It could be that you said that she needs to be sad, and it feels to me like it's completely cheapening the complex and confused emotions anyone would feel when their family members died suddenly...I don't know. Whatever it is, it's not at all believable, and if you must have her say this (it's solely to explain her back story, so have at it, I guess) please not 'sad'. I'd imagine that she'd not immediately show that part of herself and that much vulnerability, as what I've seen from her up to this point in the script is apathy.


PETER
(quoting murder suicide)
It’s fine. We used to live in the
old abandoned house on L Street.
The cops called it a murder
suicide. But I know it wasn’t, I
saw something in the house that
night. -- Something not alive

That is NOT how you would signify air quotes. I was very confused until I got to "The cops called it a murder suicide."

I am not at all a fan of Becky apologizing for having him go back to the place where his parents were BRUTALLY MURDERED a year before, then immediately pleading to go back so she could videotape it. That seems a little harsh. (I'm citing things like this because Becky is the protagonist, and should be likable or at least tolerable.)

And for goodness' sake, wait: They believed two people stabbed to death with a kitchen knife was a MURDER/SUICIDE?! Change their method of death if you want your previous statement to have been believable.

The uncle's involvement was kind of predictable from the first night with Becky and Peter when the sports car was seen outside of the house. The relationship kind of sprang up out of nowhere.

It does have some promise, but it's ultimately just all over the place and the character development was weak.

Too many fade in, fade out, cut to, and don't worry about camera angles ....
Several times on page 1 you used "we see" but I think instead of saying "we see" just describe it. Also when you said she's GOTH show instead of tell...same with "it is a GHOST" just show us don't tell. Keep working on it. You have a story here ...just need to work on showing it. :)