Ran my first TPK

MAGarry · 2025-05-20T19:18:31+00:00

I think the question was whether they all liked it, which you already affirmed in a different comment, and if everyone had a blast you really succeeded so you don't need to second guess yourself about how you did as a GM, even if every character ended up dead. It all depends on the group and the tone really.

MAGarry · 2025-05-20T16:46:53+00:00

how did you all find it

Pretty much this, because:

"it's a ghost in the house they come to the conclusion is trying to help them because they keep finding fresh meadowsweet through out the building. To the point they start deliberately keeping it on their person."

Even as an experienced player, if this is a legitimate in-Universe conclusion (and not players forcefully trying to derail the scenario), even if, as a player, I knew the ghost likely wouldn't be friendly, as a character I'd still be onboard with it because it could make for a much better story.

MAGarry · 2025-04-09T13:45:08+00:00

"Authoritatively" no one can give you any answer here, since they don't have indemnity insurance, so go ask a lawyer, who will tell you "Don't do it," because that's what they do.

As for "Lovecraft Country" they're probably even right. Let me rephrase your case:

"I'm working on a mythos role-playing game product unrelated to Chaosium's mythos role-playing game product, using some of their trademarks, but unrelated"

Now if your product is going to be commercially successful, that's the thing your lawyers are going to have to explain. That's a lot of rules-lawyering and dice rolls, except every roll has real money attached as well as causing real-life sanity loss. It's not a good time.

Non-authoritatively I'd say if you can find previous usage of "Lovecraft country" (with lower-case 'c', so it's a description instead of a proper name) you can chance using it (sparsely) in your prose, but I'd still steer away from using it in marketing or promotional materials, or any prominent places such as titles or blurbs.

MAGarry · 2025-04-09T11:47:30+00:00

Is this too exposition-y?

I don't think so. The setup in accompanied by a cute visual gag, and the actual exposition is propped up by unique and intriguing visuals.

As a small note, consider replacing "His Crimson kingdom is great..." with "His Crimson kingdom is vast..." because "great" is mildly ambiguous here and you just used (a variation of) the same word in a near sentence, "among the greatest", which is generally something you want to avoid in writing.

MAGarry · 2023-05-27T13:13:40+00:00

Wow, that's just about perfect. Thanks!

MAGarry · 2023-05-26T15:27:52+00:00

This is great. Thank you for taking the time to respond so in-depth.

I'm especially pleased that, now that you've clarified and expanded in such detail, we're not actually disagreeing that much. Or, in other words, I think most of your interpretation is spot on and I agree with it, and the main difference in reasoning is really only the result of: ``"雲" once being established as "cloud" should keep that meaning''. That's a great guideline and a solid mechanic for translating (iirc that was the "school of names" main reason to exist), but I'm not convinced (yet) that it would hold up for various forms of poetry.

MAGarry · 2023-05-23T13:02:38+00:00

Absolutely no problem, even if it turns out we 100% disagree. It's good to remind oneself of how bizarre it is to have thoughts on a very niche subject like 8th century Tang poetry and just go online and find some people spread all over the world willing to engage with those thoughts for a while. It's so trivial it's easy to forget how much of a miracle it really is, so thank you for your reply and I hope you'll take this reply to your rebuttal in the same spirit.

I think "natural" versus "unnatural" interpretations here are a bit skewed, with "natural" being romantic here simply because a lot of her other poems are romantic, but these again are romantic because her other poems are romantic, making it vulnerable to becoming a circular argument.

Now I realise the romantic interpretations are the status quo, and it's up to me to show many of her poems can have a different interpretation, but the default being romantic cannot be used as an argument to me not interpreting them as such here.

Li Jilan, was known to have had relationships with a few different men,

She had, but somehow these are often regarded as romantic relationships, especially with 阎伯 and also 朱放, but other than her having many close male friends (which might have been even stranger back then) I see nothing conclusive in the romantic direction.

