Hi Andrew, There doesn't seem to be a screenplay, just a logline and a synopsis. Your logline and synopsis both need work, I'm afraid. Your logline doesn't really tell us anything except a man lurks out the front of a woman's home then he is gone. Don't tell us what she is returning home from because it's not important in this context and don't ask questions in your logline. Your synopsis is very light and appears to sum up your first act only. Give us more information in both your logline and your synopsis in fact, the more information you give in your synopsis, the easier it will be for someone to come up with a logline for you.

Thank you Pierre. I could swear that I uploaded the script, but I guess it didn't go through like I thought. It should be there now.

Way to work! Read 2 pages. There is room for improvement in your action/description/direction. THE VISUAL MINDSCAPE OF THE SCREENPLAY by Bill Boyle is a solid resource/study guide.

It definitely seems like the beginning of what could be a really great thriller, especially if that 1st scene is a reoccurring dream that she is struggling to understand. The convo with Mom though, not so interesting. It would be more catchy if it was geared toward Mom wanting her to come home and visit, rather than talk about her settling down with a man. It may even be more intriguing if the person was a woman, not a man. Especially if you were going expand the story.

Writing a script and putting it out there is a success unto itself, congrats! Read the whole thing, I pictured a "I Know What You Did Last Summer" type scene playing out. Pierre's recommendation of editing the logline and synopsis is correct. The only way it clicked for me to change how I approached a synopsis or logline was reading genre similar / successful examples of film's that I enjoy. Like how did Stallone create his logline for Rocky? How did the Wachowski's put all of Cloud Atlas into a synopsis? I used google for that research. Too much exposition or repeating established details can take a reader out of the moment or even worse cause them to stop reading. For example, after Caroline has already taken the can of chili from the cupboard and we've established she's talking to her mom we have this: " INT. SUBURBAN HOME - NIGHT Caroline is in a debate with her mother on the phone as she is preparing to cook herself a can of chili." We already have that background information and we're just transitioning from one point of the conversation and meal making to a later moment so consider using. "LATER - KITCHEN" Shawn's great recommendation of Boyle is a great tool to address those mistakes that would take a reader out of the moment. Check out Trottier and the Screenwriter's Bible for more formatting tips and tricks that make writing life easier, my copy is next to me as I type this. Next step is the hardest: Keep writing!

Your dialogue is too on the nose. Also avoid giant blocks of descriptive text. Maximum of three lines stacked only.

Hi Andrew, I liked the script! The suspense element is definitely there and it leaves us wanting for more. Just a couple of formatting suggestions (I heard them from professionals about my scripts so I'm just repeating them): - Scene 2, instead of EXT. SUBURBAN HOME - NIGHT, you can use EXT. SUBURBAN HOME - CONTINUOUS to indicate the continuity of action (the Director will take care of the transition) - The (cont'd) after a character should be displayed automatically by your software. Celtx (if that's what you're using) was messing up some formatting with me, so I got Fade In Pro (for 50 bucks). - Scene 3, UNKNOWN PERSON P.O.V. , it's probably better to avoid camera angle directions in spec scripts and leave that to the Director (he might want to use normal framing here for a surprise effect or use the unknown person's POV somewhere else...). - It's true that you can reduce the length of descriptive texts thus making the reading more fluid, for example "Caroline picks up the and responds to a voice we cannot hear" can become "Caroline picks up the phone". Best regards, Maroun.

