Script Feedback

I am in no way an expert in screenwriting but I'm going to try and give you the most detailed feedback I can based on what I learnt at University and my own experience writing. I hope any of this helps.

FORMATTING AND SCREENWRITING ERRORS

Pg (1) - INT. ALLAN'S BEDROOM
- Your slugline would benefit from letting the audience know what time of day the scene takes place: day, evening, night etc... INT. ALLEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT
- "Allen a man in his mid 30's, is sleeping when he suddenly opens his eyes" - Allen needs to be capitalised as this is his introduction, also he needs some sort of description other than a man in his mid 30's, preferably something that describes him put also something that tells us about his character. Rubbish example alert: ALLEN, mid 30's, is asleep on the bed, still in his wrinkled and stained grey suit with a mismatched pink tie.
- Staying on this point you wanna keep things active! Which means avoiding words that end in 'ing'. He's not sleeping, he SLEEPS. He's not walking, he WALKS. He's not driving, he DRIVES. You get me?
- Instead of "when he suddenly opens his eyes" go with something like "his eyes snap open", see how by using an active verb like snap it becomes more in the moment, and 'snap' connotes something happening suddenly.
- Again the shadow slowly approaching does nothing for me. It's not in the moment. Make it more urgent, play with active verbs. A shadow in the corner creeps towards him.
- "It is a shadow that is hard to make out" - aren't shadows already hard to make out? I don't think this line is necessary.
- The final two lines is better! Except for the 'breathing in his ear' part, which should and BREATHES into his ear. This is the last time I'm going to mention this because hopefully you get the idea?

(pg.1) INT. CONFERENCE ROOM
- Needs a time of day please.
- Nick needs to be capitalised, maybe a little bit more description especially if he's a main character. A second name wouldn't hurt either, although not necessary I guess.
- Was the first scene a day dream?
- "Allen, looks disheveled and has a general tired face looks over at nick awoken from his memory". A grammatical blunder. "Allen, with a tired face, looks over to Nick". It's also worth noting that your description should only be what we can see. I guess you can see him being 'awoken from his memory' but this could be better explained visually. Allen snaps out of a trance and glares at Nick with a tired face and bloodshot eyes.
- Joe needs to be introduced in caps, get rid of 'another man'. And why is his only description that he has a scraggly beard? Is that important? It doesn't tell us anything about him.
- drinking should be (???) Yep, you guessed it.
- Joy needs to be capitalised. Ooooh I'm sensing an issue, If this was longer than 11 pages I can guarantee I'll get them mixed up. Joy and Joe are too similar. Try and use names that sound and look different.
- Joy's character description isn't great. But I'm gonna stop saying that from now on.
- "The rest of the group encourage her" - if they do this verbally it should be dialogue. If they clap or something - say that they clap. Be specific with how people perform actions.
- "Joy pauses for a moment then continues" not necessary. Just put something like (beat) if you feel the pause is absolutely VITAL. If not let the actor decide how to read the line.



TYPOS AND GRAMMAR:
Pg. 1 - Allen is spelt with an 'a' in the very first slugline.
Pg. 1 - a comma after Allen
Pg. 1 - a comma after clean and well dressed
Pg. 1 - "Allen, looks..." the whole line is wrong.
Pg. 1 - comma after Joe and after beard - Joe, a man in his 40's with a scraggly beard
Pg. 1 - Smiles shouldn't be capitalised
Pg. 1- comma after Joy - Joy, a young girl in her 20's, nicely dressed and

Thank you. I'm sure that wasn't the best way you could spend your time, so thank you for such a detailed breakdown of the script so far. I'll make some changes.

Sorry about that I accidentally pressed post but I have more, sorry if it seems like I'm being harsh, that's not my intention.

Pg (1)
- Dialogue doesn't really stand out, everyone sounds the same and it's not that appealing or entertaining. Then again, a conversation at a support group isn't exactly entertaining either, so you got me there. But it can be interesting, emotional, and intriguing! It's a good opportunity to contrast personalities instead of them all being reluctant to share. Maybe someone can't stop sharing and cuts in on everyone? Whilst Joy or Allen is trying to lay out their heart and soul some dipsh*t keeps sharing stupid stuff and this starts to piss Joy/Allen off and that helps them understand their feelings more.

