Broken Restraining Order by 0 - Short, Crime, Drama - Celebrity Lori Kirkland believes she covers herself with caution, only to be trapped in an elevator with her stalker. 8 pages - pdf, format 8)

Writing's not bad.  A few mistakes here and there, but definitely not bad for an OWC.

The problems here are the story, plot, action, and dialogue.  The characters aren't good by any means, either, but that's the least of your issues.

Story-wise, this is cliché, but worse, it's dull, with not surprises.

Plot plays out extremely straight forward...again, with no surprises or tension.

The action here is very unrealistic.  There's not a lot of action, so when it hits, it has to come off as believable, and in no way does it.

Dialogue is the real killer here, though.  It's just not remotely good, believable, or realistic.  Lots of exposition that reads very poorly.  For this kind of story to work, dialogue has to shine, or if nothing else, come off as believable.

Bottom line is that this needs to be spruced up quite a bit to be anything entertaining.

Tough challenge, so take my words as they're meant...to point out what needs attention.  Your actual writing is better than most, so that's a great start.  Now, work on story, action, and especially dialogue.

Best of luck going forward.

This one seems rushed. The story is weak, needs beefing up. The dialogue is heavy with exposition.

It has to be a 3 out of 10.

Writing this as I read it -- never a great idea.

But how do I know this is inside a medical office building, let alone the 8th floor?  Because the slugline says it?

A description would help.

Betty waits for the doors of the elevators to open. OK..
So there's more than one elevator... Good prospects here...

Then it goes all descriptive and nuts.

I lost it because you chose to talk about how everything looked instead of focusing on the action/

Vinyl floors, blank wallpaper, trash receptacle. A bank of
two elevators, each with lighted numbers above the doors. She
pushes the ï¿¿downï¿¿ button between them. Looks up at the
numbers. They seem to hang with no change.
She pouts and leans on one foot.
A face pokes around the corner of a the elevator from an
adjoining hallway. Then hides.
Bettyï¿¿s eyes widen in expectation.
The full face comes into her view: a

there maybe a point to this, but it'
's ridiculously long winded.
GET TO THE POINT.

Sorry, just found it too talkative and boring.

Yeah, I found it boring to a point too.  Too much at the beginning with the descriptions.

Get to the elevator faster.  What's the old saying, arrive late at the scene, leave early.

It wasn't bad, but, it wasn't that good either.

5/10

Not a real compelling end (i.e., a dinner invite). Kind of left me - meh.  Some parts were well written. I have some suggestions in specific areas:

Quoted Text A face pokes around the corner of a the elevator from an adjoining hallway. Then hides. Betty’s eyes widen in expectation. The full face comes into her view: a pretty, oval face: sunglasses, brimmed hat, shirt blouse collar turned up.

You never take the poke around the corner anywhere - so why have it? It's unnecessary action. I would just start with someone approached around the corner

Quoted Text A small Crowd of Passersby gather for the elevators: an Elderly Lady with a walker, her Female Attendant, doddering Old Gentleman, Gentleman’s Spouse.

Your characters have dialogue later - CAP them here.

Quoted Text LORI I have a restraining order against this man. Take him away. I don’t every want to see him again.

This left me cold - like out of a detective TV series.  Too cliched.

Quoted Text LORI Thanks. What’s you name?

should be your name.

A bit on the moderate side. Given the OWC, I don't mind a little exposition. At least it isn't too forced. However, I've read one too many now to just give a pass on over describing the decrepit conditions of cheap hotel buildings. Not when when we can get right to the story. Overall not a bad effort. Just middle of the road.

The writing and the descriptions kept me going for the first two pages but as soon as the real action began I struggled with this. In all honesty, I thought the reveal was going to be someone was going to shout ‘CUT’ on page 5, then we’d discover the people in the elevator were actually actors filming an episode of a cheesy, over the top soap opera. This is how it read, to me anyway.

The ending wasn’t really an ending. I found this hard to get through. Sorry for the negativity. At least you completed the OWC and you do know how to write, just focus on developing the characters and story.

-Mark

Way too straight a story line.  Celeb girl, stalker bad guy, handy dandy woman to save the day.  We've all been spoiled by the twist at the end, the reversal, the clever misdirection.  This has none of that and suffers for it.  The dialogue follows the story as too direct, too informational.  

Best
Richard

As mentioned... there's no twist, nothing unusual... it should be less linear, e.g. end with a reveal that Betty is a stalker too!

Anything to spice it up a little...

Anthony

The panic and helplessness of the passengers when they witness Lori being attacked is very well done.  The end works, I think, because it shows Lori acting impulsively, her gratitude makes her vulnerable again.

I'm afraid I have to agree with pretty much everything Jeff said here. The writing isn't bad, but this is really dull. This one needs more kick all the way around. Dialogue, action and characters.

You are also misusing the BACK TO SCENE directions. No need to go BACK TO SCENE when we never left in the first place.

I'm sure you can rewrite this one into a more  intriguing piece. The story is there, you just need to entertain us better.

Rushed or fairly new to screenplay writing?

A tip. With something like the panic button, it would have been more dynamic to see her hand move before the button is mentioned. Then describe it lightly. Doing an insert, back to scene etc is a clunky way. But it's all stuff that can be fine tuned.

Either way I like the concept. A stalker, a lift, very claustrophobic - good potential. Good choice with the restraining order. It adds to the tension wiithout us knowing the backstory . I'e - it comes loaded which is alway the best way to start a script.

Your antagonist - he needs work. He starts off ok, aggressive, focused etc. what's he going to do? However, he then gets cheesy - Mr lover boy. Keep him sinister. That's what this script is about. A tight space, a sinister man and moment...with witnesses.

