dead stop
July 15, 2008
So I am reading —
This script. It is a nice script. Characters are working. Dialogue is working. There is structure. Emotion. Tone. Pacing. The writer even has voice. Things are going great. Then a character in the script starts picking strawberries off a vine.
Dead stop.
Strawberries do not grow on vines.
I am reading this script. The story is set on a farm. The chickens all live in the barn.
Dead stop.
Chickens are not kept in barns.
I am reading this script. A character asks, What’s that smell? Uh oh. The lead character has “deer poop” on her shoe.
Dead stop.
Anyone here know what “deer poop” looks like? Kym does but for the city kids, it looks like pellets. Hard little pellets and deers are herbivores so if it smells like anything it smells like grass.
I am reading this script….
celluloid blonde 
I read a script once, set in 1974, and there was a floppy disk in the plot. I believe it got changed to microfiche at the last minute, ie by the time someone over thirty got their hands on it.
Then let me try this:
“It was a dark and stormy night.”
A little research goes a long way…
Deer poop? I hope it is not a romantic comedy.
I am not saying a word.
:::whistling:::
[one of these days i am going to loose it and go off on a rant about the content of romantic comedies]
Oh this is so anal but I am sleep deprived and can’t stop myself: in the UK at least we have chickens (laying eggs) in barns. It’s supposed to be a slight step up from caged hens.
Admittedly I don’t know what your scriptwriter’s barn loked like, as chicken barns would be more like warehouses than cute farm outhouses, but still.
Anyway.
Looks like we’re all counting coop.
How much time would it take this writer to do a quick insert to correct his “straberries grow on vines” error? And how much time would it take those other writers to do quick inserts to correct characters that don’t work, dialog that doesn’t work, lack of structure, lack of emotion, lack of tone, lack of pacing, and lack of a voice?
“Looks like we’re all counting coop.”
Ahhhh!
When you are reading for competitions, it is not about how much effort it would take to fix a script. You are not there to figure out how to fix the scripts or how much effort that would take. You are there to find the best scripts. And no matter how great a script is, if it has great big dead stop errors in it, odds are it is going to loose out to a great script that does not.
I considered coop d’etat but thought better of it . . .
as i did also with ‘little deuce coop’ . . .
Ahhhh!
Guess I’ve got egg on my face now . . .
Deer poop? I thought they were way too cute for that.
Better than having deer poop on your face.
I am reading a script too and haven’t gotten past the fourth page. Deer poop would spice it up.
As a Pro reading for competitions how do you feel about an occasional “author intrusion” presuming it’s well done?
I once had a horse lapping water like a dog.
The editor didn’t know the difference, either.
Ooops.
You just answered your own question Brut: “Presuming it’s well done.”
<>
Oh, reading for a festival/contest. Okay. I assumed you were reading for an agency/prodco.
Good luck – hope some good ones come your way.
I too have seen chickens living in barns.
On a dairy farm? Roosting in the milk pails?
Okay it was not a dairy farm I made that up. I do not go into real specific detail talking about this stuff and sometimes I make up something similar instead of using the real example because I do not want someone reading a post of mine shouting, Hey I know that script! You will just have to trust me, chickens did not belong in this barn.