Comments Made During the Contest

Anita Lindawaty (Level 0)

Setting story and how the writer describe it can not make story become interesting at all. The writer failed to built Chuck character become more concrete, even if the write give flashback past from Chuck written in his diary, but once again, it's FAILED. it's doesn't help much.

It's better if the writer create flashback past scene to represented how Chuck parents angry about finding heroin. I think it will become touchy if Chuck die in front of his parent. In other word, Chuck parent are real in this scene, not in the diary only.

Ayal Pinkus (Level 5)

The diary voice over is exposition; you are trying to cram in way too much back story there. It is just a one-pager.

For example, you could have him hold up a picture of his parents. Then a flashback where he's thrown out of his house. That already makes it visual, and gives you more of an opportunity to make us want him to kick the habit (he could have nice parents for example, people who don't deserve this ordeal). Then he picks up the phone, chooses his mom's phone number, but decides one more hit, overdoses, and then his mother calls (we see on the screen of the mobile).

Or so. I don't know :-)

A bit melodramatic, the diary, the fight with his parents, the weeping, the overdosing. There is nothing there that actually makes me want him to NOT kill himself. I think you have to do more to make us care for him, make him more of a real-life person. A story about a mother losing her son should be able to break any ones heart. The way you wrote it right now, I am feeling "good riddance".

Bill Clar (Level 5)

How does Chuck pull out a shoe box from under a mattress? You describe the room as having a mattress, not a bed frame.

There's no story or punchline. Chuck doesn't make an effort to battle his demons. He just gives up.

A story of this nature requires more than one page. Show Chuck coping with day to day life. Saddle him with girl troubles and unemployment.

Bill Sarre (Level 4)

That's a sad tale.

Alas one that is probably realistic in terms of despair, yet the suggestion that there is a family behind him that "could" have helped and would not want him to harm himself.

I feel the main VO is too long and on the nose and there were options to bring in suggestions of the family, e.g. posters outside the building, an old photo etc

Needs a few tweaks for me but has potential

Byron Matthews (Level 4)

Deep stuff. I'll be honest, the voice over seemed to give your ending away. Or maybe it was the title? Great imagery. Painted a very dark scene. And you achieved a lot with this one page. Not bad. Good job.

Caroline Coxon (Mod Emeritus)

Most of the information was passed on by means of a speech read out of a diary! The title left nothing for our imagination, no surprises. you need to think your ideas through, then they could work well.

Chris Setten (Level 4)

I think this is a tired story that I have seen repeatedly on MP. If you could create a surprise element or if there were some sort of moral lesson or observation then it would be more interesting.

Christina Anderson (Level 4)

Alright, I have some logistical issues.

Chuck just 'randomly' flips open to his suicide page? (he's talking about 'the last' already).

How long ago was that diary page? (it doesn't seem like he tried on his own for very long).

And one big technicality.

I disagree with the ending by death-- it's cheap, because you have this 'dead switch' built into the story. Oh, wait-- reaching your time limit? pull the switch!

GOOD. I like that you gave us backstory-- just take it a step further and have him flip through the book, and give us the whole downward spiral as diary quips. And blow my mind with the ending-- have him read something that makes him stash the needle away for another day.

Daniel Ackerman (Level 3)

That was very depressing. You get points for creating emotion in a short script but I honestly would not want to see this film. I think it would be better if we cared more about Chuck was would probably require a longer script.

David Birch (Level 5)

if i had to suggest doing something a little differently, it would be to not use the same adjective (filthy) to describe two things in the same scene...the apartment's filthy and CHUCK is filthy...using the same words is a little red flag suggesting limited wordsmithing (which i don't think is the case, but...)

David M Troop (Level 4)

Although the script did make me feel sad for your character and his situation, it seems to do only that. It brings the reader/viewer down and leaves them there.

I was waiting for something to save him, or for him to change his mind, etc.

