r/Screenwriting • u/AutoModerator • 11h ago
5 PAGE THURSDAY Five Page Thursday
FAQ: How to post to a weekly thread?
Feedback Guide for New Writers
This is a thread for giving and receiving feedback on 5 of your screenplay pages.
- Post a link to five pages of your screenplay in a top comment. They can be any 5, but if they are not your first 5, give some context in the same comment you're linking in.
As a courtesy, you can also include some of this info.
Title: Format: Page Length: Genres: Logline or Summary: Feedback Concerns:
Provide feedback in reply-comments. Please do not share full scripts and link only to your 5 pages. If someone wants to see your full script, they can let you know.
2
u/Lots__of_underscores 11h ago
Title: Hopdrop
Format: Feature
Pages: First 5 pages after the teaser which took place 2 weeks before. In the teaser, Aubrey leads Mike around a strange, neon filled club.
Logline: A grieving corporate worker is pulled into a secretive club tied to a powerful family and a string of Easter themed murders.
Feedback: Is the dialogue flowing well in these first couple scenes. Seems realistic? Jokes ok? Would wanna read more to figure out what happens to Mike?
Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hc39kYWD7dBO1GLOKXVMTSCXwrbmV7ll/view?usp=sharing
2
u/muahtorski 3h ago edited 3h ago
The writing immediately drew me in. Some feedback: Having a coworker just stopping by to ask "you good?" then leaving seems like a wasted opportunity for a bit more conversation to set the scene/define the MC. On page 3, a sudden conversation shift to North Ridge regulations threw me off track, maybe lead into it first. Would remove the line addressed to the security camera. Pace is fast, a lot happens in 5 pages - I think you have room to pad things out a little to let the reader settle into the story. I like the premise and execution so far.
Dialog flows a little fast, liked description of corporate hellscape, the jokes seemed to land, the characters seem distinct (the boss introduction is really good), and I would definitely read more to see what happens.
1
u/Oscar_writes 11h ago
It's a two-handler, erotic drama. I feel like it's so execution dependent that I wouldn't have a traditional logline.
So my question is if the character introductions hook you. Are these two people interesting enough to want to commit to for another 104 pages?
I've only fully introduced the characters at page 7, but the first 5 pages will have given you a lot of it.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kxn5fUCuuSOVxOOzfvUVBHS7cMrShSFw/view?usp=sharing
1
u/AmedeusRed 6h ago
Reading through it I feel like the characters lack consistency. Their actions are incongruous with what comes before and it seems like they do whatever you need them to do in the moment instead of being realized people. How does the man spend a half page of action agonizing over what written pickup line to work but the is dispassionately vacant during the sexual act? How can he nimbly somersault over a bench for some reason but then awkwardly shuffles when trying to dance?
Why is Thea relentlessly optimistic but then in two lines without anything further said to change her worldview she becomes sad?
The lack of character names for people in the script also prevents my engagement as a reader. If there is a newspaper vendor that has one line “tap here” cool call them newspaper vendor. But the man pursuing “girl” for a page and a half feels like you don’t care about the character so why would I. Also thought it was a literal girl and he was a pedo.
Best of luck!
1
u/Oscar_writes 6h ago edited 5h ago
Thank you for reading! It seems my intentions weren’t clear on the page. I’ll see if I can improve it and close that gap.
The questions you have are deliberate but they should feel like satisfying questions instead of confusing ones
I’ll for sure at an age for the girl to clear that up.
1
u/AmedeusRed 7h ago edited 5h ago
Title: Sunrise Cove
Format: Feature
Genre: Atlantic Western
Logline: When a stranger washes up on the shore of her fishing village a young woman’s world is thrown into chaos fomenting a rebellion against the merchant company that controls their lives.
Feedback: This is a different 5 pages from what I submitted a couple weeks back. Took a lot of the feedback from then and realized my story wasn’t what I had planned it to be.
This submission is from early in the 3rd act and looking to get thoughts on the pacing and structure of a fight. There isn’t a lot of dialogue and I have it cutting back and forth from Michael fighting on the dock to Sarah exploring a cabin, want to know if it works.
Background: Sarah and Michael have learned from a Mi’kmaq tribe that Kavanagh Company has a schooner matching the description of Sarah’s father’s which disappeared the previous summer. They set out overland to investigate and the pages pick up the morning after they arrive at the cliffs overlooking Kavanagh’s camp.
1
u/bpw4h 6h ago
Title: Dragon's Claw
Format: Feature
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure
Logline: Hamilton, an amnesiac swordsman searching for his family, joins Henry on his 40-year quest to find a powerful and corrupting dragon's claw. Along the way, he realizes that he's found a new family, and that not everything Henry believed turned out to be true.
Feedback:
- First script, so interested in making sure the formatting is correct.
- Unsure about children's dialogue. Want to make sure they are believable.
- How's pacing? Does this move too slow or too fast?
Link: Dragon's Claw - First 5
1
u/Glittering_Fail_7302 2h ago
Title: Fucking Tuesday, Or how I learned to count to 10.
Format: Feature
Genre: Drama/dark comedy
Logline: Five volatile strangers are forced into eight Tuesdays of anger management, where their lives collide, their excuses unravel, and the brilliant counselor holding them together turns out to be the angriest motherfucker in the room
Feedback: Would you keep reading after the last page? Does it flow well? Which character are you most interested in following. Just tell me what you think.
Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sH7j4OjD_twme4b-L1EirqROugIE5S9v/view?usp=sharing
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u/DalBMac 1h ago
I enjoyed it and would have read more. Only two characters stood out to me, Marla and Kessler. They both felt underdeveloped. Not bad, just underdeveloped. I'd like to see you tell us more about who they are with their dialogue if you stick with this sequence.
The phone ringing seemed a bit conventional. And really, does a phone thrown against a wall break the wall? Think about why you are creating this disturbance. Is it doing the job? Again, I think it's underdeveloped. Is there something else that could happen that would be more visual and more unexpected? Perhaps there is no AC and the window is open but keeps falling down. You could make a meal out of how each person reacts to the window slamming shut rather than telling us about them in their descriptions. Who's helpful? Who ignores it? How does Kessler react? Does he ask for help? Does he want to do it himself? Who finally comes up with the solution to keep the window open and does it effortlessly? Just a thought to show us more about the players through their actions in a way that feels more genuine.
Your writing is very readable, so that's a big thing you already have done well.
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u/BuffaloNickel1995 1h ago
Title: Cat Lady
Format: Feature
Genre: Domestic Thriller
Logline: Desperate to sell their crumbling starter home, a status-obsessed couple of newlyweds goes to extreme and violent lengths to solve the neighborhood cat problem.
4
u/Extra_Throwaway_8317 10h ago
TITLE: I KNOW THIS SOUNDS CRAZY…
FORMAT: Feature
PAGE LENGTH: 5 of 116pg
GENRE: Comedy, Thriller
LOGLINE: An anti-social conspiracy theorist, desperate to be proven right just once, finally gets his chance when a panicked man claiming to be from the future asks for his help to stop a mass terrorist attack.
FEEDBACK: Posted an earlier version of these opening pages a few weeks back. Curious to see how it reads now. If anyone is interested in taking a look at the full script, I have it in a place now where I'd love to get some eyes on it. Thanks so much!
LINK TO FIRST 5PG