Hi Andrew, This is a story about a young college student who arrives home to discover a man watching her from outside her house. After she thinks he’s left he reappears inside and launches his attack. You list this as a Thriller/Horror but there are no horror elements so I’d be inclined to call this a Thriller/Suspense One of the things that didn't ring true with me was the unrealistic setting, try to make your story realistic, Caroline is a 23 year old college student who lives alone in a two story upper middle class house. What does she do in her spare time, how does she afford this? None of this is explained or alluded to so it then comes across as unrealistic. Caroline’s reactions to seeing a man watching her from outside is too laid back and relaxed, her dialogue might be panicky but her actions are not. Reading Notes: I make these as I read through. These are merely my observations at the time, take what you want and ignore the rest. P1 – “Ford F-150” What’s the relevance of the make and model of car? If it doesn’t play a specific part in your story then you’re better off keeping it generic. P1 – “..trash can that had been left out that day” This line is unfilmable. How do we know it had been left out that day? How can you show that it had been left out that day? Does it matter? If it matters to your story then find a way to show us that the trash can had been left out that day, or the past two days, or the entire week for that matter but if it’s not important to the story then just simply write something like, “… knocks over an empty trash can”. Format – Parentheticals don’t start with caps, “(Sarcastic)” should be “(sarcastic)”. General – Don’t overuse parentheticals. This 4 page short contains 5 parentheticals which is way too many for it’s length. Ant semi-decent actor will know when to deliver the line sarcastically and when to show annoyance. Actors know how to deliver lines based on the mood of the scene and how the line is written. P1 – “Hoping to see nothing ..” is an unfilmable. Hopes, thoughts, feelings are all unfilmables so have no place in a screenplay. Remember, if you can’t film it, you can’t include it in your script. P1 – “I’ll be back for you” Who is she saying this to? Is it the trash can? If so, then you need to tell us this by writing something along the lines of: Caroline looks down the driveway to the trash can. CAROLINE I’ll be back for you. General – I’m not comfortable with your use of “UNKNOWN PERSON P.O.V.” in your slugs. We don’t know that the view is that of an unknown person, we only know it’s another camera angle. If you want to use that in your slug then you should really drive the visual home by following the first occurrence with something like: An upper middle class house, partially obscured by shrubs. A hand moves the foliage aside and holds it to provide a clear view of the house as a car pulls into the drive and knocks over a trash can. General – Reduce the size of your action lines, try to keep them to three or less. The more lines you have, the more clutter is added to the page. There’s a phrase that goes, more white on the page, and this generally means that you want to break up your action lines and your dialogue, make them smaller and shorter and this will actually add more white to the page. It will make the read easier and faster and more entertaining but if a reader sees large chunks of black print on the page then they will be less inclined to read all the way through (especially if it’s a feature), it becomes a more tedious task. P1 – “A PHONE RINGS in the home”. Personally, I cap very little in my scripts. If it’s a very important sound, important to the scene, important to the story then I might cap it but if it’s just a sound then I won’t. It’s up to you but the more capping you use, the more obvious it becomes. P1 – “A phone rings in the home and Caroline runs to the door to get into the house”. Try to economise words. Novels are all about extraneous words but screenplays are all about economising word use. In this action block the phone rings so Caroline rushes to the door. We know why she needs to get into the house so you don’t need to write that. As a result, I would write that line as, “A muffled phone rings inside the house. Caroline runs for the door” P1 – Don’t use “we see” in screenplays. That also goes for, “we hear”. Typo – “Caroline picks up the and responds..” should be “Caroline picks up the phone and responds..” P1 – Additional to the previous comment, don’t tell us a character responds to something and don’t tell us there is a voice or sound we cannot hear, if we can’t hear it or see it then don’t mention it. Write the scene/action the way that it unfolds on the screen. “Caroline picks up the receiver”. Format – Remove “(CONTINUED)” AND “CONTINUED:” from the top and bottom of the pages. It’s an older format that’s no longer in use and simply adds clutter to your page. Format – Remove “(CONTINUED)” from dialogue. Some people still use it but in this short there is only one actor so it’s really not necessary. Typo – “..closer To the house..” should be “..closer to the house..” General – Do we care what Caroline is cooking? Is it important to the story? This one just seems too specific to me and is distracting. Typos – Proofread your script, there are a number of random words in the middle of sentences that start with a cap when they shouldn’t. Story – Caroline has just noticed a man standing on the sidewalk and staring at her house. She’s become stressed and tells her mother that she needs to call the police so she sits on the couch. No! She’d pull away from the window and possibly throw herself against a wall so the man can’t see her. She would not go back into the living room and sit on the couch. Make the moment realistic. P2 – “An unheard operator answers”. We don’t know that so don’t include it. P3 – Something weird happens with your dialogue at this point. “CONTINUED) (cont’d)” appears after the character name and this is very off-putting. P3 – Numbers should be written in long form. “4894 Hollyoak lane” should be “four-eight-nine-four Hollyoak Lane”. “5 or 10 minutes” should be “five or ten minutes” Scene logistics – I assume her landline phone is cordless? She hangs up the phone when she gets upstairs. General – Once the action moves inside the house (half way down page 2) you seem to stop with the sluglines. This is very awkward because it’s a large two story house with scenes in the living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and staircase but we don’t know where we are except via a comment in an action line. You need a slug for every scene, every location. If your camera moves from one location to another, then you need a new slug, you can’t just use “SUBURBAN HOME” and expect the crew to “wing it”. Overall: I like where you’re trying to go with this but I think it’s too sterile and you should introduce some grittiness to it. Caroline obliviously has a lot of money so we’re not really fearing for her because we almost expect that she’ll have a decent security system in place so the situation doesn’t really come across with an air of vulnerability. Also, the man is just some person in a hoodie and a hoodie in itself shouldn’t be threatening. How about seeing portions of his face or hands, scars, tattoos, stubble, long dirty nails, fidgety. Drive his image home as a potential threat. The biggest issue is the lack of an ending for this story. It has a start, it has a middle but then it stops before the end and we expect more. Does she fend him off, does he abduct her, does he kill her? What happens? This could be the first act of a feature, the moment up to the inciting incident, or it could be the first two acts of a short but regardless, the end is missing from this story and it needs more. Including an end will also help you create a logline. I wanted to write one for you but there’s just not enough information here. Good luck. Pierre.