You said there was only a mattress on the floor, but he reaches under the bed and pulls out a shoe box.
Chuck rips a diary in half? Does heroin make you super strong? Do addicts keep diaries?
Title kind of spills the beans before we even start reading. Diary of a Heroin Addict - perhaps?
Sorry, but the diary really kills it for me. It brought me out of the harsh reality you created so beautifully. Maybe a more sincere V.O. without the diary would have been better.

David Serra (Level 4)

Very, very dark and disturbing.

This shows what happens when you do the wrong thing whether it's drugs or another wrong deed.

Excellent.

Denise Jewell (Level 4)

I knew this would not be an easy read from the title. So heavy and depressing - really a downer. Eventhough it was predictable, it still read well. A couple of mis-steps - he only has a mattress on the floor yet pulls the box out from underneath his bed. Doesn't make sense. The story is told almost completely in diaglogue, which is expository, so again, the impact is not as good as it could be. I'm also not sure I see any kind of twist, or surprise, or punchline that gives the story a payoff. But you did pull together a depressing visual in one page, so this is a decent piece of writing.

Derek Anderson (Level 4)

Were we suppose to sympathize with Chuck? Your story is about a heroin addict... who dies of heroin.

Give us something to help us sympathize with him. Give him a redeemable quality that would make us want to see him succeed. Lose the blatantly obvious and boring exposition of him reading his diary (too cliche). The crappy apartment and the syringes implied everything your Voice Over told us.

Good luck to you.

Derek Collins (Level 4)

Pretty good, Its very budget friendly so I could see a student picking it up and working with it. It does seem to lack depth though. Even for a one pager, If I were writing this I would drop the use of the voice over while he reads from the diary and instead opt for a flashback to the scene you describe. Another voice like his dads, with a powerful shot, close on his mother's eyes... something like that would have added so much more to an already decent script.

Elaine Clayton (Level 4)

I thought the concept was good and the construction well thought out. There is a definite beginning, middle and end - not easy with something so short.
Title - Overdose, perhaps this gives away too much, too early?
The descriptive details were thorough and provided good visualisation. I would suggest starting fewer of the sentences with 'He', as there are quite a few in there and you could condense some of them.
A little nit picking - is it possible to pull out a box from under a bed when you have said there is only a mattress??
The entry in the diary shouldn't be referred to as a 'random page', but perhaps his 'last entry' because it isn't random. It's the explanation for the end.
Hope that helps :)

Faith Friese Nelson (Level 5)

This is a decent story that would be better told in several pages, SHOWING the confrontation between the parents rather than telling us about it.

Fred Koszewnik (Level 5)

It may be a mistake to use "filthy" twice so soon and also to mention the mattress twice. Seems like a waste of space. And if there's only a mattress in the room, how did he reach under the unsupported mattress? There's this unusually long voice over smack in the middle of your story and it all ends rather abruptly. The storyline needs something to engage the audience and there isn't a strong reason to feel compassion for your character. We don't know anything significant about him to hook us into caring about him. Hope some of this is helpful. Continued good success.

Gary Rademan (Level 5)

Plausible but not likely a junkie reads his diary before OD. Maybe if the junkie was female. What amazes me is that he still has the diary.

Writing could be tightened. For example, the first sentence is not needed if the scene heading becomes "FILTHY APARTMENT." Commas are placed in strange places. "Openly weeps" is the same as "weeps." Syringes are plastic, needles rust.

FAIR

Greg Tonnon (Level 5)

Title - the title is certainly appropriate for the story.
Craft - your craft is nearly perfect, add a period after FADE OUT
Dialogue - the dialogue is fine but maybe you could find another way to get the history out instead of him reading from his diary.
Action lines - your action lines are fine.
Story- well it's hard to get happy after that one. It is tough to get emotion into a one page script but you did (albeit depression!).

Heidtmann Oppong (Level 4)

Well done pal. Chuck's voice Over was not bad, I love the talking to the diary part after all this gave a meaningful flashback of what happened some hour's later "diary exposing his secretive drug addiction." Congrats!

