Ogbanje by Kensly Agenor - Short, Thriller - First time parents Watkins and Cristina awaken in the middle of the night by their two-year-old toddler but make nothing of it. After several re-occurrences, what initially seems like a normal sleep disturbance may just be an indication of something far worst to come. 28 pages - pdf, format 8)

Kensly,

Some notes.

First, I doubt that English is your native language.  It shows in the lack of subject-verb agreement.  Read more scripts and study agreement.  Mistakes put off readers no matter how compelling the story may be.

The story is overlong because you give us a lot of stuff we don't need.  We don't need multiple sex scenes.  We don't need to know the time in every scene, since time makes no difference in the story.  Now, if Mrs. Wallace had said something about the ogbanje coming at the third hour, well,then we have something.  All the chit chat between the couple does little to advance the story.  What might advance the story is a scene where or scenes where she tries to learn about the obanje.  The way it is, she does very little.  her husband does less.  There is no need to show him with co-workers.  For one, it's an expense for a producer and it's a turn off for the audience.  If you simply give him a series of short phone messages, then the audience can wonder if he's telling the truth--as can his wife.

I suggest you read good scripts both her and on other sites.  Study how they create suspense and surprise.  Study how they show the important stuff and leave the not important stuff to the off-screen story.  

Best
Richard

Thank Richard, I appreciate your honesty. I will go back and keep editing and polishing the script. It's my first time writing a screenplay and admittedly writing isn't my strong point. I just want to tell my own stories.

Hey Kensly and welcome to SS.

So to start, "rain gently crashing".  A bit of a contradiction.  You've also got quite a few words capitalized for no real reason.  In the action lines, capitalized words are usually reserved for sounds, introduction of characters or to place special emphasis on something or at least that's what I remember about it.

The names aren't capitalized when they should be at their introduction.

"gush of wind".  Another odd choice of words.  Perhaps meant to say, "gust of wind"?

"We hear a baby begins to cry."  Aside from the passage being written incorrectly, the "we hear" is already implied as it's in the action lines.  We see and hear everything in your action passages so that part becomes redundant.

You also have a lot of wrylies or parentheses in the dialogue.  A lot of times you can just place it in the action lines.  A lot of the passages you have in your parentheses can be put in action lines.  If the way a character speaks is crucial to the plot, use them but otherwise, leave it to the director.

That's all I got for now.  Good luck with it.

-John