Pg (2) JOY'S BEDROOM
- Time of day? Flashback I'm guessing? Why are we going into this random girl's flashback when we barely know what I presume is your main character Allen?
If it is a flashback do this -- INT. JOY'S BEDROOM - NIGHT (FLASHBACK) even if it is only to a couple of days ago - the idea is to tell the reader that this scene is in the past.
- 'Freezes in fear'. In fear isn't necessary, that fact that she freezes is enough info.
- 'when she' - I can't tell you how much my lecturers hated this! Instead JOY lays in bed. She's sees movement in the corner of the room. Her eyes snap... WAIT... how does she see something with her eyes closed?
- 'Joy puts her head down and shakes it off' - shakes what off? The feeling?
- Joy's relief of sharing her experiences seem a bit... false? It's not like she just confessed to killing someone or some childhood trauma that she has been bottling up for years. She described a hallucination. She didn't work through anything. You touched on this with the "particularly bad when I've been drinking" - but she didn't come to any sort of realisation, or more importantly closure, which I presume is why people go to these kinds of meetings. Maybe she describes how the nightmares made her feel (and it would be awesome if instead of saying the expected, they made me scared, maybe she says something like they made me angry? something you don't expect someone to say) and then Nick helps her realise why she feels this way, then she's made progress and WOULD be happy that she shared.

Pg (3) EXT. BUILDING, SIDEWALK
- Why is this the first time you mention the time of day?
- Joy's response 'Oh, okay' made me chuckle but probably for the wrong reason. Why is she so nonchalant about that!? She just admitted to being moved by sharing her experiences about the dream. I would be like HOLY SH*T YOU GET THEM TOO! THAT'S CRAZY! (Don't actually write that)
- Why does "I hear them breathing" stop here. Surely when Allen tells her he has the same dreams that's what he was referring to.
- Joy walks slowly closer to Allen - is a bad line. Simply, Joy steps closer to Allen.
- "Have they ever tried to touch your feet" oh that got me aswell haha (I'm sorry I'm not trying to be mean, if it was meant to be comedy, bravo my friend) but going from serious to a line like that could be funny. Especially if you play up Allen's reaction. I was not expecting her to say that.

Pg4 - EXT. CHURCH
- This paragraph is too long, try and keep them as short as possible as to not bury important information.
- Sitting should be SITS
- 'he is obviously tired' - SHOW ME THAT HE'S TIRED, don't tell me. Show me his bloodshot eyes, his sagging eyelids.
- Dominic needs to be capitalised.
- Signalling should be SIGNALS
- Okay, I dig the little bit about their Mom, it tells me something about them and their relationship. Again though, Dominic sounds exactly like everyone else.
- What happened to Joy? I thought we were going to have more of a scene with them two, especially since she's the only character that's done anything - she shared at group, Allen didn't even do that. He chased her out of the building, I thought yeah this is getting somewhere, they're going to talk and we're going to learn about this shadow figure. She just came up with what is in my opinion the best line so far, I want to see where that went. They did get coffee and talk? Did she just walk away?
- DOMINIC'S OFFICE
- Especially since he talks about her here! If you don't want a joy scene, make her not want to talk in the previous scene, this would add conflict to a (again not trying to be mean) a conflict-lacking story.
- Allen is thoughtful for a moment - what does that look like?
-

Sorry man I'm out of time and your script didn't really give me a reason to keep reading.

So things to work on:
- Active verbs: Walk instead of Walking.
- Characters need to be Capitalised when first introduced.
- A little character description wouldn't hurt.
- Time of day in the sluglines.
- Notifying the reader of flashbacks in the slugline.
- Only write what the reader can see! This doesn't include feelings.
- Watch your grammar.
- Try and contrast characters/give them their own identities/dialogue.

