10PTT: 25 to Life by ToddyWoddy

[Pitchpatch]

25 TO LIFE
written by ToddyWoddy

"An impulsive, headstrong girl, who left home with the dream of opening her own book store, is summoned home by her over-protective grandmother to reunite her with her estranged bank robbing, just-out-of-prison mother, and the ensuing clash of wills uncovers a deep-rooted family secret."

Sounds good!  Let's jump in.


LEGEND
GREEN: Strong, punchy verb -- nice
YELLOW: Need to do something here?
RED: Cut


1.
"Runs" is bland.  You can't fault it terribly, but it does feel like a placeholder for something genuinely exciting.  "Runs" tells us nothing about the action other than there was a brisk vertical scissoring of the legs resulting in speedy physical transportation between points A and B, and possibly C.

We know there's some urgency: the clerk BURSTS out the door. It's the first shot and shit's already going down, earning Todd an early gold star.  If the clerk's slamming through the door then surely he would dash, hurtle, tear, rush, bolt, rocket, or sprint down that concourse.  On the other hand, maybe it's not life and death and he only jogs, hustles, or hurries past the shopfronts.  All those synonyms spark and snake like a shorting electrical cable while "runs" lays there on the page, inert and unremarkable.

Pitchpath, why bother? you ask. Runs is runs is runs.  The clerk RUNS and that's all it needs.  Well, okay.  But this is the first sentence on the first page.  First impressions and all that.  You've got exactly one first sentence and one last sentence to spend.  Hell yes, you should fret over them.  They're the doorknobs leading the reader in and out of your story.  Be extra diligent polishing those suckers.

If ever there's an appropriate moment to plunge your thumbs into the rubbery meat of your reader's eyeball sacks and wiggle toward their nucleus accumbens using a combination of firm circular motion and insistent flexing of the knuckles, I'd argue this is it.  Prosecuting attorneys argue there's no 'appropriate' time for this maneuver.  Judges tend to agree.  Win some, lose some.

So.  BURST comes out swinging and that gets everyone's attention.  RUNS galumphs into the ring and immediately takes a hit -- from its inhaler.

Another minor point: Movies have us trained to believe the first person on screen is a significant character, be they on the side of good or bad.  Here, the clerk is just a pawn sacrificed in establishing location and situation.  We're also trained to assume the narrator is a major player.  So in this opening sequence we guess the V.O. person (as yet unnamed for the audience) is a major player who will probably make a physical appearance soon.

Remember, the reader (and the audience) is adrift until you tie them to a main character.  Generally, you want to connect the two asap and start firmly towing the reader in one direction.

Let's take a moment to consider why we need MALE CLERK at all.  In the plus column: It eases us into the police confrontation and creates immediate intrigue.  It gives us strong visual movement.  It quickly establishes where we are: outside a shopping mall.

What happens if we lose CLERK (as an editor might consider doing) and instead open on the next bit: the faces of the crowd lollygagging at the spectacle.  Something like...

-----

FADE IN:

DANI (V.O.)
(slight Southern twang)
Have you ever drawn up a list of
your top ten shittiest days ever?

Behind sawhorse security barriers, a hushed crowd jostles for a glimpse at --

EXT. MUNGER SAVINGS AND LOAN - DAY

-- a small neighborhood bank.  Looks closed.  Shades drawn.  Unstirring.

Except for the circle of police cars and armed cops blockading it.

-----

That would be a different opening.  A quiet tension primed by Dani's VO.  Cutting on the anxious faces peering.  Making us wait for the reverse shot revealing the bank frontage and our first clue to what's happening.  This quieter opening would lend more weight to the first instance of extended visual movement: Dani's mother coming out.  Presumably Carol shuffles out slowly, real careful not to panic the cops.  (Notwithstanding the logline, we end page 1 not knowing if Carol's a victim or perpetrator, which is very cool -- a guaranteed page-turner.  Second gold star for Todd!)  If something really jolting happens on page 2, this quiet opening would nicely set up that abrupt narrative shock.

BUT... I also like Todd's opening with the clerk, for the reasons already noted.  All I'm doing here is thinking with my editor hat on.  When you're writing, you should too.  Question everything.  Make every scene sweat.  Every sentence.  Nothing's exempt from justifying it's place on the page.


2.
Casting will work out the specifics of "a crowd" but you could throw me a bone here and help me paint the picture in my head.  You can see I colored between the lines a little with the alternate opening scene earlier: "a hushed crowd...".  Or how about "a crowd of shoppers" to easily picture folks of all ages, some carrying shopping bags.  Just a li'l somethin' somethin' to lift it above a narratively flat, generic crowd.

I don't usually comment on dialogue when 10PTT'ing, but I make exceptions when I spot something curious.

"Have you ever sat down and drawn up a list of your top ten shittiest days ever?"

Two minor things of note:

(a) "... sat down and drawn up..."  The proximity of "down" and "up" jars the ear a little.  It calls attention to itself, like "Turn left right here."  The cyclic nature of such juxtaposition suits a deliberate use like, "Sit down and shut up."  In a moment I'll make my case for trimming this sentence.

(b) "Have you ever... shittiest days ever?"  Repetition of "ever" which is no big deal.  But do we need the repetition?  Let's leave it there for now.

I'm thinking we can easily lose the "drawn up" because it's not important to the sentence idea.

"Have you ever sat down to list your top ten shittiest days ever?"

Hmm.  Is the "sat down" figure of speech needed?  What if:

"Have you ever stopped to list your top ten shittiest days ever?"

Do we even need the notion of stopping to take the time to make the list?

"Ever make a list of your top ten shittest days ever?"

17 words down to 11.

Now the repetition of "ever" is stark and plain.  Let's tackle it.

"Ever make a list of your top ten shittest days?"

Feels like too much got shaved off the context.  It has to be about the 10 shittiest days you've experienced in your entire life.  So let's put that emphasis back in while still avoiding the repetition:

"Ever make a list of the top ten shittiest days of your life?"

13 words compared with the original's 17, but more importantly it reads (to me) like natural dialogue and punches home the "shittiest days of your life" angle.

And for her follow-up I'd argue for a simple: "I have."  

Again, what I'm doing is making every word fight for its existence.  If Todd's done this already and settled on the dialogue as it stands then that's how it needs to be, because the author's the one to decide what's right for the page and what's right for the story.  No sentence on the page gets a free pass is all I'm asking.


3.
Uh-oh.  I'm gonna whine about this crowd thing again.  I promise this is the last time.

Using "crowd" twice piles nondescript upon vagueness.  And this second reference reinforces the lack of concrete description, through passive construction: "The crowd are behind sawhorse barriers."  Not a terrible declarative sentence, but it demands nothing of us.  Good sentences demand our participation.  Sure, the crowd is nothing more than scene dressing, but why let the narrative go flatline anywhere on the page?  Also, I would argue the correct grammar is "The crowd is behind..." because it's singular.  How many crowds are we talking about?  One.  Singular.  But there's a competing argument for "crowd" refering to the individuals collectively -- "they", not "it", as in "The firing squad raised their rifles" rather than "raised its rifles," in which case "are" is fine.  I'm a single-unit grammar guy, but what sounds right is a personal-preference and case-by-case thing.

