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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board  /  Short Dramedy Scripts  /  Coach Murphy
Posted by: Don, June 16th, 2018, 10:27am
Coach Murphy by Shawn Decker - Short, Dramedy - After a publicity stunt gives a female fan a chance as a head coach, can she turn around a losing team? And how will the media, fans and the NFL executives handle a strong woman succeeding in a male sport? 29 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Posted by: D.A.Banaszak, May 6th, 2023, 7:36pm; Reply: 1
Interesting start of a story. I’m not sure if this is a work in progress or your software did not publish the whole script when creating the PDF. There really isn’t enough of a story to comment on what I liked. I liked the feminist angle. I liked the way the characters started out and I liked the way the story was unfolding.

However, I did have some issues with your avoidance to use team names, including the JV, high school and college in addition to the pro teams. I understand why you did it. I understand that you are letting a producer obtain rights before filling in the blanks. It just took a little out of the story. It could be that this is the proper way to do it and you were doing it right. However, another approach would be to create a fictitious league, along with fictitious team, town and school names. Those can be edited by a producer as easily as BLANKs yet leaving your scripts easy to read. Just a thought.

Another problem with avoiding the team names is that it made for some awkward wording to avoid saying the team name and avoiding writing BLANK. This is more apparent when the game announcers were calling the game.

One of the bigger problems I had is that it took me a while to realize that most of the story so far is portrayed as a flashback without actually announcing “FLASHBACK”.   I’m not sure of the proper way to do this. It could be that the way you did it, writing “PRESENT” in the opening slug line is the correct way. Maybe you’re supposed to leave me to figure it out for myself when we are no longer in the “PRESENT” and in the past establishing background.

Something else I’m not sure is wrong but it’s worth checking, is that I think inserts like press clippings that the audience reads are supposed to be in ALL CAPS. If I’m wrong, I apologize for wasting your time.

On a positive note, I totally loved Christine Murphy and her over-the-top behavior as a fan of the team. I also liked how her family had to deal with her and the loving way they did. I was expecting her to have a tattoo of the team’s helmet logo someplace. Maybe that part of the story has yet to show up on SimplyScripts. I look forward to reading more than the 29 pages uploaded so far.
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