Hey there! I thought I'd drop by for a quick review this lovely Review Day.
First off, a script! Cool! I don't get to see very many of those on here.
If you're serious about script writing, you probably already know this, but just in case: probably the best thing you can do to improve your script writing is to not only watch movies, but actually read scripts. I read a few of the Doctor Who scripts just out of interest a year or so ago, and it was really enlightening to see what's put down on the page vs. what winds up on the screen. It also really highlights how different movie dialogue is vs. book dialogue.
Dialogue:
As I'm sure you know, since this is a script, getting your dialogue right is absolutely essential, as it's 90%+ of any given script. Right now, however, this reads more like book dialogue than movie dialogue, and more importantly it feels somewhat artificial and stilted. Your character don't really jump off the page - I can see some differences between them, but they just don't feel fully realized, and the biggest reason is because the dialogue feels unnatural. Right now, it just feels like the generic Guy Explaining Things with the Grumpy One, Sarcastic One, and the others, who blend together.
I guess my big tip for dialogue is to really get into the mindset of each individual character, and then go through and read the dialogue out loud. If you find yourself tripping over words or if phrases just sound odd, trust your gut - those are what need work.
Script Formatting:
My other suggestion, which should help with the characters feeling stilted, is to add more body language. In the scripts I've read, the screenwriter does give a guideline of the character's body language to help the actors know how to express what their character is feeling. Essentially, your script can be more than just dialogue and basic actions. Other than that, the formatting was clear and easy to read, except that usually brackets [ ] are used for actions, not parenthesis.
Actual Plot
I like the Cygens and I especially think it's interesting how these Cygens are working against other Cygens as part of this security force. I also thought the smart concrete was cool, and that the explanations overall made sense.
However, he did a sloppy job and ended up getting more than he bargained for.
I'm going to question this for a few reasons. First off, yeah, the deep data dump comes across as kind of dumb. Really, the best way to secure information is to keep it somewhere secret on a hard drive not connected to the internet. Spreading it out like this does help protect from the attacks, but what if one of those servers not under their control goes down? They'd lose the information completely unless they have a back-up. (Or maybe they do have a back up in a disconnected hard drive somewhere, and this setup is only used so they can access the information easily?)
More importantly, even from what little I know about coding, I'd be surprised if a "sloppy job" would get him more files than he needed, rather than less, though I suppose it's possible. But surely he'd just delete the extra files? I just think a little more explanation would be good here, especially of how they know that he has this data *and* knows what it is.
But overall, this is a pretty good start to an interesting storyline! Good luck, and keep writing!
gotcha. Maybe put an author's note then saying that
Points: 90000
Reviews: 1085
Donate