"Behind sawhorse security barriers, the spectators jostle to see what's going on..."

I chose to anchor the sentence spatially at the beginning, and avoid the reuse of "crowd" by swapping in "spectators."  Had I left in "They crane their necks" then "spectators" would amplify that nicely.  But I'm not fond of "crane their necks," because it's a roundabout way of saying the crowd "gawks."  Use as few words as possible (good words!) to say what you need to say.


4.
This is purely a personal style thing, but we can shrink this sentence and have it slightly punchier:  "The small neighborhood bank looks closed. Shades drawn.  But the sign says OPEN."  Which sits better in your ear: "The 'Open' sign is visible" or "The sign says OPEN."  For me it's the second, because the first reads limp, passive, and coldly clinical.  SOMETHING IS SOMETHING requires no cognitive attention.  It's just accepting a fact as fact and filing it away.  Overuse this kind of spoon feeding and you risk your reader's brain going into energy savings mode.

Eighteen words down to thirteen.  A twenty-eight percent saving.  (It's called pedantry, people!  There's a twelve-step program to recovery, but mostly we spend our meetings arguing about how to word the charter.)  These small readability wins do matter!  Drive your story down a clean, straight road.  Don't litter the street with unnecessary words and overstretched thoughts.


5.
Here's a perennial favorite: naming or tagging your bit players.

You have four choices for writing minor characters.  Let's start with the one to avoid.

* COP #1 holds a megaphone...

Nothing shouts lazy screenwriter like numerical character names.  If I have to explain why...  Just don't do it.  If your bit part requires dialogue then probably this character's going in the credits.  Don't let your credits read like they were drafted by an accountant.

Which leaves you three good alternatives.

* A name just for the hell of it
Give this character a name for no reason other than to avoid numerical tagging.  Any name will do.  TONY.  SALLY.  CHEESE MCTAVISH — you'll go with plain CHEESE in the character slugs, or MCTAVISH if you've already got a firstname character CHEESE or if McTavish is the bad guy and you want to maintain the reader's emotional distance.   How you present your character slug is a whole other article in waiting.

* Descriptive tags
Like Todd's BEARDED COP.  That tag isn't ideal, for reasons I'll explain in a moment.  By tagging your bit player with a distinctive feature you've burned a face into the reader's head.  It's probably not the face you, the writer, imagined, but you know one thing for sure: you and the reader both see a cop with a beard.  My question to you is: why is it important this cop has a beard?  If you tag a character descriptively then you're narrowing the casting.  There must be a reason you want a specific look or you're simply making arbitrary, limiting choices.

But certainly Todd did the right thing here abjuring COP #1.

* Personality-type tags
I believe this is the best of the lot when done right.  Instead of tagging your bit part with a physical characteristic, you tag with a more general personality type.  Let's improve on Todd's BEARDED COP then talk about why I think it's better.  Let's make this guy NERVOUS COP.

Okay.  Blank your mind.

CUT TO wide shot: police cruisers fanned out across the parking lot, cherries strobing blue and red.  No sirens though.  Cops snug behind open car doors, crouched behind bumpers.  Every gun drawn and zeroed on the bank.

Now...

CLOSE ON BEARDED COP with a megaphone.

And... FREEZE FRAME.

Consider Bearded Cop.  What's he doing right now in that frozen moment?  What's the look on his face (behind the beard)?  What's his body language saying?  Can you predict how he'll use the megaphone?  What kind of tone he'll take with the perps?  No.  A generic bearded guy tells us nothing.

Let's do that again with our replacement actor.

CUT TO wide shot: police cruisers fanned out across the parking lot...

CLOSE ON NERVOUS COP with a megaphone.

Now we're starting to paint a picture.  We gave the reader a little nudge.  The reader can ignore it or roll with it, do the heavy lifting for us.  A twitchy cop is not a cop you want in a hostage situation.  Twitchy cops make bad choices in the heat of the moment.  Now we have tension built into this character.

Again, let's examine the frozen moment with Nervous Cop up there on screen.  What's he doing right now?   Well, he's got the megaphone so that's a position of responsibility.  They don't let rookie cops communicate with the bad guys.  Maybe our nervous cop is glancing around, hoping somebody more senior will arrive and take this disastrous fucking responsibility off his shoulders.  Maybe he's holding that Glock in his other hand like he's never fired it and he knows the time's come.  Maybe he's sweating, hyperventilating.

Perhaps he's nervous for other reasons.  Maybe this is his chance to prove himself.  He's desperate to do it right.  By the book.  He asked for this responsibility.  His commander's counting on him.  Don't fuck this up.

Point is, you planted the seed.  The audience sees this cop is nervous, and naturally they're curious why.   I can tell you right now, they'll never know.  This is a bit part!  The fact that Todd didn't name this cop tells us the character's gone in a blink, this page or the next.

But at least you opened the door for the guy playing this small part.  Believe it or not, extras like to act.  And you've given the director a jumping-off point for how this megaphone cop does his bit.  I know I'd prefer to tell my buddies, "Yeah, I'm in that movie.  I'm Nervous Cop," instead of, "Yeah, I'm, ummm, Cop #2."

NERVOUS COP.  Sure, exactly NONE of that might make it on screen.  Our nervous cop might end up as nondescript as the rest.  But it wasn't your fault.  You worked your ass off to make it zing on the page.

Wow.  Really?  All that discussion about BEARDED COP versus NERVOUS COP?  Wish I could swap this behavior for something more OCD acceptible: say, the need to lace and unlace my shoes exactly twenty-six times before walking outside to check the mailbox.   Twenty-six times!  That's crazy, right?  Nine maybe ten tops — you're done.

Ah jeez.  I have no idea where we are in this 10PTT.  Hold on a sec.  Lemme check.  OH GOOD.  STILL ON PAGE ONE.  You should probably go get a sandwich.


6.
"... brings the megaphone to his mouth..." is unnecessary and downright wordy.  We might reel in a line here if we're lucky.  Or we can let context do the work for us: "Bearded Cop raises his megaphone."  Or "Bearded Cop announces through his megaphone:"  It's clear from his next dialogue he's addressing his colleagues.  Hell, we already established the megaphone, so how about we kill that whole bit and go directly from "... flicks the door shade up and down" to:

BEARDED COP
(megaphone)
Okay, everybody, she's coming out.
Hold your fire.

Stripping it back makes the reader work a little to connect the dots.  No following the lines on autopilot.  And like I said, making the reader work here and there is a great way to keep them engaged.  And awake.


