Creative Writing First page of a screen-play Im working on. Please read and critique.

"The Lives Of The Saints"




As the final spectre of light died from the east, the figure of a man wanders through a darkened New York apartment. His eyes, blood shot from insomnia-soiled sleep, adjust to the dim light of an open refrigerator. He stares at it for what seems like an eternity, before he reaches for a sealed bag filled with sickly purple chunks of ham.

As his frail hands unzip the bag, he stares at the flashing time display of an old VCR.


(Six.....)

He makes his way to a couch in his living room, and sits down. His back, pained from days of lying down on his bed, feels dead and non-existant. His eyes, grey and unimportant, stare into a blank TV.


"Hmmm....I wonder whats on tonight..." he thinks, as he stuffs his hand into the bag and emerges with a handful of ham chunks.

As he sits on his throne of discomfort, he stares down into the pile of cold meat resting in the palm of his hand.


"Stay in here....if you come out....Ill beat the living **** out of you..."

"Boy....get the hell out of here.."

"If you make a ******* noise......Ill kill you..."


He remembered the words of his father, and he smiled...




He reaches for a remote control neatly placed on a small oak cofee-table. He turns on the T.V, and prepares for his interaction with the outside world.

As usual, he was bored with the countless reality shows and teenage angst music videos that dominated New York television. He turned off the T.V, and, against his own will, retreated into his bedroom where he lay down on his bed, and closed his eyes.

This was what his life had been reduced to in the recent years. He would wake up in the afternoon, feed, then return to his bed and lay dormant untill the night came. Afterwards, he would sleep again, and return to the same existance the next afternoon.

He had promised himself that his life would become something better, but his promise had, not unlike his life, faded into the darkness of obscurity.


***


This is a little something Ive been working on. My goal is to basically establish an uncomfortable fear into those who read it. This of course, is not the finished product, and I will (hopefully) post the rest here as I finish it (if it garners enough of a reply that is)

Anyway, I was kind of hoping you guys would help me flesh out the story. Ive read some of the other work on this board and I can safely say that I am impressed.

Anyway...please tell me what you think.

 

First off, in my experience it's next to impossible to tell a lot about a screenplay from the first page, so whatever I saw here is forfeit.
But really, a lot of what you're saying in this bit would be quite impossible to illustrate, and that is exactly what must be done in a screenplay. A lot of things could perhaps be implied, but the audience probably would not get them. You'd need a really astounding director to somehow illustrate a character's background without any scenes to that effect.

 

Thank you for the feedback Novus.

To tell you the truth, I really was not sure myself if a "screenplay" would be the best format to write this in. What I was aiming for was a "Fightclub" like monolouge....but upon further realization, I figured that would be stupid.

Thank you for letting me realize that this story would be best suited as something other than a screen-play. I was having doubts anyway... :sweat2:

Anyway, I plan on continuing writing this story in a chapter-book like format.

Any other thoughts?

 

Don't let it get you down. Screenplays are REALLY hard to write, even more so than a stage script or anything like that. Even the real pros have a lot of difficulty with the medium (go and watch Adaptation for an example).
Generally, a novel or novella or something like that is my favourite form of writing, just because it gives you as the author so much freedom and allows you to direct your audience in so many different ways.
Anyway, I'm glad I could be of help.