JeanPierre Chapoteau (Moderator)

"save an old mattress" - What does that mean?

You just used the word "filthy" in your description of the apartment. I don't think you should use it too describe your protagonist too.

"openly weeps" - What do you mean by that?

You told us too much in VO. I think this entire story could have been told in visuals, and it would have been much more powerful. But the convenience of the diary and the VO just seemed too on the nose, therefore making the ending overly dramatic in my opinion.

Again, I think it would have been stronger if there wasn't any dialogue.

Jeff Ferry (Level 4)

The title is apt. It's a pretty solid story and the journal is a nice touch. As a matter of fact I consider the short journal entry the highlight. It's a solid story with an average ending. I saw no spelling or formatting errors.

Jeffrey Slocum (Level 4)

This was a very good real life script. Gets right to the point. Obviously would have been nice to see him not go through with it, but it is what happens in life sometimes.

Jordan Littleton (Level 4)

Title: 2
Story: 5
Originality: 6
Action: 7
Dialogue: 4
Readability: 8

This was pretty good except the voice over. The dialogue didn't seem natural and was a little too expository.

Joseph Conway (Level 2)

As rough as rough gets.

No real story, no real arc. I feel like we're seeing the send of a short film, not an entire one.

Your intentions are good and I know where you want to go. We immediately know how it ends from the title as well.

Try and extend your story. It seems to be already there.

Kelley Allen (Level 3)

Initial Gut Reaction: Lots of pathos. Reminds me a little bit of one of my all-time fav movies, "Train Spotting." The ending is such a downer.

Story: Very sad but your story is missing some elements that would make it all the more tragic. Cut down on the dialogue and add some more about Chuck's life visually.

Formatting: Technically, very good. However, be careful to use V.O.s as sparingly as possible in screenwriting-land.

Dialogue: Too much dialogue and exposition here. Speak less and show more.


Good luck and keep writing!

Khamanna Iskandarova (Level 5)

I think it could be less of the dialog, just a few lines to make us understand he's on the verge of overdosing.
The overdosage - I don't know if we'll understand whether he's overdosing or just relaxing.

Also, the VO there - it's a bit on the nose. Would be better for us to see that he's writing it himself, or at least some of it - otherwise I, for example, wouldn't know that its his diary.

The story is clearly written however and on the pages.

Kirk White (Level 5)

well structured and told. I'm not exactly seeing a clear story here...I get that (or at least I THINK I get) he is reading the diary entry and recalling the moment when he lost all hope...losing his parents...and that ultimately leads him to his final decision. But it still feels a bit unresolved here. perhaps this one could use a bit of expanding...

giving a good.

Kisha King (Level 4)

The story line is really good. I find it hard to keep up with the story as I read for some reason. As I read the story a second and a third time it seems like you throw a lot of information at us but you don't take the time to really describe the filthy room. I think a good description would go a long way so I could imagine this room in my mind. Even a better description of Chuck would go a long way.

I think you should take the time to describe the room and the people you are talking about. It really help the reader get a clear view of what is going on in the story.

Good Luck

KP Mackie (Level 5)

Very effective description of a druggie, Chuck, and his downtrodden life.
Might need a new angle. It's well written, but there's nothing different in the story. Chuck's dialogue is rather predictable; he's introspective, but his final actions don't prove he is changing his destructive behavior.
Wonder if the end is a well-dressed, sober Chuck (a character arc) sitting in a nice room actually watching a video of himself at his worse. Perhaps shorten his original dialogue on a computer screen (more current than tv), then insert Mum and Pop standing behind the cleaned-up Chuck resting their arms on his shoulders. No dialogue, simply a happy ending.
Just an idea...

Margaret Ricke (Level 5)

The title is okay, but could be better.

Formatting, punctuation and spelling seem fine.

Your descriptives need work. A mattress is not a bed, and a young twenty is redundant. I think this might actually be a case where more and detailed descriptives would add to the story rather than take up space, and you might want to consider going for that. Set the mood heavy with the room and the way he looks. That actually IS part of the fabric of the story.

