Synopsis: A bunch of little girls play Truth or Dare and dare one girl to open the door.
While she goes to the door, the others pull up a "floor board" and climb down into blackness.
The front door is broken open by the police. It is revealed the others girls are dead and
buried beneath the floor and the kidnapper is taken away.
Comments:
Pg 1
children form a circle
***Needs further description of clothes to establish time.
Pg 2
***Good dialogue so far
I dare you to open the door then.
***Let me guess they're are ghosts?
pg 3
girls silhouettes
***grammar
Blaringly so.
***I'm not quite positive what a blaring rattle sounds like.
Pg 4
move a floorboard
***one board? You mean there is a hatch?
Then something blasts
***The door may be blasted inward, but if it is "something" then it must be shown visually.
Pg 5
The black space is exposed.
***This means where the floorboard was or the doorway? i think called it darkness on the other side of the door was an error.
trial them
***typo
***I understand what happened. I just don't think there is enough to classify it as a complete story.
Where is the conflict? The kidnapper is not conflicted nor is the girl. She wants out, the others are dead,
she is rescued. Didn't work for me.
I like the idea here. I wrote something similar a few years back where a girl was kidnapped and a bunch of little girls she was playing with ended up being other girls that were ghosts.
I do think this could have been executed better though. I don't think you need to name all the girls because it not only became confusing to me but it was obvioulsy confusing to you because there were a couple of place you mixed them up.
I'd keep working on this because it has tons of potential.
Quite a few spelling type errors throughout. Some examples:
Pg. 3 - you switch a few times from Marly to Marny.
Pg. 4 - you have Jan first then Jan third.
Pg. 5 - The man and woman "trial" them...."trail"
FORMAT: Pg. 5 - you didn't cap any of the new people in this scene. the Police officer, her parents, the old man.
I'm glad that there was no confusion. I feared I would get a lot of "this was confusing".
The main idea was to show the mean girl, Lucille, actually being the good girl because she was trying to get Marny to leave and when the other girls were going into the hatch, and trying to drag marny along, Lucille was against it. Intended to keep Mary from burying herself like the other girls wanted.
So that's why I needed the other girls. The other girls were bad, Lucille was good.
I didn't caps the later characters because they don't have any dialog.
But yeah, it could use some work but I'm too scared to read it. I wrote it in like 15 minutes and I'm scared to see what it looks like lol.
Notes:
- Kids can be a pain in the ass to work with.
- Is it Marny or Marly.
- I like the banter.
- Oh no, are these girls ghosts, like the kids in 'The Orphanage'?
- Some typos and format issues, I'm sure someone will point these out.
Oh crap, they were ghosts playing. I wonder if they new they were dead? Very nice piece. Smooth read. I dug it.
The Good:
Excellent idea.
Good characters. I liked the goading of the others to Marley. Good dialogue.
The twist is beautiful. I may not have understood it all, but I got it. I got it when it slapped me in the face. Well done.
Not so Good:
A few spelling errors here and there, but they didn't pull me from the story.
The action is clumped together too much. It is hard to read and became a chore in places. Spacing the action will give it good pacing and create the eerie atmosphere this deserves.
It got confusing it places. Work out what you're trying to get across, re-write carefgully and it will be fine.
I have questions, plenty of questions... But, the pay-off is sooooo good I don't want to ask.
Overall, it needs work, but the story and idea are there. When I read certain parts two/three times and understood what was happening then it was really good. Correct these things and it will be an excellent script. Well done.
You could lessen the number of your primary cast and have the other girls be extras playing a different game in the background and then just give a reaction or two when Marny is goaded to leave.
I say this because in a short five-six pager introducing around half a dozen prominent characters in the opening scene itself is a bit hard to keep up with.
Other than that aspect and a few jarring typos with Marny/Marly I found the rest to be really well paced, with credible dialog and a lovely twist to a now tired plot device, but heck I would be lying if I said I guessed most of it.
Good job Zell, nice writing, needs just a bit more polish. Might be a dark horse this one.
The names Lucille and Lindsay are too similar. It can lead to confusion.
This reads like a short story. You're telling us a character's thoughts rather than showing us, ie: "Marny is unconvinced.", "This upsets Marny", "The other girls get the message."
"Marly"? I assume it's a typo.
Several typos.
Remove the lines "A beat". Let the actors and director determine the pace.
Good suspense when Marny approaches the door.
I'm unsure of your ending. I'm assuming it was a seance, but I can't find a reason for the old man being arrested. Who is he?
Your format errors are easily corrected, but overall you have a suspenseful tale. Just flesh out the ending and give us a few more clues.
Good job here, I liked the twist at the end. It leaves a lot unexplained, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Some typos and such need fixed, and there don't need to be so many extra characters, but other than that, this was a pretty solid script. Again, good job!