Bittersweet Candy Bowl Forums

Firstly, I'd like to apologize for the annoyingly long topic title.
Nothing gets the ideas flowing better than listening to Styx.
...Though could be wrong...


Brainstorm
(short)

At a local coffee shop, two friends were attempting to write a script for a movie contract they had recently acquired. Unfortunately, neither of them could come up with an idea.

"Ok then, how about this?" said Rob as he prepared to pitch his idea, "A story about a soldier in Vietnam and..."
"Rob, I think the 60s beat that to death already," interrupted Sara.
"Hmm, ok how about a man who uses his extreme wealth to fight evil..."
"Iron Man and Batman, already done."
"Dammit, well how about a man who can't die, but instead gets reincarnated and has a time travelling phone booth and..."
"Rob, that's Dr. Who."
"Seriously?? I thought that was a good one."
"Yea, try again."
"Alright how about a story about two friends one guy and one gal who have this very intricate love triangle and a lot of drama happens to them and their circle of friends and..."
"A high school romance? Grease already beat that to death."
"Dammit Sara, why dont you come up with something?"
"Because listening to you fish for ideas is entertaining."
"We only have 3 months to come up with an idea AND write a movie long script!"
"I know, and I'm sure we'll come up with something."
"Wait! What about a Mafia movie?"
"Godfather"
"ARGH!!!"

A week later.

"I think this may be the best idea yet!" said Rob excitedly.
"Rob, this is almost exactly like the Star Wars trilogy," said Sara as she read the script.
"Oh you've got to be f****** kidding me! I spent 3 days up all night trying to write that!"
"Lucky for both of us, I've also got something."
"Hallelujah, mind if I take a look?"
"Sure go ahead."

Rob took a quick once over on Sara's script.

"This is... brilliant!"
"Told you we'd make the deadline, and we still have almost 3 months to boot!"
"Well, I still have to thoroughly read this so I can check for grammar errors."
"You're such a Grammar Faschist."

End

Too much dialogue, not enough detail. It seems like this is a problem that many newer writers succumb to. It'd be nice to get a better understanding of the characters' reactions and mood. We have little-to-no information about the two main characters, whether it be their personality or general appearance. I'm just going to assume that Rob is generally stupid? You developed that a little bit, but Sara is still pretty two-dimensional. I'm going to assume that this is third-person omniscient? If it is, give us some details into their thoughts and character. If it's not, then try to tell us through their actions and appearance how they're feeling. Usually, doing the latter will achieve a better result, at least if done right. If you add too much exposition and explanations in third-person omniscient (something that I do way too much in my stories), you're making the reader look stupid, so try to limit yourself in that matter.

Kind of a general nitpick, but if the two are scriptwriters for films, don't you think that they would have a bit more inspiration and experience with it? I'm sure they could at least get somewhere in terms of an original plot. Not everyone is Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino, who can just pull generally good movie ideas out their ass, but still, I highly doubt they would reach a block in their imagination so quickly (I'm assuming they're around their twenties or so?).

On the plus side, your conventions are actually alright. I didn't notice too many spelling or grammar errors, with the only glaring exception being the misspelling of fascist at the end. I'm sure whatever you're using to type this has a spellchecker (such as this forum for one), so there really is no excuse for that. Just make sure not to glance over those tiny details. A little goes a long way.

Is this a fanfiction, or just an original story? I just have to ask, because if this involves BCB in any sort of way, be prepared for massive criticism. Fancharacter stories for BCB almost never gain any sort of positive recognition, and for good reason most of the time.

Don't do an lt_amazil on us; you still have plenty of potential to write a worthwhile story. It's a good concept, but it needs to be balanced with good execution as well.

