Another Night At Moes by Brandon M. - Short, Comedy - A Tarantino-inspired trip to a gas station. - pdf format

New writer interested in feedback on this work

Hi Bandon,

Good effort, but there are major formatting issues. You are going to need to take a look at some other scripts. There is a section on SS on the home page to the left under writers resources that gives you the correct formatting rules and of course the internet in general.

When you introduce new characters you need to capitalize their names the first time. After that just normal lower case.

This is wrong.......'MOE'S GAS STOP- INT. NIGHT'..........needs to be INT. MOE'S GAS STOP - NIGHT. The scene heading needs to start with interior or exterior, where the action is taking place and whether it's night or day.

'JEFF- A COLLEGE BURNOUT WORKING LATE AT MOE'S GAS STATION'. You don't need this as a separate sentence. Jeff's description needs to come when you introduce him, he also needs an age. Telling us he's a college burnout is not enough you need to back it up with a physical description or action that shows us he's a burnout. In this instance I don't think it even matters, he's a young guy who's working at a gas station, his burnout status doesn't have anything to do with the story.

If we are seeing the news anchor on the T.V you need to put in a Slug such as ON T.V SCREEN. When the anchor has finished then you write 'BACK TO SCENE'. If not and it's just Jeff looking at the T.V and we don't see it you need to write next to the name in the dialogue NEWS ANCHOR (O.S). O.S means off screen, the voice isn't seen by us but is heard.

The guys pull up outside the gas station, so you need a new scene heading for that. We are now filming outside so we EXT. MOE'S GAS STATION - NIGHT.

We need all the the men to be introduced with a short description i.e CRAZY, 32, short and muscular, DUMMY, 40, tall. Give them all character to liven up the story.

Then one guy fills up and the rest go into the store. Which one? Then you need to write in the action line that the rest of them head into the store. Since the next scene is in the store you need to write a new slug - INT. MOE'S GAS STATION - NIGHT... and go from there.

When the man turns up you need to call him MASKED MAN, because he's a new character and you name him masked man in the dialogue. You need to keep names consistent throughout.

'They head over to the place where drinks are stored, and grab five soda bottles.' Put in here that the drinks are stored at the back of the store, then you don't need to put in the slug BACK OF STORE.

'BACK WITH JEFF' don't need this slug. If the men move forward towards the masked man, you need to write it in the action.

If the men leave with blood on their clothes, you need to write that they got hit by the blood in the shooting description. If they had moved closer that makes sense, but if they are still at the back of the shop then the blood splatters probably wouldn't have hit them.

As for the story, it's fun.  Go look at a bunch of well written scripts and just keep reading and writing...:) go on you tube and watch videos on screenwriting.

Cheers K