If you have the time, quick read -- thank you!

Granted I am not a professional, so please take what I offer as you will. I have read a couple pages of both (maybe 10 pages each) and I have to say that you need to work on your possessive's, subject-verb agreement and tense and other things. Seems very choppy and hard to read.

arrodiii,

first of all, thank you for downloading my scripts, reading the first pages of each. I appreciate that you took the time to read what you did and comment. Thank you. Cannot stress that enough.

I do not know all there is to know about screenwriting -- even though I have been screenwriting since 1975. I soak up every book I can find (of interest) while trying to network, swap with other writers (as often as possible).

My scripts are read by several local librarians, (for freshness of story for Librarians tend to read a lot while being very good at proofing), try to do many read through(s) with friends, (many are actors) for dialogue and character polish, even have my wife proof -- she is a lawyer (for 30+ years), currently teaches college legal writing and law courses.

I do not know what you mean by "you need to work on your possessive's, subject-verb agreement and tense and other things. Seems very choppy and hard to read."

A famous screenwriter wrote (hope I get this right), "the difference between a writer of novels and a screenwriter is that the writer (novels) decides what to keep on the page while a screenwriter decides what to take off the page."

So 3 things that I do (that might be an answer to your above comment).

1) No AND(s), very few THE(s) or A(s) or any words that do not MOVE the story forward. Less is better.

2) I am NOT writing prose. My goal as a screenwriter -- is to write just enough to carry the story forward.

3) Show as much white of the page as possible while developing rich, full characters, creating a believable dialogue -- removing everything and anything else that DOES NOT move the story forward.

4) SHOW IT don't say it.

When someone reads one of my scripts, what is important is that THEY see how they want to see what they need to see for the visualization to ring true in the script. With as FEW words as possible. WHY?

The DIRECTOR is going to want to make the story HIS. The CAST (actors) are going to want to make the CHARACTERS theirs. ETC.

My purpose is to tell the story with as FEW words as possible. Thus my scripts tend to be complete at 95 to 107 pages. I am not writing a 250+ page novel.

Hope this explains the problem you had with the first pages of my script(s). I am not correcting you. Just explaining what I do as well as why I do what I do.

Thank you again for downloading and reading.

don patterson said:

I do not know what you mean by "you need to work on your possessive's, subject-verb agreement and tense and other things. Seems very choppy and hard to read."

Click to expand...

There are instances that need to show possession, such as:

Willie at page 5: "Willie finds Gretchen lips." Should read as Gretchen's lips.

There are other instances throughout that also overuse commas. Some of these action lines can be broken up or kept together with the use of semi-colons instead of comma splices.

don patterson said:

So [3] things that I do...1) No AND(s), very few THE(s) or A(s) or any words that do not MOVE the story forward. Less is better.

Click to expand...

While those words do not help move the story along, I find their abscence to be distracting. To me, it makes your story read choppy and did not help with me wanting to continue reading.

don patterson said:

2) I am NOT writing prose. My goal as a screenwriter -- is to write just enough to carry the story forward.

Click to expand...

I never stated that you were writing prose, just made a comment on what I felt when I read what you had written as a courtesy for your request.

don patterson said:

Hope this explains the problem you had with the first pages of my script(s).

Click to expand...

I wouldn't say that it was a problem, per se, just that I found it difficult to continue to read after a couple of pages and this didn't make me want to read further.

While you may have some friends and others read your stories, I, myself, found it to be more troublesome to read, especailly when an incorrect word is used such as:

Willie at page 2: WOMAN IN WHITE "...Big the best you can be." Big should be "Be".

Like I said, I am not a professional, though so feel free to take what I have said with a grain of salt. Maybe others on here will chime in with something totally different.

Hi Don!

I've read up to page 26 of "Sounds...". I found it to be well written and pretty easy to read. The lack of 'And' and 'The' isn't something I do when writing, but I've seen it done before, so I understand it. Not sure what the text-book approach is, but when I read something like that (I found it most noticable when you start a line of action with two names), I find myself having to add the 'And' in, in my head, anyway, so when writing I've always put it in. For me, that makes it easier to read. Without the 'And', I find myself just having to double check that I'm reading it right.

Still, I found it enjoyable and I hope to read further if I get chance, as, at the moment, I haven't the faintest idea of what's going on. There wasn't much action to keep somebody involved all the way through, but the nice dialogue helped keep my interest. Maybe the pace would be a little too slow for the average reader, but as I said, I stuck with it. I think the news report around page 10 comes at just the right moment, to add a little intrigue.

Well done, it's a shame you don't have much chance of getting this into production for a while! At least I assume that's the case, now that you've submitted it to Amazon...

I was going to download it but they're asking for email, passwords, my location. I actually did that and got a "Set on Fire -- tech issue" page. So, there's part of the trouble with Amazon. I can't even access your script. Sorry man, only so much time in a day.

arrodiii,

You are right! Went back to the FDR (Final Draft master) copy on my computer, page 2 & 5 were correct, but not on AS due to the change that was made when I transferred from fdr to rtf to pdr on Amazon Studios. Had to manually rewrite the rtf due to formatting problems (I work on a MacPro) -- guilty, I missed them.

I am not criticizing your comments, quite the opposite. Thank you. I appreciate your comments. A lot. Just understand I did not know specifically what you meant when you wrote "need to work on your possessive's..." There I am reading the FDR and wondering what is arrodiii talking about. Dig, now I know. LOL. Thanks. Wish you had the time to read more, I could learn from your point of view/comments.

I know everyone reads or sees things differently. You are right -- can't please everyone. But I try. Goal is to tell the story as efficiently as possible. Just trying to get a lot of white on the page -- move the story forward. Thanks.

Mad hatter,

Trying to keep the movie as visual as possible, does leave some going 'huh?'. Sorry. By mid-point, everything in SOUNDS comes into focus. Like a lot of Science-fiction movies, tried to move the story forward quickly, giving the audience a lot to see (and hear) while dropping them into the action quickly. SOUNDS has a different slant on an alien invasion, tried to simplify that concept, while attempting to make it work. Let me know what you think? Really need to learn from your comments, how you see the story in part and as a whole. Thank you for giving it a read.

I wanted to let you know that I like what I have read from Willie so far (approx. 20 pages or so). I have a visual of Richard Farnsworth (playing a similar role to Alvin in the Straight Story) playing old Willie.

Thanks for feeding the read... You are in for a big surprise! Enjoy. Let me know what you think after the complete read... Farnsworth, interesting. It would work.

WILLIE is like the cat that plays with the mouse.

Willie was also something of a problem child (script). Because the hard part was to make a PASSIVE main character WORK. Really hard to do. At least for me, looking at all the movies out there, creating a passive main character that WORKS, is a major challenge. Few succeed. Hope I made it work and worth the read.

Thank you again for giving it a read Arrodiii, sorry about the typos and errors in the front of the script. I cannot go and change, for it would add months to Amazon Studio's prison time (18 months).