7.
Minor and personal preference: the two and's step on each others toes.  Interrupts the flow on the page.


8.
"... exits the bank..." tells us nothing about HOW she emerges.  Fast?  Slow?  Is she defiant?  Timid?  In shock?  Relieved?  Maybe a clue's coming next page.  Regardless, "exits" is a horribly featureless verb.  It not only fails to pull its weight but actively sucks life from this sentence.


9.
"... her hands in the air."  — i.e. "hands up", "hands raised", "hands high."  If we want her hands to be the first thing we see then: "Hands way up, CAROL ANN LOMBARDI (mid 20s) eases out the door.  There's blood spatter on her purple polka-dot dress and a nasty bruise pinching her face."

Are we there yet are we there yet are we are we?   Finally.  We've reached THE END OF PAGE ONE!  That seem like a long trip to you?  Definitely for me.  I had fun.  Todd's writing is solid.  He's doing the proverbial workman-like job, but next time I want him to put his sentences through boot camp, not summer camp.  Instead of coming home relaxed and affable and asking to walk the dog, I want those sentences to come home sweaty and tense and demanding to wrestle a bear.  Ready to stare down anyone (me, for example) who dares to Fuck With.  Because they've proven themselves and earned the right to be all UP IN YO' UGLY FACE and they know it.  And you know they know it and you know they know you know you haven't earned it.  And then, if you're like me, you pee yourself as you back away, so you walk directly into a nearby lawn sprinkler and pretend like: Who the fuck turned on that sprinkler?  Just look at my soaked shorts.  I have to go home now, but I'll deal with you later, and maybe I'll wrestle a fucking bear too, if I feel like it.  Kaythanksbye.

Story-wise, I like where we are at the end of page 1.  It's a great meet-cute with our lead, Dani.  One page might be excessive to set up the simple reveal with Dani's mother and the bank, but that doesn't concern me.  What's important is, I'm excited to find out what's next.

One down, nine to go.

[Pitchpatch]

p.2

1.
The on-page markup is the lazy edit: just removing a few words to let context take up the slack.

Here's the brutal edit that potentially reels in a couple lines of white space on this page:

"As Carol Ann kneels, hands behind head, two COPS rush to cuff her at gunpoint."

Bam, done.  41 words down to 15.  I told you: brutal!

I can cut deeper yet.  Not just to the bone but THROUGH the bone:

"Carol Ann kneels, hands behind head.  COPS rush to cuff her at gunpoint."

Because ultimately does it matter here if it's two cops or three or four?

41 down to 13 words.  At this point I swivel my chair to face you, stroke my pussy and say, "No, Mr Bond. I expect you to DIE!" and my maniac laugh confirms what you knew all along: truly I am off my freaking rocker.

Maybe I crossed the line.  Maybe we need the emphasis on the cuffs: "... slaps them on..."  Easy enough to put it back:

-----

Carol Ann kneels, hands behind head.  Two COPS rush her.

One covers while the other SLAPS CUFFS on her wrists.

-----

That's 20 words, half the original count without (IMO) losing any nuance or meaning.  Less words to say the same thing equals quicker comprehension for the reader.  Quicker comprehension equals a "fast read."

Now, "less words" doesn't mean you should ruthlessly cut GOOD words for the sake of brevity.  Good words by definition belong in your sentence.  But if you can shorten it and same result, you better have good reason to keep the longer version.

A final comment and we'll move on: I'd like to know how Carol Ann takes all this.  It's assumed she's placid throughout, based on the sole indicator of how she emerged, quietly and compliantly dropping to her knees — presumably at the instruction of Megaphone Cop just prior to FADE IN.  I'd like to at least get a brief description of her expression: resigned, desperate, vacant, amused.   Something.  Anything we can connect to the next bit with Dani's reaction, watching from afar.  Knowing Carol Ann's expression and body language would frame Dani's reaction, give it meaning and real emotional resonance.

Consider the shades of meaning from these examples as we cut to young Dani watching her mother's arrest from the safety of the police cruiser.

"As Carol Ann kneels, hands behind her head, two POLICE OFFICERS rush in.  She doesn't flinch, doesn't recoil.  Only glares at them with boiling hatred.  Eyes alert for a chance to bite or bruise or break."

"As Carol Ann kneels, hands behind her head, two POLICE OFFICERS rush in.  She almost snorts laughter: My rotten dumb luck.  And me with a bottomless supply. "

"As Carol Ann kneels, hands behind her head, two POLICE OFFICERS rush in.   Her body yields but her mind's already gone.  Far away.  It's like the cops aren't even there."

Put in the hands of a good actor, each suggests a particular kind of relationship Dani has with her mother.  Consider how a parent with these issues shapes (misshapes!) a child mind:

* Violent mother with a pathological hatred of police.   Refuses to take responsibility for her actions.  Blames others for her misfortunes.

* Mother's a lousy criminal but can't change her ways.  No willpower.  A fatalist.

* Mother has mentally checked out from life, whether that's from drugs or maybe her repeated bad choices finally ground her down to nothing.  Like Charlie Theron's character in THE ROAD.

Todd's writing here is too dry and lean, IMO.  He's telling the story, but he's not COLORING the story.  Drummer and bass player are doing their thing, but we're still waiting for the catchy guitar riff to kick in.

In other words, needs more cowbell.


2.
Looks like a Jon Stewart script doodle, right?  Throw back a vodka shot each time you give up untangling this edit and start over.  I'll wait.

All done?  Check your final assembly against mine:

"In the rear, looking ultra cute in a purple and white flowered dress, chubby seven-year-old DANIELLE -- although she prefers DANI -- watches the officers shove her mother into another police car."

This first pass does some subtle things that may or may not improve the sentence depending on your care factor.

We move the spatial clues to the beginning.  We're in back of the cop car.  We move the description of Dani's clothing up front, letting us build a full image in our minds sooner rather than later.  We've colored how the cops are treating Carol Ann: roughly.

Importantly, we've anchored the viewpoint a tiny bit with young Dani.  How?  By filtering the scene through her young eyes.  "... DANIELLE watches the officers put a cuffed Carol Ann into another police car."  To Dani this isn't "Carol Ann."  This is MOM.  Let's pound that home in the narrative.

There's more we can do here.

"In back, ultra cute in her purple and white flowered dress, chubby seven-year-old DANIELLE -- she prefers DANI -- watches tearfully while officers cram her mother into another cruiser."

Now, these changes may go against Todd's intentions for this scene.  So long as you, the writer, know precisely why you arranged your sentence this way instead of that way then we're good to go.  If you're leaving sentences as is because that's the way they tumbled from your head onto the page, well, you and me, we're probably gonna have a shouting match.


3.
Aha.  So doing the math, Carol Ann's mother, Agnes, had Carol Ann around age 25; Carol Ann had Dani around 18.  Right now only we, the readers, know that.  The audience can only guess at the various ages of the three principles.

I trimmed "partially" because I didn't think it matters if the door is fully or partially open.  In my mind I see Agnes protectively crowding the open door, probably kneeling to be eye level with Dani and holding her hand while they both watch and wait for the unpleasantness to end.

