The Boy Who Defied Hitler by Greg Lewis - Drama, Historical - A young German boy falls in love with a Jewish girl amidst a thriving swing culture and the impending Second World War that threatens to throw them apart. 102 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Hi Greg

I do like historical dramas but unfortunately, I cannot read it in it's current state.

Did you use any screenwriting software to do this? the formatting and spacing are all over the place. These things are important - format wasn't created just so pedants like me can point out the errors - It serves many purposes (production/timing/reading). Having an industry standard also makes sure we are all singing from the same hymn sheet.

The margins are off, gaps between character and dialogue, characters name on one page with the dialogue on the next - I would highly recommend getting screenwriting software as they do the majority of the heavy lifting (Not like golden age typewriting) - There are free offerings out there if you are low on funds.

You also need a title page.

Get this properly formatted and you increase your chances for reads.

Good luck to you.

Matt

Hey Greg, I think you posted a WIP thread for this and it caught my eye because I thought it said "The Boy Who DEFILED Hitler", which sounded darkly hilarious.

Anyway, I agree with Matthew. This is clearly written in a word processor or on Google Docs. To get serious feedback on your writing you'll have to jump through the hoop of using a software. I use WriterDuet. It's free, browser-based (unless you pay subscription for extra features), and saves in the Cloud. There's also FadeIn, which is not free, but cheap-ish, and FinalDraft, which is the professional standard but is way expensive for downloadable software. CeltX is a free software that is no longer updated that I used to use and has all the features of Final Draft, but due to it being abandoned you won't get any technical support. All of these - even the cheap and free options - will produce professionally-formatted looking PDFs.

I really want to be able to read this, because your premise and logline is intriguing. Please do a re-write with the help (it can be completely free!) of some software and ask Don to re-submit.