Let's think. He gets violent with the lady. Do the others help? Tension, conflict.

All the best, but with a lot of revision this concept has legs

Writer,

This wasn't bad. It started off really well for me. You have good attention to detail in the opening scene. I felt I was there.  You had a decent, quick set up. You set the scene, intro'd everyone and its all a go from there. After that, it fell kinda flat for me. There really wasn't much action going down, and whatever there was was circumstantial to the situation really. It's just that nothing really jumped out at me here. Your ending was cute. Betty got to have dinner with her celebrity friend. Everyone's happy. It needs something more regarding plot and reveal. You put all those characters into the elevator, but the only one you really needed was Betty. If all those people are there you should have made them significant to the story in some way. Maybe the old man keels over and dies? Bad example, yes, but something more is needed here.

Steve

I think you could've done more with this.  Might have been able to build tension by hiding the identity of the stalker (from Lori and the reader) until the climax.   As it is, your nickel's spent on page 2. Could've had a little twist where Betty's the actual stalker and Cedric's just a fan, but because Lori's so on edge she freaks out on him.

There's a lot of exposition and the story's a bit cliché.  

As mentioned by others, some formatting (e.g. BACK TO SCENE) is off.  You also capped things like COMMOTION, but didn't cap some of your characters (e.g. security guard) when they were introduced.

It's always good to be able to complete a script when facing a hard deadline and you've got a story here, it just needs to be reworked and refined.  So good job and good luck.

Cedric is over the top. Work on making characters a little more realistic.

Nothing got in the way of the read, so the writing is fine.

The narrative is kind of empty. Is this actress that famous that we automatically care about her? I've never heard of her or the series. We don't know anything at all about the main character: what she needs, what she wants, what she fears, what problems she faces. We get no satisfaction from her winning a dinner with this minor celebrity. I don't mean to be harsh, but what does the writer want us to take from this tale?

Way too long for the story you want to tell, I could argue all of this can fit into two pages. Psycho holds up some actress, another woman saves her, there's literally not much else here. On that end too, it's not very exciting or original, doesn't really push any boundaries or try to craft something new. That's not usually a problem but when the reader is ten steps ahead of the writer, it's never a good sign. Needs work unfortunately.

I think it started out engaging but then ended up predicatble. You had more than enough pages to play with this demented guy, who you did well, and Lori, but when Lori said "No! No! When we get out of this, you’ll wish you’d never seen me!" you set up the play but never paid it off.

Good concept here, being stuck on an elevator with your stalker. Having the main character be a celebrity adds a little extra twist. I was disappointed how it played out, though. First, I thought you missed an opportunity to play on the mystery of who her stalker even is. She’s on the elevator with a crowd of people. If she knows one of them is her stalker, but not who, you’ve instantly grabbed my attention. Instead you had some guy barge into the elevator and pretty much say, “Get out of my way. I’m her stalker.”

After that, I couldn’t quite buy how easily he handles everyone. I know everyone else is women and old people, but there’s six of them. The impossibility of this comes through with the passage, “The(y) fumble for their cell phones. Cedric is too fast for them. He grips Lori in one hand and KNOCKS AWAY the phones with the other.” Is he knocking away six phones in one swipe? I guess if he’s a ninja… but then, a ninja would probably do something craftier than barge onto a crowded elevator. Actually, most people would do something craftier than that. If you were to keep it playing out this way, it would be a lot more believable to have just Lori, Cedric and Betty in the elevator. Either cut out the crowd or use them to build mystery/tension.

Finally, it all came to a close without much of a twist or surprise. There’s a saying that goes, a story should be about one of the most important/interesting events in your character’s life. I’m not a fan of hard-and-fast rules, but I think it applies here. Based on the set-up, I’m not even sure this was the most interesting thing to happen between Cedric and Lori. And based on how it ended, it doesn’t really seem like it’s over. He’ll go to jail for a bit, get out, and be fully capable of breaking the restraining order again. So in the end this struck me as more of an ‘incident’ than a story.

There is a story to be had here, though. I’d just work on the pacing and try to make the outcome a little more significant for the players involved.

Good luck with it.

I have a feeling this writer is somewhat new.  There's the foundation for a fun story in here, but the characters come off very 2D as written.  (The stalker's too cartoony, and most of the other characters far too passive when he attacks Lori. It's like they just stand around casually and let it happen.)  Alot of the dialogue and interaction seems forced.  None of which is damning criticism; just an indication that it needs a bit of a polish before it's done!  :)

Cedric and those phones...

For me this was an oddly monotone story with solid delivery. There was never an absence of tension, rather amazingly easy solutions to every problem presented. Void of subtext. Even the title is matter-of-fact.

Quick read, just not my type of stuff. Good effort though.

I wish I'd thought of this idea - so rife with possibilities. A celebrity stalker on the elevator with the object of his obsession.

The commenters above hit the points I would make. I hope this capable writer agrees with them enough to give it another go. This draft is a good start.

Technically, it was well-written, but there was no... "soul" to it. It was merely a few scenes in a longer script instead of a stand alone script. As for the ending, I was rooting for a beat down on Cedric, but it was just a macing and take away. This has potential for a longer script with refinement, but needs some work at the front and back ends. Best of luck.

BROKEN RESTRAINING ORDER

A sweet story about becoming friends under specific circumstances. I enjoyed it throughout. I don't think it's ambitious enough for a realization. As a read, it's cheery and pleasant to me.


@ well, I'm really conflicted rethinking your stuff. Perhaps it's worth to film, if out of their friendship evolving, you'd focus more on solidarity and civil courage against those creeps. I know that you already started something like that as a Kind of sub-theme - bring it to the top. Show us the fateful difference between to look away and to help more intense.