Dani's VO so far has been electric.  In a page and a half Todd quickly lays the foundation for conflict among a family's three generations of women.  That's a broad thematic canvas.

Through Dani's narration alone we've already gained sympathy for her and her grandmother.  Her mother, Carol Ann, we're not sure about.  Not me, anyway.  No clues in the writing to hang our opinion on.  So far she's a blank slate.  We don't know yet the extent of the damage Carol Ann's inflicted on her daughter and family.  We don't know the motives behind the bank robbery.  So we reserve judgement on her until more information flows in.

Really enjoying the setup and the anticipation of the red book pay-off.


4.
"slips out" and "skirts past" feels like two bites of the apple.  They're both strong verbs, so we can settle for one or the other.  And as we soon learn, young Dani doesn't simply "run toward the other police car."  Kids "run" to fetch a ball before it rolls under the fence into nasty Mrs Krapperstone's back yard.  Kids "run" to escape the school bully.  No — "run" absolutely has no place here.  This is her mother, her life disappearing in front of her.

"Dani slips past Agnes and chases her mother as the other car pulls away."

Actually, to me that reads better flipped: "As the other car pulls away, Dani slips past Agnes and chases after her mother."  Action and reaction.

So now we know young Dani's reaction to the situation: she's terrified and scared.  It's not a case of, ho hum, oh well, mummy got herself arrested AGAIN.  This is hurting, and young Dani feels every moment.  Which contrasts nicely with VO Dani's casual, detached, dry amusement.


5.
"... looks out the windshield..." I changed this to a simpler "stares ahead" because it’s implicit she’s looking out the windshield if she’s staring ahead.  The shot probably won't be an over-shoulder of her looking forward, nor will it be a POV of her looking forward.  It will be a tight angle on the two of them, either from inside or outside the vehicle (or both), showing the moment Carol Ann turns away from her exhausted, desperate daughter and the look of utter rejection registering on young Dani’s face.  Something like that (uh, yeah, presumptuous given this is not my story!).

"... Dani runs alongside the car..." — that’s an understatement!  A seven-year-old keeping dangerous pace with a moving police car.  If the line earlier said "pulls away slowly" then I’d be less inclined to tighten up this sentence part.  In page one I declared my hatred for Mr "Runs" and I’m not cutting him slack here.  It’s too generic a verb to use in a critical scene like this one.

Oh man, the emotion here is peaking fantastically.  Finally we're tasting the flavor of Carol Ann's relationship with her daughter.  Today's flavor is Battery Acid Blue.  This is a page-turner ending.  I want to know what's behind Carol Ann's cold-shouldering her daughter like that.  Is it a protection mechanism for a mother who failed her daughter one too many times and can't bear to look into those eyes a moment longer?  Does Carol Ann genuinely not give a shit about her daughter?  Does she think she's teaching her daughter a life lesson: harden the fuck up, girl, because you're on your own now?

COP DRIVER: Want me to stop?

But we already know, don't we?  TURN THE GODDAMN PAGE ALREADY!

A quick general note before we're done with page 2.

"-ing" — If you read earlier 10PTTs then you know the drill.  Avoid words ending in -ing if you can.  Reduce them to their shorter, simpler form when there's no ambiguity.

"Jenny is washing the dishes" — Jenny washes the dishes

"Frank is adjusting his tie" — Frank adjusts his tie

"The dumpster is overflowing with severed heads" — your mother warned you not to move to this neighborhood.  Also: the dumpster overflows with severed heads.

Sometimes, yes, you want to emphasize an ongoing action.  "The monkey is punching the clown."  To shorten it to "the monkey punches the clown" makes it sound like the monkey fires off a single left hook then plods back to its desk to continue writing that new off-Broadway play.  No.  That monkey wailed on that clown for a full 45 minutes, took a 15-minute smoke break, then rolled up the sleeves and went back to work on this clown symphony.  (You ever hit a clown?  Every part of their body is MUSICAL.)

But when you begin scrutinizing — ah fuck, got me — when you scrutinize your -ings you'll be surprised how many you can strip back to the base verb without losing meaning — as long as the proper context is there to guide the reader.

See you for page 3.

[Pitchpatch]

p.3

1.
Since we don't care which eye it is, let's cut the padding.


2.
"... but her gaze stays rock steady."  On second thought, there's a case for leaving as is.  "She keeps her gaze..." suggests fighting the urge to look back.  You don't get that with "her gaze stays rock steady."

Oh.  So we could go with exactly that:  "A tear wells in Carol Ann's eye.  She fights the urge to look back."

More possibilities:

"A tear wells in Carol Ann's eye, but her forward stare never wavers."  Hmm, no. "Forward stare" sounds way too clinical, too dispassionate.  We've lost the emotional connection between Carol Ann and Dani.  Anyway, we stated a few words ago that Carol Ann "stares ahead" so we can ride that context without reiterating here.

"A tear wells in Carol Ann's eye, but she won't let herself look back."  Okay, better.  Using "look back" stresses what's behind (Dani), instead of what's ahead ("gaze front").  And it's clear Dani's the subject of Carol Ann's inner struggle; she's not maintaining her impassive stare for other reasons.

Or how about this:

-----

COP DRIVER
Want me to stop?

A tear wets Carol Ann's cheek.  Please yes please stop please STOP!

Her gaze hardens.

CAROL ANN
No.

----

WHAM.  We worked on two levels and landed a double combo.  I'm a fan of dropping into character POV now and then for those big emotional moments.  Knowing Carol Ann's thoughts in that moment strongly suggests how it plays out.  It's not an unfilmable!  An actor will turn that internal monologue into an external physicality.  In good hands that momentary internal struggle will play.

The other thing we did was ramp up Carol Ann's "No" using contrast.  Above, it really slams home when she says it, because we feel how desperately she wants to be with her daughter.  And when she instantly flips back to cold, hard bitch it's all the more painful for us.

Consider her internal response.  It might be about more than the driver's offer to stop the car.  Perhaps Carol Ann's reacting to all of it: make it ALL stop, the bad choices, the pain, everything... Please let it end!  But now we probably are straying into the land of the unfilmables.

One more extrapolation...  I can't imagine protocol permitting a cop transporting a perp to pull over in these circumstances.  Here's a version that removes the credibility issue:

-----

COP DRIVER
Want me to stop?

A tear wets Carol Ann's cheek.  Please yes please stop please STOP!

She sees the sneering cop isn't serious.  Just a cruel joke.

Her gaze hardens.

CAROL ANN
Fuck you.

----

This shifts Carol's reaction from something significant -- her tough personal decision to cut herself off emotionally from Dani -- to something petty -- mind games with a cop.   I expect that's not what Todd wants here.  I include it to show there are plenty ways to skin a scene.

So that's my 50 Shades of Grey overblown edit.  Ultimately, the tear and the context do the hard work so we don't need to go deep.  But if you're a writer who likes to pound it hard, you'll follow a similar thought exercise as me.