Just had a little skim ahead - you are introducing a new character with each new scene: Joy/Dominic/Haywood/Imboden, while you let your best character Joy (or at least the character who can expand on the shadow figure plot line more) just walked out of your script with the weirdest line possible. This early in the script, it's jarring to be introduced to this many characters without EXPLORING any of them. Please, bring back Joy.

I hope this helped you in any way and I hope you reply so I can help further.
Peace out.

TYPOS AND GRAMMAR:
Pg 2. Apostrophe here: Joy's face.
Pg. 2 - Like he has [just] seen a ghost - actually forget this one, scrap the line entirely.
Pg.5 - Not now, Dom. Think about your comma placement.
Pg/5 - Hey, Allen. I just care man [.]

To sum up what he is saying is that; before you write your script, be an expert in the english language and grammar. And for me, know how to format your script properly.

Thanks again for the in-depth review. Here is why I always seem to find a disconnect. on Pg3 you seem to understand the parts perfectly but your reactions to them are completely different than what I intended.

You said

"Joy's response 'Oh, okay' made me chuckle but probably for the wrong reason. Why is she so nonchalant about that!? She just admitted to being moved by sharing her experiences about the dream. I would be like HOLY SH*T YOU GET THEM TOO! THAT'S CRAZY! (Don't actually write that)

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That would be her reaction if she actually believed him. She is clearly under the impression that he is hitting on her. That scene requires Allen to reveal information that proves that he has the same dreams. The "Oh okay" is to be delivered in a somewhat sarcastic, non-believing way.

You said

- "Have they ever tried to touch your feet" oh that got me aswell haha (I'm sorry I'm not trying to be mean, if it was meant to be comedy, bravo my friend) but going from serious to a line like that could be funny. Especially if you play up Allen's reaction. I was not expecting her to say that.

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Again, the script clearly sets you up for something strange to be said. So the delivery of a strange line like this should be no surprise. Additionally, the line is very odd, that is the point. It is supposed to be puzzling to Allen and the viewer.

The fact that I have to explain this stuff, only furthers my belief that I cannot put onto paper what I am envisioning. I don't know if it's technical or what. But I really struggle at getting my vision across through a script. If I filmed this tomorrow and showed it to you, you would get exactly what I'm trying to put out there. But written out, I fail miserably.

Some of the descriptions could be more succinct but I liked the story.
That said I did have to fight through one or two paragraphs.

The biggest problem in reading this was that I didn't feel suspense about the shadows.. And the way it's written is definitely a visual scene and not "cool" to read about but could look really cool on screen. Hmm I wonder how to create that suspense without spoiling the ending.

If joy revealed she had a terminal illness in their foot conversation that would be super creepy but then the ending wouldn't be as much of a surprise.

I thought the drug dealer went from 0 to 100 damn no words or anything just a gun to the face !

I got that the "have they ever tried to touch your feet" line was meant to be odd. That's why I liked it! I thought it worked really well because I wasn't expecting it, sorry if i wasn't clear about that.

I personally didn't find it clear that she thinks Allen is hitting on her, but that's just me. I read the line "Oh listen guy, I have a boyfriend" as her attempt to get out of there as quickly as possible and to avoid a convo. Rather than her anticipating being hit on. Maybe show Joy reacting to Allen staring at her during the meeting, so her suspicions of him hitting on her are based on something the audience saw.

On the sarcastic Oh okay line: maybe you can actually have her say a sarcastic line? Show off your dialogue skills. Bad example: Sure you do. I know, it's because we have a special connection and you're the only one who understands what I'm going through. Should I take off my clothes now or later? - play on the fact that she thinks it's just a line to get her into bed, or something?

And the information he revealed wasn't specific enough I thought. She mentions in the meeting that it got right up in her face so it would make sense that she would hear it breathing? The next explanation Allen gives would work much better at stopping her from walking away.

I really like the idea though and I agree that it would look awesome on screen.

I am also a screenwriter. It would be good to collaborate on a project together, so we can learn from each other.