Fish Escape by 0 - Short, Comedy - Four friends plan to rob an aquarium to pay off their debt. - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Hi,

So I'm pretty sure this is paired with Pearl of Wisdom. A comedy, in an aquarium and theft (maybe)?

Sorry to say it but you were paired with a class act and your script really pales in comparison.

Their isn't much of a story to yours, stoners rob aquarium, that's it.

The dialogue is very juvenile. I'm guessing, but I think you are a young writer, late teens, early twenties.

Congrats on getting a script in. You had a hard category.

I'm tempted to bail after the first few lines of dialogue. Warren is right, you don't have a chance with this script compared to your competitor. However, I'll get through it and give you a score.

I just skimmed to the end as I couldn't actually read it all.

Writing: 1.5
Story: 0

Total: 0.75

I think Warren hit the nail on the head. The writing is clunky and makes me think you might be new to script writing.

I'm sorry to say that I didn't laugh. If the swearing feels natural, it will flow. It didn't for me here.

Good job on getting an entry done.

A lot of matter-of-factly dialog that reads like a filler. I just want to skim it as the characters blend and they are not so funny as I would want them to be. There's no much texture to their dialog.

Why are they doing it? Is it a contest for them? They are challenging each other for some reason. I don't know - I may have missed that.
The story is overly simple, which is not a bad thing. So I think you should have capitalized on your characters to draw us in and make it more interesting.

Echo what others have said, this is a lot of stoner dialogue with no payoff. Not even a mention of stealing a rare fish?  To be fair, this was an extremely hard assignment IMO.

First line should be rewritten to avoid the abundance of commas.

This isn't good, but I'd love if someone filmed it. I'm hoping it's a satirical take on pothead humor, but I have my doubts.

Writing - 1/5
Story - 1/5

Total - 1

Right of the bat: JOSH, DANIEL, KEITH and, SEAN should get the last comma moved to before  the and. Oxford commas are awesome. :)

I honestly struggled to read this, despite how brief the descriptions are. There is also a total lack of regard for consistent punctuation throughout. If it were good, I'd compare you to Cormac McArthy, but... :( Some of the action lines don't even have periods.

There's virtually nothing to the plot, either, just a bunch of stoners being stoners. One of the weaker entries for sure, but this one's competition was tough anyway.

It's a script. lol

Maybe a new writer? In that case congrats for entering the tourney. We all start somewhere. And if not a new writer, then I think it's clear this was a last second entry. Numerous typos and format errors abound but that's ok for here. 48 hours isn't much time. Also, comedy is HARD and this challenge was a tough one.

The plot COULD Be funny, stealing fish is absurd but there isn't much more to this than the setup. For whatever reason, the premise sounds like it could be a bad Judd Apatow flick. However I don't know if that's a compliment towards you or a comment on Apatow's recent work, lol.

Keep writing!

Keep writing.  This was hard.

So many issues like why?  What is this debt?  What was their plan?  IT was just so generic with no payoff for originality in any way.  This kinda reminded me of a Fish Called Wanda where they all want this certain fish, but, they had no plan...

I agree that you might be new at writing, so, let me say this:

You could have a cute story about a bunch of idiotic kids who decide to rob a fish tank and go for the cheap fish, which no one wants anyways.  But, even that isn't solid.  

I'll leave you with one bit of advice.  When you come up with an idea for a story, don't just stop at one, look at idea 2, 3, 4, 50000000000.  You never know which one will be great.  My story that I submitted (Not in this genre) was my 4th idea.

Don't be afraid to toss ideas around, combine them, look for inspiration elsewhere etc.

Belive me when I tell you that I started off bad on here, and listened to a lot of people who have helped me get better.  You can too.  

Dan

Yeah I echo the above reviews. Used too many chars who were each disposable - like their names. One thing I was wondering is how they got the fish out so easily. Did they have scoop nets? The fish would be darting around all over the tank so it wouldn't be that easy lol.

Fish Escape

Short notes: This has its charm. Not actually "in" an aquarium, at least how I interpreted it, but I can look over it here since the overall topic is met. Some funny moments, script felt a bit untidy.

story (0-5): 3

character (0-5): 2

presentation (0-5): 1

total: 6

Afraid to say that there are a lot of typos and formatting issues...

