The Art Of The Kill - Slasher/Comedy - 80 Pages

[obtuse flame]

Okay. Taking notes as I go. I apologise if I come off condescending or like a twat; you seem like a great writer, I just happen to be a little harsh.

PG 4
You have a really good grip of dialogue. It not only sounds realistic, but the back-and-forths feel snappy and flow quite well.

PG 5
Okay, the garden scene implementation here is perfect as the meet-and-greets everyone was doing were getting a tad bit boring/repetitive.

PG 10
Just something I thought I’d mention, but I’m kinda losing track of who’s who here. I only know/remember Sue, and I think it’s because she’s the only one with some form of character right now (in that she’s worried about her boss coming to the party).

We’re not really learning anything about anybody else, everybody’s jovial and happy – which is fine – but there’s no conflict in any of these relationships. We don’t have to know their backstories, but I do think that for these scenes to feel less ‘and then this happened’, you do need to hint at the underbelly of these relationships – is someone hiding an affair? Does someone really not want someone else there for some reason?

I just fear that otherwise everybody reads quite same-y.

PG 11
Not a structural flaw, just a nitpick, but who doesn’t know what a Ouija board does?

PG 12
I had to go back a few pages to find out who Bruce was, as he doesn’t speak at all before this and is only mentioned twice otherwise. Piggybacking off what I said earlier, perhaps when Claire & Bruce are introduced they are mid-argument? And when Mary & co come in they have to smile and wave?

Not telling you how to write, per se, just I think that for us to care about Claire being cheated on by Bruce, we need to care about Claire and that requires seeing some scenes of her struggle.

PG 15
I had to do the same thing that I did for Bruce with Craig here, I didn’t even think he’d been mentioned before. I do think immensely cutting down or streamlining your characters could help with tracking them through the script, as right now I think I could only name 4 of the ones here.

Edit: Thinking on it, I don’t think it’s the number of characters. I think it’s the lack of personality, or rather that they all sound the same. If I covered up the name above the dialogue lines, I wouldn’t be able to even attempt a guess at who said what. I think some variation would fix this, and I do think that that could come from hinting at their character wants and needs a little earlier.

PG 18
I had to repeat this for Jake too, who is only mentioned in an off-hand line by Sue. Once again, not telling you how to write – just if a reader has to do work to keep track of your script, they’re less likely to finish it.

PG 20
Yeah, the police car scene kinda lost me as it’s just not really believable. Sure, the police may get prank calls and what not, but I don’t think they’d just completely ignore calls – people still get assaulted, killed and whatnot on Halloween. It’s still a day that ends in y, after all.

PG 23
Okay, honestly, I think this is where the script gets going for me. Not 100% sure why, but I think it’s because we’ve just had pages and pages of dialogue that hasn’t really led anywhere, and now something interesting has happened plot wise in that someone has noticed a knife is missing.

Sorry to say, but the previous pages haven’t really moved the story along as much as they’ve felt like ‘setup’.

…and now I’m not sure what the point of that was as Bruce took the knife? I think I get what you’re trying to do – subvert our expectations and whatnot, but it doesn’t really work. One reason, I think (I’m repeating myself a little bit, but I think it’s worth it as it’s a key one) is we have no connection to Bruce here. Or really know any of the characters,

even a little bit.
Even in ensemble movies, there’s always a protagonist and it’s for this reason – we need someone to root for, to feel the relationships with otherwise it’s just a bunch of people. I couldn’t tell you anything about these folk so far, apart from that Bruce is cheating with Michelle, Sue was nervous about her boss coming and Jake seems to have a substance abuse problem. That’s it.

I’ll explain what I mean: let’s say there’s one person in the group who’d recently been released from prison for knife-related offences, or had been seeing a psychiatrist for ASPD related problems, I feel that this would’ve made Mary noticing the knife missing have more weight, as even though it’s a red herring we’d be thinking ‘Oh, did he do it then?’ and then the Bruce reveal would properly subvert our expectations.

Finally, the lights cutting again isn’t really working for me. It feels very ‘something else needs to happen’.

PG 26
More scenes in this vein, please. Even though it doesn’t really illuminate much about Amelia, it shows us a moment of emotion. So far, no one’s really shown any vulnerability or emotions that aren’t the same as everyone else’s. I do think adding more quiet character beats between characters would really help a reader connect with them.

PG 28
…did Richard die off screen? If so, that’s fine, it’s just the way that everybody is reacting in this scene is way too callous, in my opinion (and is what made me think that maybe Richard’s death was already addressed). Sure, they didn’t like him and he is dressed as Jimmy Saville, but…the guy DIED. I think that that would still shake a lot of people, and yet everybody here is acting like this is just a regular afternoon. Surely this would be quite debilitating, especially so soon after Craig?

PG 30
This scene actually caught my interest, mainly because there’s finally CONFLICT. Every scene on every movie, TV show etc. (and yes, every) has conflict. Character A wants/expects/is hiding something from Character B who wants the opposite, and the tension/engagement in the scene comes from the “slow unearthing” of that. It’s not always a fight or an argument, but it’s a pull-and-push that draws us in, and then FROM this, we learn something about the characters and their relationships.

In this case, Bruce wants Sue to hurry up and find the keys, Jake doesn’t want Bruce to talk to Sue like that. Now, we have CONFLICT, and thus an opportunity to delve into the characters and relationships.

For example, is this a grandstanding thing? Maybe Jake thinks that Sue is too nice to Jake because of something he did in the past to their family, and Bruce is perhaps a dickhead because they don’t know why he had to do what he did? Hopefully you can see what I’m talking about, and why Mary screaming ‘Bruce that’s enough!’ sort of kills any kind of interest being built. Conflict allows us to explore relationships and thus CONNECT to your characters.

PG 31
A human reaction! Everybody, sorry to say, has felt incredibly laissez-faire about the fact that bodies are literally dropping. Sue’s reaction here is very human and thus, makes me connect with her a little more.

‘No chance Bruce gets help.’ – Why? This has not been setup at all, Bruce doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to not seem like he’ll get help…well because he doesn’t seem like anything right now. Bruce 100% needs to be fleshed out more, as this is a really good potential source of conflict and reason as to why they can’t get help.

PG 32
Is Bruce the only one that can drive? Because otherwise, why send him off with the girls if they clearly don’t trust him?