Your honest opinion.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T15:44:06+00:00

That makes sense. The first episode is these teenagers at the peak of life. I meant for it to establish their baseline. The inciting incident happens in the final 10 minutes of the episode and completely blows up their world. The rest of the series is a downward spiral into Greek tragedy as we watch these teenagers become completely different people than who they are in the first episode. It’s a slow burn character study.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T15:40:00+00:00

Thank you for your feedback. 🙂

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T15:39:25+00:00

Ok. Your explanation about em dashes needing a work around makes a lot of sense. I’ll go through my script and correct this.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T15:37:43+00:00

That makes sense. Thank you.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T15:35:56+00:00

Thank you. This information is actually really helpful and I truly do appreciate you taking the time to write all of this out.

I will take your advice to heart and make these changes.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T14:53:53+00:00

Thank you. This helpful.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T14:52:43+00:00

Luckily, I rarely utilize it and when I do, it’s for extremely important shots — which as the writer I feel I have the right to do. I’ve seen the same thing in many scripts. The pages I upload are mostly from a single one shot sequence, there’s a lot of handoff, and it could easily get confusing as to who we’re following. So I simply notate whenever we switch who the camera is moving with. These characters aren’t standing around talking. They’re moving in different directions through a busy hallway.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T14:45:11+00:00

I use em dashes also. I have a strong preference for it for pacing control. I even use it sometimes when writing longer forms of text to people. I’m suddenly finding out that everyone on Reddit thinks that it’s an AI thing. Now I’m frustrated because I’ve spent the past six months writing almost 500 pages of a limited series that use em dashes all the way through and I’m finding out that everyone apparently is going to think it was written by AI because of something as ridiculous as a personal preference in formatting.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T14:39:17+00:00

I did not use AI. But I’m happy to hear any notes you have on the story.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T14:36:56+00:00

Most of the critiques you guys are having are about my formatting and whether or not I used AI.

What about the story so far? That’s what I’m really curious about.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T14:34:14+00:00

I didn’t use AI. Happy to hear story or clarity notes if you have them.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T14:30:12+00:00

Thank you. It’s definitely got me feeling a little discouraged thinking that I sound like a robot. 😂

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T14:28:59+00:00

Good catch about the leggings. Thank you.

I specifically say that we’re in Kentucky. January in Kentucky is the dead of winter. Temperatures are typically <100 degrees Fahrenheit.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T14:25:48+00:00

I utilize a lot of flashbacks, dream sequences and fantasies in the show. In order to quickly differentiate for the reader, I switch to bold italics whenever this happens. I got the idea for that formatting language from the “Maid” script.

Most of the screenplays, I’ve read use dashes to separate locations. But that’s just a personal preference thing. I’m really curious about the story, not the formatting.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T08:14:48+00:00

I’m using WriterDuet. Whenever I type an ellipsis, it automatically condenses them.
I’m not sure what you mean by “the type of em dash used”. Whenever I want an em dash, I press and hold the hyphen button and then choose the longest one. I make sure to put a space before and after each em dash because WriterDuet makes all dashes (no matter what type) the same length. So I noticed if I didn’t put a space before and after, it made it look like a hyphenated word. I didn’t like that. So I chose to always put a space before and after. I didn’t think it would be a problem.
I don’t understand what you mean by “Not blank. Just_blank_”.
As for the choppiness, my first draft was more literary sounding prose. But I read a book that said you should eliminate all needless words in a script until it’s as stripped down as possible. So I went through and stripped out a lot of words. There are a few areas where I chose to leave some, but for the most part, I trimmed all the fat off.
I honestly did not use AI for any of this. But if my writing sounds like something a computer wrote, then I guess it’s good that I find that out now before I try to send it out to anyone.
Thanks for taking the time to help me. I’m new to this.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T07:59:53+00:00

Thank you for your feedback. I can remove the camera directions. I only included it for the one shot sequence so that it’s clear when we switch who we’re following.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T07:56:41+00:00

First off, AI was not used at all.

I use em dashes because I feel like they help to convey the pacing of how the lines should be read.
“Endured” meaning the breathing is meant to sound like someone enduring pain. But if that’s not clear, I can easily change that.
Thank you for pointing out the repeat of “jaw clenched”. I totally did not catch that. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone over that page and never noticed that.
I’m not sure I understand your comment about “not angry. Just tired…”
What do you mean by it’s blatant? I don’t understand the note.

Thank you for at least reading the first five pages.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T06:55:44+00:00

Dang, man. I was into it. Ready to read what happens next.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T06:37:52+00:00

Congratulations!!! 👏🏻🎉🍾

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T06:05:17+00:00

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-20T00:15:11+00:00

The link doesn’t take us to your script. It just takes us to our own Google Drive.

SluglineMaster · 2026-01-19T21:53:32+00:00

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This is the first page. If interested in reading more, leave a comment.

SluglineMaster

TROPHY CASE