Grabbing fish out of aquariums ain't easy, at least give them nets to make it plausible.

Why does the security guard use a flashlight when the aquarium is still open?

Anyway, story feels incomplete but I followed it easy enough.

This wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as the previous script.

Having read what’s involved in this competition. I do think that there criteria you had was quite hard. I’m not sure I would have been able to do much better.

I am a bit confused as to why they needed to steal the fish? The story has no real focus.

Good job on entering :)

I looked at the voting and saw that you didn't get any votes yet.

Don't feel bad.  When I joined and entered my first event, I did terrible.  Not one person had anything nice to say about it.  

Writing is hard.   If it was easy, everyone would do it.  It takes dedication and super hard work.  And you have to reinvent yourself over and over.  Writing changed all the time.

So you have to continually get better.  So don't feel bad.  Instead, use this to channel the feelings you have and use those and the writing tips to get better.


A few recently told me that they feel that I've improved a lot.  It takes time and hard work.  

You can't alter what you wrote, but you can change what you do in the future.  Write better tomorrow than you did today and before you know it, you will be fine.

Dan

Quoted from DanC I looked at the voting and saw that you didn't get any votes yet. Don't feel bad.  When I joined and entered my first event, I did terrible.  Not one person had anything nice to say about it.   Writing is hard.   If it was easy, everyone would do it.  It takes dedication and super hard work.  And you have to reinvent yourself over and over.  Writing changed all the time. So you have to continually get better.  So don't feel bad.  Instead, use this to channel the feelings you have and use those and the writing tips to get better. A few recently told me that they feel that I've improved a lot.  It takes time and hard work.   You can't alter what you wrote, but you can change what you do in the future.  Write better tomorrow than you did today and before you know it, you will be fine. Dan

I agree. Half the battle is making the script 'look' clean. Heck, I still have tons of issues with mine and people tell me every time.

Keep trying, you'll get there.

Thanks guys. I dont even know if I'm supposed to say anything right now because we're supposed to be anonymous, but I know I'm not going to the next round. This showed me a lot about my writing and myself. I'm going to continue to study the craft, and learn as much as I can learn to become a better writer. I'm beginner, so writing on the fly was a pretty difficult task, but I will get better. Thanks again for the inspiration.

Don't take this hard, Isiah. These are tough challenges with a tough audience. Your take aways are up to you but the lessons, comments and suggestions you get from your fellow writers is priceless. We look forward to seeing you in the next challenge!

Quoted from JEStaats Don't take this hard, Isiah. These are tough challenges with a tough audience. Your take aways are up to you but the lessons, comments and suggestions you get from your fellow writers is priceless. We look forward to seeing you in the next challenge!

Isiah
     I agree with John.  Learn from everything you do.  Take these ideas and use them to build and craft better stories that make sense.  Make every word, scene, character, action necessary in the story.

I once heard that if writing a novel is an orgy of words (meaning you start off with a fee words, more come over, they multiply, the numbers grow until you have a full-fledged novel) then a screenplay is a dual of words (meaning that you cash write a thousand page novel and it might sell, no one can write a 300 page screenplay and expect it to sell).  Every word has to fight for it's right to exist in your story.

Watch out for orphans and typos, and adverbs and adjectives and all unnecessary words.  Cute descriptions won't sell anything.  Having a story your reader can't put down will Gert it sold.

Good luck
Dan

PS. If I cash help feel free to ask and believe me when I say many many others on here will to.

Every single writer in the entire world has written stuff that people didn't like. Comes with the territory. I agree with the others, and it's good that you are taking this as an opportunity to learn rather than an excuse to stop. Having a tough skin is good. Best of luck!

Having a thick skin is essential. Keep trying and learning. Writers mature with age.

Isiah, this competition would have been hard even for paid writers. Basically it's "Chopped" for screenwriting - here's a basket of crap, now make a gourmet meal in 20 minutes.

So huge props to you for having the guts to enter, and for getting a script done under these parameters in a short amount of time.

And sometimes we get a little over the top on criticism when the scripts are anonymous so if I did on yours I apologize.

Please feel free to PM me about anything - if you need advice, or a read, or if you have a question. And again, congrats on entering.