Cockroaches crawling around and across him without paying any mind that he's there maybe... Some street sounds coming in through the window - sirens, a fight, gunshots, something...

The lack of action combined with the diary telling the story isn't satisfying, either. You might want to drop the diary all together and just stick with the VO.

I can see the potential for a decent short film here, but the script itself needs a lot of work.

Martin Jensen (Level 5)

I know you only have one page, but reading a whole chunk of a diary entry in voice-over to tell us exactly what is happening is an easy way out.

"flips open to a random page"
If it's his last entry, it's not really random that he opens to it before committing suicide.

Masoud Soheili (Level 4)

Well, drugs and overdosing is classic story
but I like you write the story in this one page script
well written, and this "diary" make this story nicer
although..I don't know is it common for "addict"
writing diary or not..but good job anyway

Matthew Fettig (Level 5)

From the tile I'm expecting something gritty and dark.

I got the mood right.

You don't need to tell us we're in an apartment when the slug lines tells us that.

Keep verbs in the present tense.

The room is empty except for a mattress, then all of a sudden there is also a bed?

For your descriptions and action lines, use a variety of words, and hopefully strong action verbs. You used filthy twice in 3 sentences. You introduce Chuck as "young" then "Twenty year old...". Give us one or the other. To introduce him as a young twenty year old doesn't fit with the description of a heroin addict. For your action verbs, look for something with more emotion than reaches; opens; picks up; etc... All of those make it sound too easy for him in what we should be seeing as a trembling, twitchy addict about to overdose. Every movement should be raw and edgy.

The VO monologue seems to be telling us the entire backstory, and unfortunately is comes across very weak - I got busted by my parents for doing heroin and they kicked me out of the house, and now I don't know what I'll do, so let's just see what happens....

A more meaningful visual might have been to have him search the diary for a picture of himself in happier times with his mom and dad. Maybe a simple line like "Sorry I let you down."

It's an easy subject to get people emotionally involved, but you have to work harder to pull us into this guy's world right at this moment.

Mike Senkpiel (Level 4)

This is ok. I know its difficult to have much conflict and resolution in one page, but a down and out junkie committing suicide is not going to be able to move me in one page.

You did a good job supplying some back story in the space you had, but for me, this would need more pages to be effective.

MJ Hermanny (Level 5)

This is a tired story and nothing here really lifts it above other tellings of it.

The reading of the diary excerpt is very forced and on the nose just to give us the background - it's clumsy exposition.

'He outbursts one final time.' - clumsy turn of phrase - how does he have an outburst? You need to show us.

'He falls over, foaming at the mouth, overdosing.' - this is a weak final line, you tell us he's over dosing, you need to show us - the foaming does some of it - then show us him dead.

Olga Tremaine (Level 4)

Emotionally heavy story. The problem is we don't feel sorry for the guy because we didn't get a chance to get to know him. All we know he does heroin and he was kicked out of the house. This is a serious matter and is too much to cover for a one page contest.
The writing itself is good, didn't notice any grammar or formatting errors.

Pete Barry (Level 5)

I like the use of the diary to show a life cut short - Chuck's prediction that he "won't be writing anytime soon" turns out to be more correct than he realizes.

It's a bit of one note, or maybe that's just because it's a portrait, rather than a story. It's the end of a desperate turn of a life. It doesn't feel like Chuck has any will left to make this choice: the story is basically that he acquiesces, does the easy thing, and pays the price. It would have been stronger if he had turned away from the drugs, or if I thought there was more of a shot of him getting out, and then watching him fail.

It's a good idea, but it could be stronger if the stakes were higher, or more accurately, the ending didn't feel so inevitable.

Reginald Beltran (Level 4)

Not a big fan of the V.O. I think it's just a lazy way to get a point across.

With a title "Overdose", there's not much mystery on how this thing ends. I think the author might be making a social commentary about drug addicts? Not sure, but it's something that's been done before with little to no twist at the end.