And you are correct: I really did spend over 500 words discussing 20.  I'm the indigent squatting on the pavement outside your local diner holding a sign that reads: "Afflicted with Chronic Wordiness. Please help by reading my blog at..."


3.
Context lets us trim this for better flow.


4.
"Throws" isn't punchy enough for this high-emotion scene.  "Heaves" suggests effort (she's exhausted from chasing the cruiser!), but hurls or flings or tosses all work harder than a bland "throws."


5.
I love the match cut gluing this time transition.  But I question why we stop for a head-to-toe mental panning shot documenting her entire wardrobe.  It's unlikely we'll see her combat boots in this shot, so can't we save that for later?  The description for her hair, face, and leather jacket is plenty enough to broad-stroke this picture of a young social rebel.

Also, no harm explicitly naming the match cut.  That lets us thread the dialogue continuation together:

-----

Dani heaves the book after the cruiser --

DANI
Nooooooooooo...!

MATCH CUT:

INT. PUBLIC LIBRARY - DAY

DANI
Noooooooooo...!

Same shriek, same clenched fist: It's DANI at 25, still ultra cute behind spiky hair, heavy makeup and piercings.  The leather jacket over T-shirt and mini-skirt completes the goth ensemble.

Dani SLAMS her retro vinyl-album-cover purse onto the circulation desk.

DANI
It's not fair.  How could they close us?

-----

We happily lose "but she's now a young woman" because it's right there in the "DANI (25)."  Repeating "ultra cute" here resonates with our earlier description of Dani at 7: "ultra cute" in her purple and white dress.

That's what I'm thinking, anyway.  I'm just monkeying with the scene.  Always searching for the line that only reveals itself after you cross it and know to take a step back.

The rest of the page plays great: Dani getting her marching orders, now jobless.  For her it's same shit, different decade.

Three pages in and we've seen steady conflict/friction on every page.  That's good.  That's very good.  Once more I'm eager to turn the page.  I want to know what's changed for Dani these 18 years gone -- and what hasn't.  Plus I know from the logline there's a reunion coming with Carol Ann's release.  That's gotta be soon, by page 10.  A hundred ways that scene could play.  I'm looking forward to what Todd's got in store for us.

Stay tuned for page 4.

[Pitchpatch]

p.4

1.
"STUFFY GENTLEMAN" -- Remember the discussion we had on p.1 about character slugs?  Here Todd uses personality-type naming.  We know instantly how a "stuffy gentleman" looks and behaves.  If we swap this to BEARDED GENTLEMAN we lose our narrative head start.

And we're getting a two-for-one.  Consider something like STUFFY OLD GUY.  Worse.  Lose GENTLEMAN and we lose the specifics on how the guy dresses and carries himself.  So that's important: use a meaningful, descriptive noun for your unnamed character tags, then add a personality type if needed:

DOG
Yeah, I can talk.  And a lot more.  Just ask your wife.

COP DOG
Yeah, I can talk.  And a lot more.  Just ask your wife.

STONER COP DOG
Yeah, I can talk.  And a lot more.  Just ask your wife.

Keep the name short and punchy.  Bit-characters stick around for a moment or two, serve a specific story purpose, then poof! -- gone forever.  If our dog spoke more than a couple dialogue lines then we'd switch to a proper name slug.

The other edit here is an easy trim for context.  I'd argue it can shrink to: "A STUFFY GENTLEMAN (60s) approaches."   Our POV floats with Dani and Garth already, so no need for the redundant stage direction.


2.
Nothing wrong as written, but I'd pull it back to a single line to regain the page space spent unnecessarily.

"Stuffy Gentleman curls his nose at Dani and turns to Garth." -- I expect readers know "turn up/curl one's nose" means disgust

"Stuffy Gentleman ignores her and turns to Garth." -- here we let the "stuffy" in Stuffy Gentleman work to imply why he ignores her.  But this might be cutting it too fine.


3.
"... comes around the desk" feels too weak for the moment it sets up.

"Dani flies around the desk."
"Dani scoots around the desk."

or make it metaphorical instead of descriptive, and leave the stage directions implied:

-----

But Dani's already IN HIS FACE:

DANI
You can't miss it.  Right over there.
Next to the Pompous Ass section.

-----


4.
"Dani storms the exit leaving Stuffy Gentleman shocked, Garth amused."

I'm not thrilled with the double hander at the end of the sentence.  Let's split out Garth's reaction and see how that reads:

"Dani storms the exit leaving Stuffy Gentleman shocked.  Garth chokes back a grin."

Garth stifles a grin.   Garth strangles a laugh.  Garth bites back a smile.  Whatever.

I like that better.  Instead of the passive "Garth is amused" we get the same thing through specific action.

"... Garth slightly amused." -- I cut "slightly" because I'm not a fan of qualifiers and nuancing, unless the qualifier absolutely must be there for correct meaning.  Here, does it matter if Garth is amused or slightly amused?  Will we picture Garth responding with too much mirth?  No.  The context guides us.  He'll smirk to himself then frown disapprovingly the moment Stuffy Gentleman turns back to him, aghast and affronted.

If writers got penalized a dollar a word beyond, say, 20,000 words in a screenplay, we'd quickly find out how important nuance words like "slightly" are.


5.
Anchoring in time/space at the start of the sentence.  If Todd wants to suggest a tight shot on Orson followed by a wide shot on the building entrance then the original does exactly that.


6.
The two sentences felt labored -- micromanaged stage direction.  So: "Dani takes it and pulls a wallet from her purse.  Sees two lonely dollars bills."    BUT, if the intention is that Dani very slowly and deliberately opens her purse then opens her wallet -- all in an overly protective, paranoid way -- then the original must stand.


And there's page 4.  We learn Dani's a hothead with a heart of gold: quick to flip the bird at the imperious, but quicker to reach out to the needy.

[Pitchpatch]

p.5


1.
Why is this bit of action sitting in a parenthetical instead of description?   The chief purpose of parentheticals is to disambiguate: remove the parenthetical and the dialogue becomes unclear to some degree.  Perhaps it's uncertain who's being spoken to.  Maybe we can't be sure about the speaker's tone and meaning.

We can throw away almost every parenthetical by adding contextual description before or after the dialogue.

-----

Dani opens her wallet.  Sees two lonely dollar bills.  She pushes them at Orson.

DANI
Thanks.

-----

or after her dialogue...

-----

Dani opens her wallet.  Sees two lonely dollar bills.

DANI
Thanks.

Orson nods and accepts the tip.  Opens the vestibule door for her -- but blocks entry.

-----

When a parenthetical clarifies who's being spoken to, we probably don't want to drop back to description and waste page space.  In that case the parenthetical is thoroughly apt.

Here though, I feel we can migrate the parenthetical into description and let context take up any slack.

I think of parentheticals as speed humps because they interupt the dialogue flow and they get really, really annoying when you hit one after another.