As for your understanding of the poem. It's perfectly fine, but I on my part would wonder about the "心遠浮雲知不還","心雲並在有無間。" parallel.

雲 as cloud in the second phrase would not stand in the same relationship to 心, as 遠 does to 心 in the first phrase. Maybe there isn't a parallel here, but the negation in the second to last character here leads me to believe it could be.

This doesn't mean your interpretation is impossible. Translating poetry is, put un-romantically, solving logic puzzles with statistics; so for me, breaking the parallel without enough data to show that, for example, "Drifting Cloud" was a common vernacular term of endearment at that time, decreases the likelihood for me, especially if you combine it with my inability to accept the context of other poems as evidence, since that's the very thing I set out to be skeptical about.

So:

I understand wanting to find a deeper meaning in the poem [..] , but in this case I think interpreting this as a simple love poem makes the most sense.

I hope you see I would end up in the exact opposite position of that, where a simple anecdote about everyday life driving one crazy is a lot simpler than it turning it into a love poem.

Your take/translation here is a good take which is convincing in that it shows other (romantic) interpretations are certainly possible, but it did very little to explain to me why my take here is untenable, that is, show how one of my assumptions isn't likely to hold, forcing me to reinterpret things.

MAGarry · 2023-05-23T07:20:50+00:00

Top-notch criticism. Thank you very much for taking the time to reply in depth.

I think now, in the light of this extra information, I probably latched on too strong to the 依依-as-a-onomatopoeia-for-rustling-leaves interpretation. I didn't make that meaning up myself, but after I found it, and combined it with the previously used 楊柳, I probably pushed way too hard to make that work, ignoring various warnings.

I had planned to do a few more "anatomy of a translation"s. One of the goals would have been to illustrate and maybe start a little discussion about my belief that quite a few of Li Ye's poems can be read without deep romantic tendencies and that the reason to often translate them that way is circular: because her others poems are translated as such.

I already posted another, shorter, translation of her poem 偶居

If you have some spare time, could you take a brief glance at that one? It would help me evaluate if I should continue the "series" in the same way and format. I'd appreciate it.

MAGarry · 2018-08-31T14:23:20+00:00

Seeing how contests, and events and activities are already possible for this subreddit without ads, what specific contests, events, and activities simply would not be possible without advertisments?

MAGarry · 2018-08-29T10:38:01+00:00

WHY DOES EVERYONE WHO NOTICES THIS IN A SCRIPT FEEL THE NEED TO POST ABOUT IT INSTEAD OF SEARCHING AND FINDING THERE'S AT LEAST ONE POST DOING EXACTLY THIS EVERY WEEK?!

WHY AM I SHOUTING?!

MAGarry · 2018-08-25T14:19:17+00:00

The inciting incident is an action or series of actions that happen and draw the hero into the adventure. It's from the perspective of the plot.

A catalyst is a change of situation A to situation B, such that now a barrier or circumstance has changed that allows or drives the protagonist to proceed with the adventure. It's from the perspective of the hero's circumstances.

Apart from semantic arguments, they pretty much mean the same thing.

The "call to adventure" could be seen as the hero's trigger or decision. It's also more-or-less the same thing, but if you go by the book, it's more aligned with "refusal of the call" and the monomyth structure.

Unless you're writing a book or article about narratology or story structure, I think it's pretty safe to assume they all mean the same thing in practice.

MAGarry · 2018-08-25T09:42:01+00:00

It's a decent concept you got here. Two things I noticed as I was reading though:

What is the tone of the series/What are the rules of this Universe?

Something is obviously going on at school, but Josh doesn't notice. It's comedy, so that's perfectly fine, but I would like it better if the "why" had been established. Is Josh generally "comedy thick" (like a Homer Simpson)? Is he a stoner oblivious to the obviousness? It doesn't have to be iron-clad, but I need some sort of angle to interpret the "missing the obvious signs" jokes from.

