The Hunting Trip by Todd Martin - Short - A proud father takes his young son hunting for the first time. They soon experience a night that neither one of them will ever forget...or survive.  12 pages - rtf, format 8)

Opened this up not really intending to do a review, but I didn't pay attention and it turned out this was a Word doc that instantly saved to my computer when I clicked the link... So I guess I'll give you a read anyway.

Word docs aren't really an accepted format here, or most places, for the reason stated above. Submit a PDF next time... that'll get you more reads.

Formatting isn't too bad but you should get some screenwriting software. Celtx, Trelby... there are a lot of free options out there. Formatting in Word is an uphill battle, plus the right software can fix the rtf/PDF issue.

Onto the script itself, problems are jumping out at me from the first paragraph alone. Mainly writing issues.

For one, it's a huge paragraph. For novels it's okay, but screenplays are different. Most people won't read past that. So it's best to keep action lines at 4 lines or less.

The writing itself reads kind of awkwardly. It's too wooden, doesn't flow. On top of that, you use passive verbiage ("he is sitting" as opposed to "he sits".)

Characters should be intro'd as soon as they appear on the screen. Instead of "A man sits in a deer stand. This is WALTER", write "WALTER sits in a deer stand".

Also, since the scene takes place in a deer stand, the slugline should be "EXT. DEER STAND", not "WOODS". And be sure not to refer back to your slug in acton lines, if possible.

Like I said, the writing isn't great and could be shortened. All the 9 line paragraph tells us, basically, is "WALTER (50s) sits with his rifle ready, beside CODY (10)". Or whatever. You don't have to give us details about their appearances unless that's important to the story... just tell us their ages and leave the rest to our imaginations.

Dialogue's a little on the nose as well... not all that natural. The best advice I can give right now is, you're writing a movie, so make it entertaining, something people would actually want to see. Don't try to make it too formal, which I feel is kind of what happened here.

Hope this helps. If you're around, take a look at some scripts around here and provide feedback to get reads in return. Quid pro quo.

Will

Hello Todd Martin

First off there was a lot of problems ...your dialogue is to long and the scenes
are way over three pages... you need to format this better

the story threw me off....kinda crazy a man will teach his son to do that but what
was the point of the story...what was the message you was trying to send or what
were the obstacles....

i wish you the best with your writing

Ugo