2.
" -- you know."  That's POV or interior monologue or whatever you prefer to call it.  Love that stuff.  Problem is, you need to partition it visually from your regular narrative text.  On first reading you might wonder if that sentence terminates prematurely.  That won't happen if we apply some typical manuscript formatting.

Some screenwriters underline, but most go with italics.

"Orson raises a brow: You know."


3.
I agree we need the parenthetical here, although nobody's coming home in a body bag if we drop back into action.  Something like:

-----

DANI
I got...

But Orson's hopeful look blows away her bad news.

DANI
Definitely.

-----

Let's stick with a parenthetical but shave it.  Do we need "expectant" when that's built into the preceding dialogue?

-----

ORSON
Guess I need you to check out one
of his for me next, huh?

DANI
I got...
(off Orson's look)
Definitely.

-----

Ask any reader "Describe Orson's look" and they'll say it's hopeful, expectant, appreciative.  No need to spell it out.  It's all there in the context: action and reaction.

This scene with Orson earns our empathy.  Dani could easily spread the day's misery but chooses not to.  She values hope.  Interesting.


4.
Let's talk about buttoning scenes.

Arriving at this scene boundary, I'm thinking how to button this scene and how to transition through to the next scene.

For me, "Dani brushes past Orson into the building" feels flat and unnecessary.   It feels like we overstepped the "button" -- that magical moment serving as both perfect scene closer and ideal hook into the next scene.  Todd already perfectly buttoned a scene: the Dani age-7-to-25 match cut.  Nothing so spectacular needed here, but let's see if we can find a sharper button.

Here, the scene peaks at "Definitely."  So let's engineer a transition there.

-----

DANI
Robert actually.

ORSON
Guess I need you to check out one
of his for me next, huh?

He steps aside and happily waves her through.

DANI
I got...
(off Orson's look)
Definitely.

INT. APARTMENT BUILDING - VESTIBULE - DAY

Dani enters, flipping through her crumpled mail.  Junk, junk, bill, overdue bill... and grins at a letter addressed to "Dani Girl" with a return address from Munger, Oklahoma.

-----

The two scenes still flow together, but we moved the "entrance" to the second scene to better button the first.

Or we can forget about chasing the perfect button and instead simply dovetail the two scenes in another way:

-----

DANI
I got...
(off Orson's look)
Definitely.

She brushes past Orson into --

INT. APARTMENT BUILDING - VESTIBULE - DAY

-- and flips through her crumpled mail...

-----

The third variation leaves everything as is, but adds CONTINUOUS to the slug.  Why?  It's that ambiguity thing again.  If it's not immediately clear we're transitioning in location but not time then the second slug might need a CONTINUOUS, to remove all doubt.  What you don't want -- what you NEVER want -- is the reader doubling back to reread something because it only became clear later what was going on.

So we could do this:

-----

DANI
I got...
(off Orson's look)
Definitely.

Dani brushes past Orson into the building.

INT. APARTMENT BUILDING - VESTIBULE - CONTINUOUS

Dani flips through the crumpled junk mail...

-----

But I'd argue CONTINUOUS is another writerly admission of defeat.  It's fine for a shooting script, but surely in a draft there's a way to let the context alone keep the reader on track.

(Even though there's no real problem here with the transitioning and slugs for these two scene, I'll go on acting like there is so I can flap my big mouth some more.)

We can apply slug shorthand to make all these problems go away.  Problems?  I don't see any prob-- MAKE THESE PROBLEMS GO AWAY, I SAID.

Ahem.  So, because the second scene is a CONTINUOUS of the first, let's use location/sub-location slugs.

Here's the old:

-----

EXT. RUNDOWN APARTMENT BUILDING - DAY

ORSON, an elderly homeless man...

....

Dani brushes past Orson into the building.

INT. RUNDOWN APARTMENT BUILDING - VESTIBULE - DAY

Dani flips through the crumpled junk mail...

-----

Here's the new, after the slugs get a wax and a Brazillian:

-----

EXT. RUNDOWN APARTMENT BUILDING - DAY

ORSON, an elderly homeless man...

....

Dani brushes past Orson into the building.

INT. FOYER

Dani flips through the crumpled junk mail...

-----

Dropping the day/night marks this as a sub-location slug within the parent slug location.  A "baby slug" if you will.  A fat, hungry, keening, oozing, wrinkly and slimy baby slug.  Yeah.  Think about that as you lie awake in bed tonight.

If you're feeling adventurous, try losing most or ALL your time-of-day indicators and REALLY get your pages flowing.  But you won't achieve this without very careful attention to context and description to avoid reader confusion.

What we're looking for in our writing is the least amount of friction between the reader and the story.  Long slugs increase friction.  Badly buttoned scenes increase friction.  Jarring transitions increase le frottement.

Following the baby-slug logic, we can go ahead and drop the INT/EXT if the next location change stays with the parent slug, e.g.

-----

Dani brushes past Orson into the building.

INT. FOYER

Dani flips through the crumpled junk mail...

ELEVATOR

The sickly flickering fluorescent lights make Dani squint
uncomfortably.  She thumbs the button for Level 12.

-----


5.
In prior 10PTTs I've demonstrated supercilious sensitivity (my chosen superhero power) toward repetition.  Why stop now.  Rather than echo "as she" in such close proximity, why not switch 'er up and avoid it:

"Dani opens it on her way to the busted security door."  Boom.  Repetition begone begone!


And with that, page 5 floats gently into my OUT tray.

Five pages left.  Looking for the inciting incident that rocks Dani's world.

[Pitchpatch]

p.6

1.
Not a problem here, but if you find a page overflowing with "as she" and "while she" phrasing, flush some out by flipping the order to eject the conjunction, e.g.:

"Dani tramps up the stairs reading the letter."


2.
We talked about scene buttons earlier.  Agnes's voice-over felt to me like a button:

-----

AGNES (V.O.)
... so don't go doing anything
foolhardy like...

Dani races up the stairs.

-----

That's like tickling me under the nose with a feather.  It's inevitable I'm gonna sneeze.  You're expecting it; I'm expecting it.  A sneeze is coming....

But doesn't.  Because the next scene isn't a pay-off to this setup.  Kinda like:

-----

INDIANA
Truck? What truck?

CRICKETS.  Indy and Sallah hold pose.  It's getting awkward.   Shouldn't we be cutting to --

SALLAH
The truck.  Yes.  Carrying the ark.  To Cairo.

CRICKETS.  Indy's shoulders slump.

HARRISON FORD
Okay, I'll be in my trailer.

-----

Maybe it's just me but I expected the next scene to CUT TO Dani doing exactly the foolhardy thing Agnes cautioned her not to do.  I have no idea what that thing is.  It just felt like that was a good scene button in progress.

It doesn't help that we're getting those full lengthy slugs for every apartment building scene.  Those little buggers are a nuisance, no doubt.  We need them to get the hell out of our way:

INT. VESTIBULE

STAIRWAY

HALLWAY - APARTMENT 3B


Much better.

