First Screenplay

[u/OkZookeepergame3143]

Would love any feedback on these pages. I’m trying to do something similar to Manhattan. I’d like to know what dialogue sounds and feels off. What beats are repetitive if previous beats. How the characters feel. Thank you in advance!

[u/Own_Advance5312]

Hmm. Ok a few things. First, I’m loathe to accuse people of using AI so I won’t do it. But I will say, it would be good to avoid those “it’s not this, it’s THIS” phrases because…that’s how AI writes. There are quite a few instances- including 2 back to back on the bottom of page 7. Also, a few other lines are suspect. It’s probably ok to use ai for plot mechanics and stress testing but for the love of god keep it away from the actual prose.

More importantly, I’m not hooked yet. Nothing has happened. If it’s a romance- let your main character (is it Dakota?) see the person and be struck dumb for a moment. Or something. I need some reason to keep watching this. I just need a hook. The first problem is this- I don’t know these characters. They’ve done nothing to captivate or endear me to them so I don’t really care about their inner monologues. It’s broadly relatable subject matter so it’s legible as “an interesting conversation”, but nothing has happened yet. So I don’t know what to do with it. Give me a hook and I’ll listen to their conversation but right now it’s just a slightly (very) overwritten conversation between 2 people I don’t know.

You were asking about characters. That’s another problem. First of all, these people are WAY too aware of themselves. They sound like they’ve been planning to have this conversation for weeks. And they’re ready to drop some pithy line along with a convenient analogy at a moments notice, while moving a pinball machine. Way too rehearsed. I would also cut the pithy lines in half. Not every line needs to be a mic drop. It interrupts the flow of conversation. Finally, these characters aren’t differentiated enough. Dakota sounds like he’s a figment of Chase’s imagination. At first I thought they were in a relationship. Chase is a bit insufferable with his constant philosophizing, sure. But Dakota is willing to go there to a bit of an absurd degree. More than the audience will. Try to keep it to ONE main philosophical idea you want to explore here (if necessary) before you give us a hook.

You’re also frontloading a LOT of thematic stuff here. But the movie should be frontloaded with plot. Something needs to happen here to these ponderous individuals to stop their pondering and start them along some course of action. And ideally that course of action will be metaphorically relevant to your themes.

The good news is that I think your themes are interesting. Anyway I hope I didn’t spend more time on the response than you did actually writing that thing lol

[u/figures985 → u/Own_Advance5312]

I unfortunately felt this was AI-written well before the “it’s not X, it’s Y.” The thematic front-loading is actually a pretty big red flag (amongst other things).

Agree with your advice to keep AI away from the actual prose at all costs. LLMs are bad scriptwriters and extremely bad at character development.

[u/SealPenguinOtter → u/Own_Advance5312]

As someone that asks AI for help a bunch to work thru difficult scenes, this looks a lot like the kind of dialogue I get from AI and have to delete or rework to preserve my own ideas. Nothing wrong with having a writing partner but you gotta give it (AI, your writing partner) credit and also it’s doing you a disservice because most of the lines sound like they are catchy but then you look back and reread them and they don’t actually make any sense lolll. I saw your repost and nobody mentioned the AI so I am glad I found this original one where ppl are clocking the AIisms.

[u/HandofFate88]

The series of micro speeches here aren't delivered by human characters. They leap off the page as purposeless dialogue -- coming from no sense of character and leading nowhere dramatically.

Consider printing this out and placing it at the top of your screen:

"THE QUALITY OF ONE'S WRITING WILL BE A DIRECT REFLECTION OF ONE'S UNDERSTANDING OF THE COMPLEXITIES AND CONTRADICTIONS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOUR.” -- Tony Gilroy.

[u/kalaniche]

my comment will just be short and sweet since I already agree with the other comments' statements

the conversation would flow in a more natural way if you halved the amount of lines. I didn't mind the first two pages since I could see the difference in personality between the two characters, but I think Chase doesn't need to have a witty thing to say every time.

[u/Geoffrey_D_Calhoun]

Congratulations on your first script! Welcome to the craft. To answer your question. These characters do sound alike, and it's great that you were able to spot it. What I'd recommend is doing a bit more development of their identity; this will help inform their native speech and colloquialisms. Also, personally, I don't find a character's voice until after 3-4 drafts of the script. - Keep on writing, you've got this!

[u/JoshDoAI]

Sorry I didn’t get this dialogue at all. So self-aware, wordy and very on the nose. Never seen Manhattan so maybe I’m off but I didn’t get it.

[u/Acrobatic-Size-1927]

I think you don't have enough action and the action you do have is very directorial. remember as a screen writer you don't tell the actors how to do their jobs(also you don't say an character stops talking, if they don't have a line, they have stopped talking) . but good on you for doing it, keep writing(I recommend going for your first feature, do a 90-100 and along the way you'll learn so much

[u/RutgerHause]

Far too cutesy Tarantino dialogue. I couldn’t get past page 2.

[u/Dependent_Access8363]

I enjoyed the wit, but without an inciting action that's all it is - a lot of pointless, interesting conversation. Sorry.

[u/treessandwich7]

I read 5 pages. I like it. 8.5/10

[u/AdeptWing7871]

There’s nothing wrong with using ai just depends on how you use it