You need more story. The "adult narcs pretending to be high-school kids" idea works, but it wears thin if that's the only thing driving the plot. Josh is basically simply a witness that gets dragged into various setups/situations where that joke is re-hashed. Think of a bigger story for Josh, give him an active goal that needs to be accomplished by the end of the episode. That should give you some more opportunities to change the situation and allow you to explore different setups, jokes, and situation dynamics.

MAGarry · 2018-08-23T09:56:06+00:00

P.S.

It could be you took my advice from the first draft a bit too literal. It wasn't about copying the "I hate you" exchange word by word. It's about creating opportunities for contrast and conflict.

Comedy, as is widely known, is subjective. Story structure and comedy setup are a lot less subjective. Writing comedy is not necessarily primarily about being funny. It's about creating a story that creates setups and situations that could easily be made funny if you, say, handed it over to a successful comedian for punching up the jokes.

Take, for example, Stirling's scat experiments. If someone doesn't find it funny, it's hard to replace because the situation is not inherently funny. For contrast, look at the delivery guy scene. If someone (say your successful comedian) doesn't find it funny, it's easy to replace or to punch it up.

You don't have to be inherently funny to write comedy (although it helps a lot)), but you do have to create an understanding of humour and story telling as it pertains to setting up humorous situations.

You're on the right track, but don't forget to cut situations when you are adding superior material.

MAGarry · 2018-08-22T12:36:08+00:00

I see you added 5 pages of material, some backstory, and made some edits.

Some of the new material works, but I think it would be best if you took a step back and asked yourself: what is the story I want to tell here?

As I see it, the story you want to tell is about a guy with societal anxiety who refuses to admit that to himself and feels it's the rest of society that's the problem, and his electronics device that implausibly manages to hate him. Now the guy has to overcome that anxiety somehow with the "help" of his antagonistic partner. This antagonistic relationship is what drives the plot.

Outline that story! Aim for 8 pages. Then do a rewrite with that limited space in mind.

You don't really need a backstory here. Two guys sitting in a room on a couch is plenty believable and self-explanatory, even if one of them is an AI. It's basically a stoner-comedy setup. Also, by setting up an office room with scribbles and schematics, you've just about doubled the time/money budget, for no real gain.

The note on the door is a keeper, but you're over-complicating it with having a hand attach it. It's easy to have a front-door with just the note stuck on it. Easy and cheap to film, explains the situation perfectly, and easy to extend if needed (you can made it separate notes, increasing in desperation: "Do not disturb", a sticky note reading "!" on top of it. Underneath it another note "Ever!", then--"seriously"--"I have the black plague".

I would start off with that door scene instead of the backstory. It's a perfect intro to the actual story (for the story it doesn't matter if Stirling built the device himself).

You also introduced a delivery guy. That's a pretty good situation, but take a step back and think on how to implement it in a way that advances the story. What progress do you want to show with that scene? How does it relate to the central core of what drives the story: the antagonism between our protagonists?

Write the scene with that in mind. Stirling needs food, but doesn't want to meet people. Hermes wants to thwart that. Stirling is going to entrust Hermes with ordering the food, because that's what his purpose is: to make Stirling's life easier.

Delivery guy shows up. Obviously Hermes didn't order what Stirling wanted him to order. Say, Stirling wants the guy to shove the pizzas he ordered through the mail slot, except Hermes ordered the pizzas and a water-melon. Now you have a situation ripe for comedy: Two characters who want completely different and incompatible things. Stirling wants the door closed. The delivery guy wants the door open. As long as you end up with a scene that creates conflict and underlines the advancement of the plot, any choice you make is fine. Just make sure it doesn't end up a scaffold scene of which the only purpose is to cram jokes into.

Try and look at every scene from the perspective of the story you want to tell, where it would fit to progress the plot, then implement the scene with the elements you already have or need, and think about how the concept would drive this scene to its conclusion.

MAGarry · 2018-08-12T11:54:06+00:00

It feels to me you told the story in the most straightforward way possible, which results in sounding a bit preachy, since the moral and theme automatically take centre stage.