The next bit with Dani confronting the Notice of Eviction -- do we need the "Dani stops at the door" or can we submerge it into context and land right on the important bit: the eviction notice.

-----

Dani races up the stairs.

HALLWAY - APARTMENT 3B

Dani snarls at a NOTICE OF EVICTION taped to the door.   She makes a fist.

DANI
Tad!

-----

Is the scene better with or without Dani approaching the door?  I like the idea of going from the kinetics of Dani bounding up the stairs to the dead stop of her facing the eviction notice.  It's a metaphorical and visual road block.  But maybe it works better as is, bridging the cut with matching action.  We won't know until an editor begins stitching these two scenes.

When laying out stepping stones A, B and C, my gut instinct is always to yank out stone B and let the reader mentally stretch a little more to cover the extra distance -- but only if it's a comfortable stretch.  Fewer stones equals fewer stops, and wider steps equals quicker pace and more narrative momentum overall.  I trust the reader to color between the lines, and same goes for the director.  Our job as writer is keep the story moving without bogging down in unnecessary detail.  What's necessary detail?  The stuff that's clear and concise and convincing.

I see "makes a fist" is now Dani's signature move.  That makes me smile.  I'm pretty sure it's there for comical effect.  That's how I see it: as both a cute affectation and a serious display of Dani's frustration at a world that never gives her an even break.

I like this tiny scene.  I like how Todd continues to dial up the atmospheric pressure squeezing poor Dani.  Job, gone.  Apartment, gone.  Nudged further and further out of her comfort zone with more shocks to come.  We're paying attention because how Dani deals with her growing misfortune will reveal to us how interesting she is as a main character.


3.
"Glides" feels like the wrong word -- too smooth and serene to match her mental state.  Unless we're talking "glides like a shark."

Again, we can leave her entrance implied.

"As the door closes it reveals..." -- This bit with the flyer feels overworked.  And the repetition of "it" bothers me.

By ending the preceding sentence with "... yanks open the bar door" the door stays the focus object and we can leverage that to contract the thought: "It closes and reveals a handmade flyer: TAD & THE POLES - TONIGHT - $5/DOOR."

Although, we've already glimpsed the flyer when she *opened* the door, so it's not exactly a reveal.  It does make sense to me if this is a medium shot moving with Dani and we hold on the threshold as the door swings back and the flyer fills the frame.

Hmmm, on rereading, maybe the flyer's on the *inside* of the door?  So we glimpse it only while the door is moving?  But why put a flyer on the inside?  Flyers go on the outside, out in public, to attract patronage.

Here's a version that firmly locates the flyers on the door exterior:

-----

Dani glides past a dented black minivan with a skull and crossbones sticker on its hatch window, yanks open the bar door crusted with handmade band flyers.

The newest one announces: TAD & THE POLES - TONIGHT - $5/DOOR

-----

Okay, no.  Not unequivocal yet.  It says the door's crusted with flyers, but still could be inside, outside, or both.

Whatever.  Not important.  Let the director and production designer choose on the day.  The important bit is the flyer.  It bridges Dani's "Tad!" back at her apartment  -- Roommate?  Boyfriend?  Brother? -- and tells us Tad's in a band.  And in trouble.  A slick and efficient piece of minimalist "show, don't tell" exposition.


4.
"as he faces" -- I wanted something smoother here, something less passive.  Maybe "Tad ... adjusts his guitar strap and throws a grin at ROY (20s) on bass and ZEKE (30s) on drums."  Yeah, not bad.  Here, Tad's good humor sets up the drastic mood change when Dani blitzes in.  This is our intro to Tad -- more than a minor character, I'm guessing -- so make it a good one.

"Zeke points to something behind him with his sticks." -- him who?  Him Zeke or him Tad?  Obviously Tad, but you're forgiven for stumbling first time through.  How about: "Zeke glances behind Tad and points with his sticks."


End of page 6.

Another page ripe with brewing conflict.  Kinda left us hanging there with Agnes's letter, but I expect we'll return to that very soon.  Don't know yet the full relationship between Dani and Tad.  Given the shared clothing sensibilities, I'll go with boyfriend.

I wonder too if we can button the "Tad!" scene right there on Dani's growling accusation.  In the next scene we see her storming the stage, eviction notice held high, so do we need to see her rip the notice off the door and storm away?  Isn't her balled fist and shriek of "KHAAAAAAAAAAN!", er, "Tad!" enough to reveal her rage?  Perhaps we can cut as she snatches the notice off the door?  More decisions for the edit bay.

The script is having no difficulty holding my interest so far.

Page 7 coming up.

[Pitchpatch]

p.7

1.
"Oh, shit." -- We're in Tad's POV.  Sometimes, like here, it just works better when you throw away the third-person omniscient description and drop into simple, straightforward POV to get 'er done.

Mwahahaha -- Roy's punctuating bass note.


2.
The essential thing is Tad turning away dismissively.  We know from the next action line he turned back to the band, but we already guessed that.  There's quite some fat to be trimmed from this page, with too much description micromanagement slowing things down.


3.
Two sentences for this little bit of stage direction?

"Tad's off the stage and in front of her so fast she has to back up a step."

Done.  Tad's speedy and very literal about-face is enough to convey his concern.  Even trim it to "Tad's in front of her so fast she has to back up a step," because we understand he dismounts the stage to get there.


4.
How about: "Dani crosses her arms" or "folds her arms."   I'm sure that's the phrase Todd intended.  Folding one's arms is a defensive move.  It says, Your shit will not fly today.  Fling it and watch it bounce right off me.

The extreme version of folding one's arms is to jam those hands deep in the armpits and really hug one's chest protectively.  If that's what Todd wants here then I suppose, yeah, emphasize the armpit angle.  But it sounds odd to me describing a common behavior this way.  We can't deny the possibility Dani jams her hands in her same-side armpits and does a rooster cluck-cluck strut.  Yes, I'm being silly.  We know what it means as written.  I'm saying don't waste time describing a narrow disc with a rubberized circumference traveling perpendicular to ground when we know already it's a wheel.


5.
This begs to be trimmed to a single line to claw back white space.  "Tad grins, flips hair away from Dani's eyes."  Or "Tad grins and brushes hair from Dani's eyes."  A little bare?  Then: "Tad grins, strokes hair away from Dani's eyes."  "Strokes" better implies tenderness, I think.  "Flips" is more of a casual, heedless gesture, but that might be precisely what Todd wants to invoke in Tad's character.


Hmmm.  Dani sure was quick to forget their impeding homelessness.  Seems Tad knows exactly where Dani's Abort Launch button is and he's never short on unlock codes.  This "surprise" better be a Winnebago made from chocolate and commitment.

And how about that: another page-turner ending!  Either this is by Todd's crafty design, in which case I grudgingly salute him for expertly puppeting my basal ganglia, or it's simple good luck.  Whichever,  I'm as curious as Dani about this "surprise."  Let's see what page 8 brings to the table.

