Description: LESS is way, way (way) MORE

If you’re a screenwriter in Los Angeles, it’s a pretty good bet that sooner or later you’re gonna meet OTHER screenwriters in Los Angeles, and that some day in the future one of them will ask you to read a script. The first time it happens, you’re flattered—"they TRUST me," you think. "They need MY OPINION to make this script better." The second time it happens, you think—absolutely—I’d love to help, and maybe sometime soon THEY can read one of MY SCRIPTS in return. The tenth time it happens, well… Let’s just say you hope they can write.

I still get a kick out of reading my friend’s scripts, but it’s always a little scary when it’s someone’s work you haven’t read before, and you flip over the cover page to see this:

 

FADE IN

INT. FARMHOUSE – DAY

A warm, cozy, hand-built farmhouse, built circa 1940. Floral wallpaper covers the walls. Some is peeling off, exposing many layers of wallpaper underneath. The main living room is built around a stone fireplace, and the ashen remains of two-months worth of burnt wood has piled high, and is now overflowing onto the room’s oak wood floors.

On a far fall, a single bed is pulled taught against the wall under a small window. Early morning light has begun to sneak through the cracked-plastic shudders that hang jauntily behind old green curtains, pulled taught with a pair of old shoe laces. A cat MEOWS somewhere in the distance. Birds sings. It is morning in Vermont-- 

 

Ugh. THAT one just fell to the bottom of my read-list, and I’ve only made it through 1/3 of the FIRST PAGE!