Reginald McGhee (Level 0)

This is a depressing story. The man overdoses himself because his parents kick him out for taking illegal drugs. While it is depression, I don’t feel bad for the man because he should have known what was coming. I can’t seem to sympathize with Chuck.

Chuck’s dialogue is cool, real, but not rich with subtext. It pretty much gave away the story. The title did too. But that doesn’t necessarily take the fun out of the story. I just think more subtext would make the story ring true so that even though the audience can predict the ending, they would still enjoy the movie because of its dialogue.

The reason why I can’t really sympathize with his character because his motivation is unclear. Why did he take the drug knowing that he’ll get kicked out the house? I just wish the story could have added another twist. Maybe he could have sold his valuables to someone, give his parents’ the money as an apology, and hope he might get a shot at redemption.

Overall, this story is cool, with a sense of conflict. I just can’t sympathize with Chuck though.

Rick Hansberry (Moderator)

This story could have benefitted from more of an arc. While the diary does provide some sign of a life before drugs, we don't see the character change. The descriptions are decent and this could be easily made but we, as an audience, want to become engaged in the story and root for or against something or someone and we're not given that chance here. We need to see more about this person that has lost himself to drugs. With much less description, you could show the kind of life he had earlier in the top half and crunch the action here to just the bottom half but that's only my suggestion.

Rik Battaglia (Level 3)

El perfecto friend. Dark, lonely and so true. No happy ending here. Awesome short.

Sally Meyer (Moderator)

The thing about this story is that it's very predictable. I understand what you are trying to accomplish, but when it ends the way it does, it sort of makes me feel ... 'so what?' another drugged out guy kills himself. There's no satisfaction in the ending, if he kills himself.

Scott Merrow (Level 5)

Interesting, emotional, and of course tragic for poor Chuck. But let me point out...

...TWO BIG THINGS.

1) "Show, don't tell." One of the most basic principles of screenwriting. (Actually, a basic principle of all fiction writing.) As David Trottier says in "The Screenwriter's Bible", "Never tell what you can show. Be as visual as possible." You have TOLD us the entire story in Chuck's long block of voiceover dialogue. Then we get to watch him OD. Probably not the most effective way to tackle this story.

2) (Okay, this one isn't really so BIG, but it's really noticeable.) If the only thing in the apartment is a mattress, how did he fit a shoebox under it?

So, anyway, Chuck's story is very tragic, and you've given us a decent one-page snapshot of it. But it would have SO much more impact if you could present it in a more visually meaningful way. (Just my opinion.)

My score: Good.

Shane Harkin (Level 3)

A bit too cliched and formulaic for my liking. The diary V.O seems a bit contrived, this is stuff that should be conveyed through looks and actions, rather than expository voiceover. How do you think that will read on screen? I think if you eliminated the diary stuff and came up with a more visual way to tell the story, you'd have a much stronger script.

Tim Westland (Moderator)

I'd have preferred to see the dialogue broken up and a bit more visual reaction from Chuck.

I don't sense any character arc, here, which is a shame. What this is, really, is the documenting of the last moments of a life... but no revelation or insight.

Wes Worthing (Level 5)

Variety on your adjectives would be help the read - used "filthy" twice in the first few sentences. I think the diary VO could be stronger with shorter sentences and something more compelling than being thrown out; something deeper to give us a hint as to WHY Chuck is overdosing. More meat, more depth, more drama, less whining.

William D. Prystauk (Level 5)

The end was no surprise, but what was the point? There needs to be more here for a story, and I hope you find it during the revision - especially since the title reveals the ending.

Part of the difficulty of reading this script was the excessive repetition of "He" at the beginning of most sentences. Shake up the sentences to create a better pace.

Who writes "Dear Diary" anymore? Anyway, the diary entry carried far too much exposition and heavy-handed.

I hope you rewrite this and enjoy the revision.

Comments Made After the Contest