[Pitchpatch]

p.8

1.
Always gotta question two-line parentheticals.  They better be crucial to justify plumping out the line count and obstructing the dialogue flow.

This one can be a simple single-line parenthetical or split it out into description.

-----

DANI
Don't.  Just... don't.

She's headed for the bar when Tad nocks his last arrow:

TAD
We're doing your song tonight.
For the Green Day people.

Dani stops and watches Tad casually hop back on stage.

-----


2.
I'll argue that "prances" amply signals Dani's mood reversal.  If she "walks" back to the stage she could still be brooding, but there's no grey area with "prances."  Dani's delighted.


3.
Let's soften this passive sentence by punching it up a little and axing the "are".

"Drunk and giddy, Dani and Tad stumble into their sparsely furnished, unremarkable apartment."

Other good verbs apropos here: crash, stagger, weave, bluster.


4.
This sentence's core message is: books everywhere.  The between-the-lines meaning is, Dani's a book FIEND.  This book hoarding fits perfectly with everything we've learned about her life so far.  Her life is books.  Tad occupies a rung one or two down.  Maybe five -- she didn't seem too demolished when about to cut him loose back at the bar.  So is it remarkable that Dani's apartment overflows with books?  Not really, because Todd's done a good job laying the foundation for Dani's life dedication to the written word.

On that basis I'd prefer to remove the unremarkable/remarkable pivot and simplify the description:

-----

INT. APARTMENT 3B - NIGHT

Dani and Tad stagger drunkenly through the door, Tad lugging his guitar case.

Stacked, shelved and scattered, books fill every space in the sparsely furnished apartment.

-----

That may not be an improvement on what's written, but I like how it moves the book focus to the start.  The book fetish hits us right away instead of the original's more roundabout lead-in.

Todd wants to drive that home, hence the unremarkable/remarkable riff, but I doubt it's worth the extra word count. 

I cut "hardcover and paperback" because we don't need the minutia.  To convey the breadth of variety we could broad-stroke it, like: "Stacked, shelved and scattered, a book riot occupies every space in the sparsely furnished apartment."

Ugh.  The more I see Tad the more I want him to say hello to my little fist.  "Babes."  What's our Dani doing shacked up with this smarmy punk Svengali?

Two pages left to kick the story in a new direction and give the reader something to boost them through to the first act break.

[Pitchpatch]

p.9

1.
This sentence feels heavy and overly busy: purse, mattress, guitar case, practice amp, bookshelf. By trimming the unnecessary bookshelf reference we cut short the mental leapfrogging.

We stated earlier that books fill every space in the apartment.  There's no harm restating it here, in another room -- except when a scene or sequence starts dragging its heels.  This stuff with Tad is doing that.  The sequence began halfway down page 6 and we're still knee deep on page 9.

Anyway, back to the page.

"Dani tosses her purse and flops on a mattress as Tad stands his guitar case next to a practice amp."


2.
You can't banish all passive construction or your sentences begin to sound like robot clones.  Always look for opportunities to mix it up.  So this passive sentence stays.  Plus there's an amusing button to the sentence itself with the unexpected poster.  But -- and isn't there always one -- I'm compelled to deal with the "poster" repetition:

"The walls are covered with alternative rock band posters.  And one for a country singer."

We could highlight it as jarring with "And, awkwardly, one for a country singer."   But the incongruity is obvious enough, yeah?  The sentence break performs the emphasis.


3.
Because I'm feeling we really need to get this scene moving along -- places to go, people to see -- I suggest we cut this line.  We can easily project Dani's expression based on her prior line, and we can guess how Tad delivers his "Ready for your surprise?" line.  The context and dialogue guides us through.  We don't need a blow by blow.


4.
Changed "Tad" to "he" for no other reason than mixing up names/pronouns to keep things from getting Little-Golden-Bookish:



By that I mean, always using names and rarely using "he" or "she".


5.
Tad told her to open it so we know she opens it.  We can infer that part the second time.  How about:

-----

Dani crawls to the case.  Inside: a vintage Gibson Les Paul.  Her hand explores around it.

DANI
Where is it?

-----

We're told it's a guitar case so we can lose the "Gibson Les Paul guitar."

And that's page 9.

Establishing Dani's backstory and relationship with Tad is important, but it feels like somebody's firmly pumping the brakes not long after our story blasted away from the starting line.

I can't shake the feeling this Tad business is unnecessarily drawn out.  Part of that could be my wish to get back to the Dani/Agnes/Carol Ann dynamic and witness the tense reunion between mother and daughter (both generations!).

I peeked at page 10 and, sadly for me, no reunion.  Maybe it arrives closer to page 15.  Maybe page 25, which would position it at about the Act One turning point.  I might never know.

Page 10 on the horizon and then another 10PTT tucked into bed.

FYI, today's review text composed while listening to the awesome soundtrack (get it free) for iOS indy game COOL PIZZA.

[Pitchpatch]

p.10

1.
Dani already "got it."  The surprise is the guitar.  Why's she still searching?  Let's trim, so she doesn't appear dense.  Tad still springs off the mattress fearing Dani's about to harm his Precious.


2.
Ditto previous page, re Little Golden Books.


3.
Alternately, punch up "moves" to "dives" or "clambers" or anything more vibrant.

"Dani is stunned" is fine, other than being passive.  What if:

-----

TAD
Thousand.

Stunned, Dani swats his arm and glares.  Tad scampers back to the mattress.

TAD
It's worth ten, but I just
had to put five down.

-----

Now we have action-reaction: Suddenly Tad needs to put some distance between them, and hopes he's got some of those Abort Launch codes left.


4.
Another line I'd cut in a heartbeat for its pace-sucking character micromanagement.


And we're done here.  Ten pages from Toddywoddy's 25 TO LIFE.

First six pages: ya dun good.  Then you lost me with the Tad stuff because IMO we get too bogged down in their relationship dynamic.  I quickly understood Tad's type and thereafter yearned to move back to the main story: Dani and Agnes and Carol Ann.  The eviction, the band, the guitar -- all that can and should be done in less than four pages/minutes!  We need to hit the inciting incident that lights the rocket Dani's riding, and we need to hit it by page 10 or 11 or 12-ish.

Oh, and the title.  Good choice.  Dani's 25.  Has that sly cleverness that can turn a movie poster into a real eye-catcher.

Thanks again to Todd for kindly offering his pages for my hatchet job.  Remember, this is a DRAFT script.  Inevitably it'll get better over time as Todd hones it.  I tip my hat to him for doing the hard yards -- revising script pages is a doddle compared to the agony of the blank page.  As always, my suggested edits and tinkerings are neither "right" nor "better."  Just right for me at the time.  A month from now I may slap my forehead and wish I'd gone easy on the Fussy Pills.

Unless something gets me super excited, I expect this is the last 10PTT from me for 2012.  So have a safe and fun Christmas, folks, and I'll see you sometime in 2013.  Thanks for swinging by.