Firstly, let me just point out that there never was a 3rd character, I thought I made it clear that there was only 2 people in this short, plus I started writing this late at night (it was 6AM when I was finished) and was pretty much trying to squeeze out the story out of my brain (like the last bit of toothpaste in the tube). I mainly use dictionary.com if I'm unsure with a word, but in the terms of the the word "fascist" at the end I pretty much just wanted to end the story there. No, there is no relation to BCB what so ever, I may write a BCB fanfiction in the future though and I'll make sure to properly label them if so. I was always under the impression that if you had only 2 people talking to each other you didnt have to add "said Rob" and "said Sara" to every end of a speaking part, correct me if I'm wrong though, I would very much appreciate it.

Nevertheless, I appreciate and thank you for the constructive criticism, it has been a long while since I wrote something and it felt good to be back in the saddle for a bit.

This post has been edited by Flyboy1945: 14 August 2012 - 05:20 AM

I'm going to avoid repetition--you don't need to hear the same critique twice. Likewise, my points will a bit more narrow in focus and may seem to stray toward nitpicking, but, it's up to you to take the critique or not.

But, first of all, a personal thing that bothered me was Sara's logic: if there's already been an idea about the general subject matter, then it's automatically unoriginal and cannot go anywhere. That's... not true. I mean, Sara herself said "Batman and Iron Man." It was done on premises with similarities, but they still managed to do their own thing and charm audiences everywhere. As long as one puts his or her own spin on an idea, the concept has potential. In fact, claiming Godfather could be the only mafia media is really silly--the first anime I watched, Baccano!, dealt vaguely with the mafia, but Godfather and Baccano! are two very different creations.

Secondly, using two question marks is somewhat superfluous (I'm referring to when Rob said "Seriously??"). I'm a fan of interrobang (!? or ?!), and it would serve your purpose of denoting both exclamation and interrogation much better than simply doubling up on question marks, which just seems redundant.

Third (and this will have a bit of overlap with Minty's commentary), Sara's character is... a bit off. It's strange: I'd be pretty worried if I had to write a script in three months. But she just watches him struggle. She did write a script of her own, but really, if it's collaboration, shouldn't they have done that together? Moreover, she sounds vaguely irritated at the fact that he wishes to check her on her grammar, but isn't that kind of expected of him to do?

There's not much else I can say without just repeating what Minty said, but, two more things.

Quote

I'm guessing you're not on a time limit? If so, don't force a story out. Let it sit, and only write when you feel inspired. I try to only write when I'm into it, and when I do it anyway, it shows. There's no reason to let the quality of your story suffer--just let it compost in your head a bit more, then dive into writing.

Quote

You're right--in fact, you're not supposed to. But I'm guessing he's referring to the fact that you don't provide any details except the occasional delineation of setting or action. We have no idea what the characters are doing--they could be sitting stone-still for all we know. And, instead of leaving it at "local coffee shop," try to give it a bit more atmosphere than that. Let me give you an idea of an opening that is (at least in my opinion) a bit more descriptive and atmospheric:



You see, I also added "rain" and "din" to add to the chaos of the atmosphere, sort of as a way to both paint a picture of what's around them, but also to sort of provide an extended description of Rob's desultory nature when dealing with coming up with ideas.

Anyway, no, don't needlessly add dialogue description, but try to chop up monotony with character actions--even something as simple as nodding will do, on occasion. But, yes, I totally understand your problem with too much dialogue... Because the first piece I ever wrote was literally just a fanfiction piece in the form of a script on Baccano!. I'm dead serious. Let me show you:



That was the first thing I ever wrote with the intention of making it into something. That was back in December '09, so trust me, a lot can change in writing in ~3 years.

So yeah, don't get discouraged, and keep writing if you have fun with it. Good luck!

EDIT: Ugh, the weaboo levels in my first piece make me shiver...

This post has been edited by Lux Aeterna: 14 August 2012 - 03:59 PM

Thanks for critiquing my work, the both of you and possibly the chance that more people who decide to read my short. Guess I took the term "Short Story" a bit too literal. Anyways, thanks again for the critiques I'll be sure to put them to practice and crank out another story in the meantime (Maybe the next one will be BCB related?).
Probably not, I'm crazy but not suicidal.

This post has been edited by Flyboy1945: 14 August 2012 - 11:55 AM