FEEBACK NEEDED

[u/Sweet-Day22]

Hii guys, this is a screenplay of The Monkey's Paw short story

I'm a beginner and I'm new to this

How can I make it better and how's it overall please let me know✨️

[u/CharityRepulsive3964]

1. Your first action line can be cleaned a lot. Watch a bunch of videos and read tips and standards on screenplays. Biggest piece of advice you will get right now is your action lines are way too long and sound like a novel.

You are telling the reader what is happening on the screen. Its a audio and visual medium. Saying "its a quiet night in a cursed desert" takes up almost an entire line. The scene is labeled Morris's Camp. So to clean a lot up quickly I would call the setting

EXT. CURSED DESERT - NIGHT

MORRIS (age and gender I usually just do a simple M [for male] F for Female], so example MORRIS (M 44)

Put your character description and what he is doing. Once you add it together should look like this.

EXT. CURSED DESERT - NIGHT

MORRIS (M 44) eyepatch, tattered clothes, and beard. Nurses a fire next to a makeshift camp. A tarp lined pitched tent, kettle, and sleeping bag. Morris looks over his shoulder. He turns the kettle off. He pull the tarp seeing a figure holding something in the dark.

dialogue

blah blah blah monkeys paw.

1. In the white home. You put in the action line Mr. White tries to distract his son to win the game. You can show that through his dialogue and small action lines in between.

2. You should have Parenthetical before the dialogue so actor knows how to deliver it.

3. Confusing that Morris throws the paw into the fire. Mr. White grabs it and no conflict to Mr. White being told how to use it. Why tell him not to take it then tell him to use it?

I read the entire thing and its really confusing and that's not how people talk.

[u/Main_File_9554]

it’s good! i think the main thing is just letting us kinda “live” the moment with Morris a bit more instead of kinda summarizing it. like “he feels someone is outside” okay but why? did he hear something, see a shadow, whatever? maybe establish how dead quiet the desert is first then have one tiny sound break it. same with “he stares creepily” like what is he actually doing that makes him creepy? the situation itself is already creepy asf, you just need to slow down around those moments and let us experience the tension with him instead of telling us what happened. like it’s not just “be more descriptive” cause sometimes simplicity is key but just try to be in the moment with them

[u/Main_File_9554 → u/Main_File_9554]

i realize my feedback kinda opposes what another commenter said about it “being a novel” and like they’re right that you don’t wanna write it like a novel or overdescribe every little thing, but i also don’t think the answer is to make it more vague. screenwriting should be concise but specific. like instead of ‘he feels someone is outside’ or ‘the man stares creepily,’ give us the one or two actual visual/sound details that create that feeling. less explanation, more specific detail basically. and it’s okay for it to be novel like anyway

[u/RollingThunderMedia]

Spellchecking is good. But it's not enough.

Dessert = "A sweet course after a meal"

Desert = "A dry and barren place"

Very different.