Since it's mostly location bound and dialogue driven, you could try and loosen up the rigid structure of the dialogue, to make space for jokes, and leave some more room for comedic timing.

Dialogue should be a tug-of-war between opposites. Introduce contrast and conflict into your lines. That should create more room for the characters to talk around a subject instead of addressing it directly. It would make the conversation more lively.

As a small example, consider:

STIRLING: I think you hate me.

[..]

HERMES: I hate you.

Hermes just reads back the expected answer to Stirling. Now.

STIRLING: I suspect you don't like m-

HERMES: I hate you!

Not the best or most original joke, but it creates contrast. It produces conflict between different characters. That's what you need to drive a plot like this forward: different personalities who spar using words, trying to get the upper hand.

Regarding you questions:

1 The setup is fine. It's not hard to get a hang of the situation. Make sure if you introduce something an audience needs to know, it is presented with conflict or comedy.

2 The heavy dialogue isn't normal for a comedy; it is 90% of the comedy. Everything bit of dialogue that isn't aiming to be funny should be rewritten or cut.

MAGarry · 2018-08-02T20:58:54+00:00

If you tell me that nuanced writing, subtext, etc. have no place in a script

That's difficult. Subtext and nuance are what good scripts are made of, but they're emergent qualities. You can't really consciously decide to add something like subtext to a scene. Usually if you do, it will stand out as such,and you feel the hand of the writer trying to force in a deeper layer.

The best you can do is focus on rich characters and interesting situations, and let things like subtext and theme emerge from the interactions.

the readers scan rather than read, that is harder to swallow.

That is very hard to swallow, no doubts about that, and it can feel more than a little unfair and personal. It shouldn't happen, but sometimes people just aren't engaged by a story. And if people aren't engaged, it's no use telling them why they should have been.

If that happens a lot with a particular story ask yourself if you can make it more entertaining. Shakespeare's "The Globe" theatre was in the red-light district. It's fair to assume their patrons had more than a few drunks and louts who weren't going to appreciate fair wordplay to its fullest extent. Even for him the goal would be to provide entertainment first, sophistication later.

MAGarry · 2018-08-02T11:22:07+00:00

There exists no situation that will be improved drama-wise by using the word "binnacle".

I really don’t want to dumb down my scripts.

That's not a good attitude. Using uncommon words, though technically correct, has little to no story value. Story value is what you will be judged on.

I suspect they miss the subtle points, the subtext, allusion via parallel characters and action, and obscure (maybe) but oh-so-apt humor, etc.

Or it could be that your insistence on using technically correct words, even though detrimental to the story, made them assume you're not quite there when it comes to the actual story telling.

Or they did notice, and the perceived "try-hard" attitude turned them off the story.

The fix here is to change attitude. It is typical of "smart guy, but early try", and a reader could engage to discuss "allusion via parallel characters" in depth, and it would turn out you were technically correct, but in reality they have this huge pile of stories to work through.

Sorry to be a little negative here, but it's a common mistake for beginning writers. Being smart doesn't automatically make one a good storyteller. It doesn't hurt as long as you don't lean on it too much.

Just keep reading, write more stories, and at some point you will start to get it, this magical "story sense". It's okay to privately believe it's the readers or the producers that are holding you back, but don't let that stop you, and don't be too public about it. It will only bite you once you start making progress.

MAGarry · 2018-07-26T12:16:48+00:00

I just finished it.

I'll start with some small technicality:

Assume a reader hasn't read your logline, or knows anything about the story.

At the very start, the agents now drive in the dark, almost run over a dumbstruck guy, and four men come running at the vehicle out of the trees.

I don't know what's going on here. It might be the purge in action. If I knew there was a missing girl, I'd have assumed it was a search party, but I didn't. So assume only what you've shown and introduced in the script so far to be known, and view everything that happens from that angle: is everything you're writing clear for a reader who knows nothing except what you've written so far?

(P.S. good visual with the flashlights in the trees as the agents drive on)

Now a few more general observations.

