Top products from r/ScriptExchange

Scene 1

“Stained with sweat and whiskey” – How does the director visualise this.

They’re about to pull a raid, why are they passing around a flask? If you’re going for a serious tone, then this seems humorous and arbitrary.

The leader’s dialogue is too long. Cut it off at “Lost my way!” everything after that smacks of “this is dialogue and I am doing dialogue now”.

Why does the MAN speak through the door? Why does he repeat the last line of the leader’s dialogue? It doesn’t add anything to the plot and seeing as he’s called MAN, we can assume he’s a throw away character, so the dialogue isn’t revealing character.

When the door opens just have them rush the door, or the leader shoulder barge / kick the door. Him shouting “Now!” is pointless when we could just have action.

The LEADER is capitalised, but he has no description nor an age. Is this the only time we see him? If he’s a hidden antagonist whose name comes up later then that’s fine. The [casting] director still needs a description and age to work with for the LEADER.

Scene 2

“He’s young – 30 – and thin”. There’s no need to say young or old, just give their age or a rough “30s” figure. The casting director will decide the rest. Also, the age should be with his intro; IE The MAN, 30s, stumbles backwards wide eyed as a blood spot spreads across his chest.

You’ve explained that he’s young, thin, and unarmed. The fact he’s been knifed and looks terrified tells us he’s non-threatening. We don’t need it explained again, and how would the director visualise it?

“He can’t get out more than half a scream” replaces the need for the “Ach!”, recycle the white space used on that dialogue.

“Their blades (gauge) gouge his eyes” - typo
“(Leave) leaving him covered with holes” this whole line can be deleted. You’ve explained in vivid detail how they’ve eviscerated him, we don’t need this statement at the end. Also, typo, also how do you leave someone "covered with holes"?

If this is a frontier cabin, then how the fuck did his wife NOT hear the brutal and extremely violent murder of her husband as a group of 9 men jumped him with weapons?! The door was rammed open, her husband fell backwards with a THUD, 9 men in boots rushed into what I assume is a wooden floored cabin and began the brutal massacre of a man using a variety of metal weapons, and she slept through the whole thing?! Additionally, if this IS a frontier cabin, they wouldn’t have a hallway. It’d most likely be a bedsit (1 big room) or they’d have a bedroom behind 1 door or on an overlooking mezzanine style 2nd floor.

You explain that the leader sheathes his knife and heads for the door, his men are quick to follow, dashing out and leaping onto their horses outside. This line suggests the gang are now mounted up outside, but then the wife steps out and you explain that the leader is inside with his men to glare at her?

Please don’t include the cliched endlessly screaming female. It’s a horrific circumstance, she’s in shock, realistically she’d go catatonic and collapse. Imagine walking home and seeing someone you love brutally eviscerated, blood everywhere, their body reduced to sinew and gore. The first thing that happens is shock fucks you up. You recoil and most likely back away, wide eyed and unable to process what you’re seeing. If it’s bad enough (which this is), you’d be more likely go catatonic from the horror than scream. (I have a BSc Honours degree in clinical psychology for reference). I suggest looking up the “Emotional Wound Thesauraus” as an exceptional and outstanding reference guide for emotional trauma and how characters react to it. I’m using it for my current script and it’s fucking amazing.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Emotional-Wound-Thesaurus-Writers-Psychological/dp/0989772594/ref=sr_1_1?crid=108P89NPLLJJ0&keywords=emotional+wound+thesaurus&qid=1568891507&sprefix=Emotional+wound+%2Caps%2C140&sr=8-1

Scene 3

“The Ruffians mount up” – They already did this in scene 2.

The fade to a glow and echo are cool effects, I suggest replacing the woman’s scream with the roar of the fire. It turns a cliché into something primal. A roaring fire consuming a cabin where a brutal murder occurred has notes towards hell and bestial savagery.

Scene 4

John Jr (late 30s), broad… I wouldn’t use brackets here. The typical format is commas. Remember, when screenwriting every symbol and form of grammar/punctuation has a connotation. It’s also quite jarring to the reader.

"John and John Jr." is going to piss off the director. I’d recommend John and Junior as their names. I was told off by my writing mentor for having Garrett and Emmet in the same story because of how similar they sounded.

John’s 1st line of dialogue contains two clauses, unless monologuing keep it to one for the sake of flow and ease of reading.

