Bees by Jared Offerhall - Short - A mother and daughter discuss the nature of bees. 4 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hey everybody. This is my first finished script since Screenwriting class last spring. Hopefully it'll be the first of many.

The story is based on one I wrote for a short story class a while back. The idea behind it was to tell a story without any context or explanation. It came to about 500 words, so it was very minimalistic. I decided I'd write it as a screenplay because I've been told in the past that my writing can be too descriptive. I figured working from a story that was already so short would discourage me from adding anything unnecessary.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy. I look forward to hearing your comments and answering whatever questions you may have.

Hi Jared

Welcome to SS.

Gave this a quick read, some thoughts... just my opinion of course

1) On slugs it is often best to just use DAY or NIGHT, LATE AFTERNOON isn't easy to film without additional clues.
2) Even though it's a short, short, I'd name the woman and child.
3) I'm not a grammar expert but I think you may be over using the semi colon, might be worth a review

Minor things easy to tidy up.

On the story itself... I think it works pretty well, the dialogue connects well to the end scene and it conveys a lot despite it's brevity.

This might work quite well for one of those 3 minute film challenge type things.

Anthony

My latest scripts
Graft - http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-short/m-1416751412/
Bump in the Night - http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-short/m-1416179287/

Thanks for the comments, Anthony.

Yes, the semicolons are definitely not all grammatically correct. It's just something I tend to do with screenplays, not sure where I picked it up. I'll work with more traditional punctuation in the future. Hopefully it isn't too distracting.

I'll throw some names in there as well, if Woman and Girl get distracting as well. Since the original story was so short I didn't bother with names.

Thanks again for the comments. I'll be sure to give your scripts a read once I've got the time (tomorrow, probably).

Jared

Jared,

Interesting little tale. I enjoyed it. Seems like a little slice of pie here, not delving too deep yet giving us just enough to go on. I like metaphors. The bee thing works well, but I have to ask you: do Queen bees really make all the babies? I haven't had enough time to research this, but if they don't it kinda takes away from the story a little. Just a little. But it's believable enough, and I find that I really don't care too much if they do or not. It's still a good metaphor.

Negatives: you should have named them. Reading MAN, WOMAN, GIRL doesn't sit well. I know this was really short, but still.

I think you can lose all of those semi-colons. A period or a comma would suffice.

Good job.

Steve

Welcome to SS, Jared.  If you really want feedback, it's always best to give to others, as it's a quid pro quo kind of place.

I had a few extra minutes this morning, and since this is so short, I decided to throw you a bone.

I disagree with Anthony on using only night and day in your Slugs.  You can use whatever time element makes the most sense, but understand, some, like "late afternoon" can be tough to actually "see", whereas "evening" or "morning"  will be clearer, because of the position of the sun in the sky.

You definitely need to name your characters.  I'd also show the Mom as being a bit more affectionate and loving to her daughter.

IMO, there's never a reason to use semi colons in a screenplay.  Use commas.  Thye make the read much easier and better.

Be careful of what you choose to CAP and don't overdo it.  It gets irritating, especially when things are incorrectly capped, or for no reason.

Read your script over and see how many sentences begin with "The girl..." or "The woman..." - many times back to back to back.  Be careful of this and try to find ways around this.

This is very simple, very short, and even rather cliche, but you really nailed the ending and in particular, the last line.  Very strong way to wrap this up.  It really hits hard and with emotion.

Good job.

Hi Jared:

Nice analogy, ha. I think you did a good job with only a few pages. The mom character popped right off the page. Great closing line. It's a strong low-budget script that's also easy to film imo. A very familiar premise, but considering the unique spin with the analogy and the strong writing/emotion in here, I think it's only a strength.

This is probably one of the strongest micro-shorts I've read. My only complaints would be the technical stuff and character names that have already been referenced by posters above.

I would have perhaps liked some specification on the second figure in the car, too. Female? Male? I interpreted it as the man's new girlfriend.

Welcome to SS, I look forward to reading another script from you.

Thanks for all the comments guys.

@Steve, I'm glad you enjoyed my little story. It's my understanding that the Queen bee does, in fact, tend to lay all of the eggs in a hive. You can jump on over to the Queen bee Wikipedia page if you want to read a bit about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_bee

@Dreamscale, thanks for the heads up regarding the quid pro quo deal. I plan to read through some scripts as soon as I'm done responding here. Let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like read. I can't promise to be insightful, but I'll try my best.

Regarding the semicolons and names, I'll be submitted a revision in a bit, so they shouldn't be an issue anymore.

Regarding the CAPS, I tried to only capitalize sounds and significant objects (the backpack, the two outfits, the flowers). I didn't feel that was too excessive, so for the moment I've left all the caps as they are. If there's anything in particular you feel was incorrectly capped, just let me know.

@DS, thanks for the read. Yes, the other person in the car is meant to be the man's girlfriend. You know it's funny, initially I had included the fact that a woman was in the car with the man, but as the sentence following the introduction of the two figures began with "The Woman", I didn't want there to be any confusion between which woman I was referring to. Of course, I've gone in and added names now, so that's no longer an issue.

Thanks again for the comments, everyone. I'll be returning the favor.

Hey Jared

I really liked this.  It's a simple little story but the you pulled it off very well.

I'm not a real fan of capitalising objects but each to their own I guess.  Also Jeff made a good point of trying to avoid starting action with 'Kyle does this', 'Kyle does that', as it gets repetitive and boring.

Good effort, and welcome to Simply

Thanks for the read Alffy. I'll generally only capitalize objects when I want the reader to remember them. I figure it's the best way to make something stand out.

And thank you for the advice. I'll definitely work on sentence variation for my next script.