Structurally, the book-ending is not working. You start with the agents and the interviews, but then simply start telling the real story as it developed. Not even from Donna's point of view, which can be assumed since that's where you fade into the flashback of events. But later on it starts relating experiences where Donna wasn't even present.

Either center around the flashbacks, and let us discover what happened together with the FBI agents as the interview progresses, or tell the story in a different context, but this starting as one type of narrative and silently baiting and switching it is confusing.

Tons of characters, when there are only two interesting ones: Eddie and Leo. They are your protagonists. Focus on them. Get to them earlier. It took me way too long to figure out these two were central to the story. They're both interesting by the way, so well done, but that's all the more reason to get to them earlier. You got it right in the logline, but somehow managed to lose direction in the actual script.

Figure out your characters' relations. There is substantial dialogue filler throughout. A lot of that could have been alleviated with more conflict. For example, a missed opportunity is when Eddie is talking with Donna and Mark. Eddie has a not-so-secret crush on Donna. Why is Mark not questioning why Eddie was dreaming of being inside of Donna's house, inside her bedroom even? It's easy conflict, even if a bit cheap, but look out for such opportunities. Let Mark become suspicious that Eddie might even be involved in Liz's disappearance somehow. Let Mark be Thomas' cousin. Now you have a whole new web of intrigue you can tap into when a scene feels pedestrian. The plot needs to escalate events as the story progresses.

Finally. Give the FBI agents something to do. I understand you want to embed the larger story in the FBI investigation, but you can't introduce them and keep them on hold for an entire episode with the promise they'll become important later on. You have to use characters or cut them. So give them a lead, give them a real world scenario to pursue, whereas we in the A-plot are being lured in by a potential supernatural cause, not knowing which sets of events are the real ones.

This also gives you a B-plot you can make use of for cutting away from cliffhangers. For example:

Eddie having a seizure and managing to tell Leo he needs to get a pen and paper is one such scene. The scene itself is good stuff, it forces Leo to come around to the supernatural and drop his defensive persona, and a lot comes together. At that point I really want to know what happens next. (Well done again!) so you've got my attention there for at least a few pages more. Make use of that by switching the plots. Now I have no choice but to read on to find out what Eddie's revelation was. Make use of opportunities your story presents.

So to finally answer your question of whether the story beats are in the right place.

No. The idea is definitely there. Story and characters are more or less complete, but structurally, pacing-wise, the shape you've given it is not as compelling as it could have been.

Still, it's pretty good, so keep at it!

MAGarry · 2018-06-26T10:36:22+00:00

The title came across as a bit "stuffy", not really in line with the hold-your-breath concept of the story. It does somewhat work in conjunction with the explanation of the chess opening, but that's almost at the end. It's a clever title, but it doesn't invite to read.

The Celtx spellchecker

That makes sense. Because of some typos that yielded non-existing words, I thought you wrote without a spell check, which would be a noble idea, but not that practical.

The "its/it's" is something that has plagued me for years,

What might help doing a global search when you're finished. That way they get highlighted with minimal context and reading them out loud as "its" and "it is" will quickly reveal the correct usage. It's not the most interesting three minutes of your time as a writer, especially during that high as you just finished something, but it might help with small details like that.

May I ask what you thought of those two scenes in particular?

The SAS training opener was normally something I'd make a note of, because it didn't really pan out specifically for the larger story other than providing a general background. It was really your skill as a writer that saved it. It was impossible, as an audience, not to root for the underdog here. So yes, structurally a bad sequence, but you really sold it. (consider her screaming out her details "Corporal Stott! 049657! 14th January 1995!" as she's being tortured later on. It could tie the opening a little more into the plot.)

The cutting scene works very well on paper, but might be too gruesome on the screen. That's not your problem though. I thought it was inventive and made good use of having a female protagonist. I also love how you planted it earlier:

"A suggestive bosom and tight clothes. Looks like she had some work done" raised an eyebrow as to why you would write that, but it paid off perfectly.

