In Our Father's Footprints by Demetrius Dixon - Drama - Two brother's grow up, but can't outgrow their past...         120 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hi Demetrius,

Its clear you have a knack for writing. Your opening action lines set up the scene perfectly and at a nice pace as well. I like your short sentences.

On page 2
-there is a paragraph which I guess you wanted to omit from this draft but you've just scribbled a line through it.
-If you want to FADE IN then you must FADE TO BLACK rather than just saying DARKNESS

15yrs earlier shouldn't be in your slug, it should be a SUPER

On page 3
"Judy snatches phone as a captured chicken" doesn't make sense. And i noticed a few other lines that don't read correctly.

i don't have time to read more just now but having scanned through it I can see that you maintain your short action lines and it seems to read quite quick. The log line and premise is intriguing and from your opening few pages I would like to return to it.
Maybe if you uploaded a new draft hosted from this website...

-Gavin

Thanx Gavin,

Read Day 67..Interesting plot. Moved along at a good pace. However the format was a bit off. The canera directions weren't always clear. CAPS should be used when focused on her toes,legs,  etc. Also, there were a couple of occasions when you spoke to how Brett was feeling or thinking. We must use pictures for we can't read Brett's thoughts as an audiance.

Hey Demetrius,

Had a little bit of time to spare this morning, so decided to crack this open and read the first 10.

Firstly, can I please ask why you chose to print this out and scan it in, versus uploading the 'true' PDF file? Because not only do I dislike reading scanned versions of scripts (as I like to be able to copy and paste specific parts of the script when I make reference to them in my review), but having a script with scenes scribbled out doesn't look very professional. Obviously, I haven't read the whole thing, so I don't know if you do it again later, but by having a scene at the top of the second page scribbled out does not fill me with too much confidence, as this doesn't strike me as a polished draft.

Unfortunately, I also had some issues with your writing here. You capitalise far too many objects in the first scene, though. There's no hard and fast rules regarding this, but you want to use this only when identifying an object of great importance, as to draw the reader's attention specifically towards this item. However, if you capitalise everything you describe, it loses its effect. You also need to tell us how old Maurice when you introduce him and give us some kind of physical description, because I am having a hard time picturing him. Actually, make that, you need to tell us how old all of your characters are and then give them a brief description, when you introduce them. The only character you do this for is JJ, but tall and slender is hardly the most inspired description, and you say that he is a teenage boy... but you need to give us more specifics, because there will be dramatic differences in both his appearance and character if he is 19 versus 13. Now, one of the worst descriptions you give here is when you re-introduce Maurice, describing him as a spitting image of Judy... but how are we meant to know what this means if you haven't described Judy? And also, does this line mean that Maurice is actually a girl? Because a boy can't be a spitting image of his mother unless he is a female? You also don't need to capitalise every time you mention a character in action lines... you only need to capitalise them when they are first introduced. Also, on page 7, you refer to a character as 'DUDE', 'GUY' and 'MAN'... what is it? Because at the minute, there is technically three different characters in bed with Judy.

Dialogue was also unnatural and stilted (ie, "come on baby, this Mama song"... this sounds like someone for whom English isn't their first language would write). I actually thought that your descriptions were pretty decent on the first two pages, but they lost their steam slightly afterwards (ie, "Judy snatches phone as a captured chicken"... I have no idea what that means). I think a big problem with the dialogue and the descriptions are that you miss out quite a lot of words in your writing, namely "the" and "is" (ie, "clock on wall is illuminated" and "Mike and JJ sit in car"), which makes everything read really awkwardly.

Sorry man, but I was out my page 7.

In subsequent drafts, I'd focus on fixing your formatting and making sure that everything reads smoothley.

All the best.

Hey Toby, thanx for the comments regarding that particular work. I will definitely. take your input. into consideration.

In concerns to the scanning, the particular copy was posted by accident. I had someone scan it for me and I didn't realize it had a scibbled out scene actually until a friend downloaded it from this site.

The capitalizations were done for the visuals of thr openning scene. This is GHETTO America that's being!discribed, and that's the relation to the dialogue. You were right, Judy's dialgue does reflect that of someone of an inferior education, however, it's that of the character not the writer...

To enlighten you the reference to "grabbing the phone like a chicken" is something people with farming experience can understand.

Thanx for the insight,

Demetrius