With the flow of the conversation between father and son I’d recommend dropping the “congratulations, Jr” entirely. Him saying he’s proud of him has more impact without it.

“Smiles like that was a long time coming” – How does the actor portray this? What visual elements would he use to portray this exact sentiment? Remember, action lines aren’t prose, they’re stage directions or a blueprint for someone to follow.

OWEN, 30s, and SALMON, 30s. Don’t clump intros. Give each character their own name, age, description then do the next one. Then have them walk over.

How do we know these guys are his brothers? None of your character’s have surnames, and even if they did how does the director tell the audience they’re brothers? There’s no dialogue or action to reference this fact.

“He nods to the CROWD – About fifty men, (some) rough(er) frontier types (in addition to their more civilised counterparts) and city men, all in their (widely varying) respective Sunday best(,). They mill (through) around the lobby, CHATTING, LAUGHING and CLINKING (pints of beer) drinks”. All of the stuff in brackets is superfluous and can be reduced. Kurt Vonnegut, “Rule 1: Use the Time of a Total Stranger in Such a Way That He or She Will Not Feel the Time Was Wasted”. Be concise, trim your writing down to the essentials of the scene.

I’d change Junior’s reply to “It’s not just me. It’s a victory for all of us”. Everything else feels superfluous.

Scene 5

The speech is great, but you introduce their surname as Brown in this dialogue without adding it to any of the character intros?

You spend 2 sentences describing Oliver, this makes him the most detailed character we’ve been introduced to yet. Is he a central character?

The line following Oliver’s dialogue can be abbreviated to “John smiles and shushes Oliver”.

Frederick speaks before he’s introduced, how does the director know he’s in this scene or even exists?

“Another of John’s sons”, all the references to characters being John's sons could easily be removed by simply giving them a shared surname in their character intros.

“He’s not quite right in the head” – Is he learning disabled? Schizophrenic? Autistic? Down syndrome? Verbal or physical Tourette’s? psychopathic? A sexual deviant? Brain damaged?

“John Jr. watches the cheering crowd for a moment and realises he’s finished” – What?

“Salmon quickly hands him a beer” – Why does it have to be quick? Adverbs ruin good writing. As a rule, I do my best to avoid using -ing and -ly words. It forces a more active writing tone and eliminates pointless description.

“They raise their mugs as they chant, a fiddle starts to play. Junior steps down and places his mug, untasted, on a table as he joins the celebration”.

I don’t get the “End of Teaser”, what is that? I’ve never seen it used in screenwriting. Does this mean we can remove this entire section and still have a complete story? If that’s the case, why did you waste 5 minutes of screen time with plot that can be removed from the final script? As a writer your goal should always be “tell a complete story using only as many words as it takes”. If you’re implying this should be used for a trailer, that’s the editor/director’s decision. Even then they typically use scenes from the 2nd act in the build up to the midpoint for trailers because that’s where the highest action and lowest spoiler content can typically be found. If this is a prologue then it should be folded into the setup phase of act 1.

Scene 6

NEVER write which act you’re in. It makes you look like an amateur and your script look unprofessional. The reader/director/producer should be able to tell what act we’re in just from the page number and what’s happening on it.

You can literally delete scene 6 from the final script. Why? Because scene 7 opens with a character reading the newspaper. You’re basically pulling the old Anime “in other words” routine on us.

Scene 7

You’ve introduced like 7 characters over 6 pages and we’re only just now starting act one? There’s a concept known as “Character Fatigue” which is when a writer introduces so many characters in such a short time that the director / audience can’t keep up with who is who and what and why and where. Do you really need so many characters?! What do they all do? How does each one influence the story and plot? Do we follow each brother’s journey through what I assume is a civil war drama? If so, how many subplots are you planning on developing in a 71 minute run time?!

Ask yourself, “If I delete X from my story will it derail the plot?” if the answer is NO, scrap them. Please also remember that we are yet to meet the antagonist / villain, the b-story / love interest character, and when our hero moves into the “new world” of act 2 he’s meant to meet new enemies and allies. Your final cast is going to rival Avengers: Endgame. With so many characters sharing 71 minutes of screen time (and the plot itself must develop) each person will get like 5 minutes of character development leaving them all shallow and forgettable.

That's all I have for the moment. I'll delve into it again later.