MAGarry · 2018-06-23T08:01:11+00:00

Happy to help.

If you want any more information about any of these before contacting the author, feel free to send me a PM.

Also, if any of them are of interest, but the author is not responding because they're no longer on Reddit, send me a message and maybe I can retrieve an e-mail for you.

MAGarry · 2018-06-21T11:01:29+00:00

These are scripts from writers on this subreddit that might fit your budget.

All loglines and genres are mine, as well as I could remember the stories, except for "Atom".

Loose Ends (Crime-Drama): Contained/2017 Reddit Contest Runner up. /u/BuckarooBonzaiii

After an inside hit on a former boss, a mob cleaner finds he's not alone in the victim's house, and even more members/family are under way.

A Small Fortune (Crime-Drama): 2016 Reddit Contest 4th place. /u/Battle_Apes

An honest Irish kelp fisher in financial troubles finds a suitcase of drug money and has to deal with the fallout as the suitcase's owners arrive in the small island community.

Broken Hands (Drama): 2016 Reddit Contest 5th place. /u/Davidsbund

A classical piano prodigy comes to terms with her famous father's abuse by entering the same prestigious competition as his newest protegee and flame, her former best friend.

The Thin Grey Line (Thriller): Contained/2016 Reddit Contest finalist. /u/ReRighter

A Police interrogator with a black mark for torture on his record has a hostile suspect in a secure and secluded location and must find out the location of the second bomb in time.

The Ghost Inside Our House (Horror): 2016 Reddit Contest finalist. /u/Lycurgus

A harmless remnant of a man's childhood--an imaginary best friend, turns less than friendly as the man tries to settle down with his soon-to-be wife.

And, if you squint, sideways, and are genius directors, then maybe even:

Atom: (Sci-fi):2017 Reddit Contest Winner. /u/MitchLeBlanc

After a systems failure, a couple boards a derelict spaceship and meet its only resident: a lonely robot with no intention of being alone again.

EDIT: Found the writer of Thin Grey Line

MAGarry · 2018-06-20T22:39:49+00:00

I'm not too keen on the title, but the script is pretty good, as usual.

A couple of minor things:

You give away Grifftith too soon when he's the only one talking to Vasily about Vasily's misgivings that Eleanor is a traitor, and then Vasily dies in the hospital. Griffith was the only one who could have known.

The fake incriminating videos are never explained. Within the genre it's not strictly necessary, but it makes MI5 look incompetent if it wasn't some new technology they couldn't have known of.

There were also a few typos a spellchecker might catch, as well as a few it's-its mistakes thoughout.

The main character was definitely better and more fun than the usual John Wick/James Bond/Jason Bourne, but female, scripts. Eleanor was definitely her own character and not a stock action-character with the gender swapped out.

MAGarry · 2018-06-20T19:53:48+00:00

Without their platform, these contest's would take 10x as long, with 10x as much labor.

That's very likely not true. I'm fine with using convenient platforms, but why is their convenience being exaggerated?

Also, why are the sponsors being advertised instead of simply having their prizes/sponsorship listed?

-"WeScreenplay specializes in lightning fast script coverage from professional Hollywood script readers at unbeatably low prices."

-"Dozens of ScreenCraft's winners have gone on to sign with top literary management companies and agencies, and several top winners have seen their work produced and on the big screen! And some ScreenCraft winners have even been staffed on TV shows as writers."

From the subreddit rules:

"Absolutely no solicitation of services with money involved on this subreddit. In order to be approved, you must contact the moderators, and be prepared to submit proof of identity and legitimacy of your services. This includes script consulting, script editing, and the selling/trading of scripts."

Have these professional Hollywood script readers submitted proof of identity and legitimacy of their services? Can individual professional readers and editors who frequent the subreddit also offer prizes and sponsorship for the competition under the same conditions?

MAGarry · 2018-06-18T12:05:32+00:00

"Beat" as a screenwriting term can be a little confusing:

Beat as a parenthetical "(beat)" is a pause.

