Exit to Nowhere by Phil Reynolds - Short, Drama - 3 lives bought together by consequence. 9 pages - pdf, format

New writer interested in feedback on this work

Hi Phil,

Quoted Text A perfect puddle.

What does a perfect puddle look like?

Quoted Text A perfect puddle. Streetlamp's reflect from it as the raindrops distort it slightly. A trainer stamps down on the puddle causing the reflective image to be just an orange blur. A man runs wearing a tracksuit with his hood up which covers his head and face. The runner sprints against the rain. His face (although not fully visible due to the hood) shows signs of pain. He slows down, finally comes to a halt. His breaths deep and long as he desperately tries to suck any air into his lungs. He stretches. He stares up at the night sky. He breathes slower getting closer to a more regular pattern. He jogs off down the street and into the darkness.

You need to try changing the perspective from which you are writing every once in a while. Almost every sentence starts with either "A" or "He".

You also have two characters (at least I think it's two) in the quoted text, they need to be introduced in caps.

Quoted Text FADE OUT: FADE TO BLACK:

You are essentially saying the same thing twice, what else would you fade out to that you would then need to fade to black?

You can lose the "We hear". People will either recognise the sound of the punching, screeching shoes, and the rope or they won’t, unless you have a voice over specifically stating that is the sound we are hearing.

Quoted Text team of trainers

Introducing more characters that need to be capitalised.

Quoted Text The referee

And another. All characters need to be introduced in caps.

You have a lot of the script capitalised which is quite distracting.

You can get rid of all the camera directions, the DP and director will decide how to film your script unless you plan to do it yourself.

Quoted Text watches her sleep like he has done a thousand times before.

This can’t be filmed, how could we possibly know this as the audience?

Quoted Text WE HEAR THE PHONE RINGING.

Again, "The phone rings" will do. We all know what a phone sounds like.

Can also lose the "we see", describe it. Don’t tell us that we see it.

As far as the story goes, I didn’t mind it, I like what you did even though I think it could possibly be written a little more clearly. I think the main thing that lets it down is the writing and formatting.

All the best.

Hey Phil,

This was a good, fluid story with a nice tragic tie in at the end. If you take Warren’s formatting advice you have a solid short film on your hands. The story didn’t overstay its welcome and the characters had enough going on that I never felt bored.

I’m guessing that the guy running on the first page is Jake? I think it would be best if you just introduce him by name in the first page. I thought the runner was just a separate character for a bit until it clicked in.

In all, I really liked it. Nice job!

Some notes.

Script readers always have more scripts than time.  They look for a reason to put down a script and grab another off the slush pile.  

In your script, you start with streetlamp's which I think should be street lamps.  You intro a trainer who should probably be in caps, and if the runner is Jake then say so.  

Later, his nose is broken, not broke.

There are other mistakes or problematic writing, but not many readers will get there.

I like the tale.  I thought for a moment that Jake was somehow passing doom to Charlie (not Charles), who passes it on.  But your ending works for me.
best

Richard

Thank you for all your comments, much appreciated.

I have taken everything on board and will improve the formatting of the script as suggested. The runner on page 1 is Jake and will make that a little clearer next time.

Many Thanks