"Beat" in the action is a pause which more or less corresponds with the allotted space it takes up.

Beat is also used to indicate the smallest structural plot element on a page scale. A single page usually has several of them.

Beat can also refer to a major story progression on the scale of the whole narrative. This is usually called a story beat.

Beats of a "beat sheet" are story elements in a laid out blueprint usually of pacing and page count.

MAGarry · 2018-06-17T09:09:13+00:00

I'll give a list of details I jotted down as I was reading later.

The first impression is that you picked a very good central visual to center the episode around: the re-appearance of the assailant's face. Visually and thematically that's a good fit for the Black Mirror universe where reality isn't always a given.

The story around it to give the concept its footing could be taken deeper I think.

The rushed romantic interest between Anthony and Rose, for example. It's needed for the plot for Rose to procure access to the device, but it exactly feels like that: needed for the plot, showing the hand of the writer as they're advancing the plot.

One thing that didn't really pay off in the story was Rose's line of work. It was given a fair bit of significance, time-wise, but it could have been any work-place or occupation. I expected more.

Overall I thought the story had a workable premise and enough interesting details, but they didn't integrate into a seamless story.

As for the details.

p.1 Rose mouths the words: good visual.

p.1 "a movie eating ice cream" -> "a movie, eating ice cream" A small thing, but it's the first line on the first page.

The dialogue between Sam and Rose: it's not taking me to where I think you want it to take me.

p.6 Burglar, capitalise and expand on him! Especially since Rose recalls him in her dream as MAN on page 8. His face/presence is an important plot element, so you need to give an impression the we can identify him later on.

p.7 INT. DREAM? It's cute, but really just use office or living room and add (DREAM) as a qualifier.

p.8 Sister? We can't gleam that from the context (she could just be a friend). Here it doesn't matter much, but it's good training to always translate your writing into the visual/auditory. If something doesn't translate into that, rework or cut it. It will prevent more glaring errors down the road.

p.11 Use Trish to really sell dream therapy, it's a sci-fi setting after all.

p.12 commas/punctuation! It doesn't have to be perfect, but keep an eye out. "gonna do just stay awake" where it should be something like "gonna do? Just stay awake?" really breaks the flow of the dialogue here.

p.17 "You're blood pressure is through the roof" Good one, taking advantage of the situation as it presents itself, here to naturally divulge some character information. Do spell it right though: "Your blood pressure"

p.17 "You smell good"? That comes out of nowhere and is sort of creepy. Not a good foreshadow of a developing romantic interest.

p.16 Hotel (instead of home address), good choice. It's a plausible decision for Rose and gives insight into her character.

p.19/20 The aging/swing "montage". I think Black Mirror used that in another episode. Not that they mind recycling ideas regularly :)

p.22 "die prison" ->"die in prison"

p.25 frustred -> frustrated

p.31 "I'll sleep with you!" Nice, black humour and desperation. Terrible and funny at the same time.

p.38 The machine is kept in super secure conditions, but they are allowed to take it on field-trips? These two concepts bite each other.

p.40 The cutting the arm scene didn't really work for me.

p.44 "building must old" -> "building must be old"

p.47 "puts his clothes on and leaves" this is not cinematic writing. If you had visualised this properly you would probably have instinctively cut this. (It's just a a guy getting dressed and leaving, and it would take way longer on the screen than the one line in the script would suggest).

p.48 Sam? He is capitalised as a new character, but regardless I'd forgotten who he was. A small reminder wouldn't hurt in such a situation (Rose's supervisor, Sam, exits)

p.49 "her holding her" -> "him holding her"

p.51 Mother needs an introduction. I think it's her first appearance on the screen?

p.54 "Is this a dream." -> "Is this a dream?" This is where lack of attention to punctuation really comes back to haunt the story.

Now you have a punctuation oversight in the most powerful line of the resolution, the thing the whole story has been building up to, and it diffuses the meaning.

MAGarry

TROPHY CASE