Kinship by kelvin williams - Drama, Crime, Thriller - During a run of the mill trip to the store, a man has an unexpected encounter with a storefront Santa, causing him to experience a series of life altering events. 117 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Dear Kelvin,
typo P5 OBESELY CHOPPING vegetables !!
P7 Hey bae . . .
P10 Boys you herd
P15 a call on line two from Jason Trash.
P21 Kelli GRAPES her pillow tightly,
I think some drastic editing is required for tension and pacing. The initial set up with the drunk Santa is good but we have to wait 30 pages for him to emerge - as if by magic!
Just a tad of foreshadowing would keep the audience with you.
Typo ? Kelli you in trouble, you know how that Crown have me! P37
-- With an ever increasing cast focus on the story you want to tell, as by half way the plot arc and character development is confused.
Typo's by their very nature are hard to spot on screen so maybe print out to spot them more easily as so many errors distracts from the read.
All best --

Readers, Please feel free to give honest critique for Kinship.

Hello, Kelvin.

The first thing that struck me about this script is the many grammatical and spelling errors. And I would guess you probably don't want that to be the first thing people notice. It seems to give a message that you don't care. And if you don't care, why should anyone else care enough to take time to read your 117 pages, think carefully about them, and write comments to help you improve?  

But I also know it takes work to write a 117-page screenplay, even one full of irritating errors, and I was curious what the actual story was so decided to check it out (since I plan to post a script here soon myself, and hope people will be curious and make time for me.)

What follows is all just my opinion, and I am no expert, but … there is some good stuff here, I think. And a story that could be fun and worth telling. And so here you go with my thoughts on your script, for whatever they're worth:

First, with regard to those "typos," etc.… they are everywhere, starting on p. 1 when you say "store's" instead of "stores."

Just in case you're not clear what all the fuss is about, here are just a few other quick examples:

"dinning room"? / "his" when you mean "he" sometimes (e.g. bottom of p. 67) / "guess bedroom" ? / "there" or "their" (pp. 98, 101) when you mean "they're" / as adjectives, "amp" instead of "amped" (p. 79), "close" instead of "closed" (p. 80, p. 81), "loosen" instead of "loosened" (p. 93), "crowed" instead of "crowded" (p. 103), etc. / subject-verb disagreement, as in "the speeding light are almost…" (p. 80) – you need to change it to either "light is" or "lights are" / "indited"? (p. 96) / "hear" instead of "here" (p. 104)….

Other obvious problems:

- You sometimes leave out the question marks (?) when people ask questions (e.g., p. 65, "Who is the lucky person.")

- You say many things that can't be filmed. Examples - (p. 52) "Nick and Devonte are in line to one of Atlanta's hottest strip clubs." (How do you film the fact that it's "one of Atlanta's hottest strip clubs"?) / (p. 88 )  "The pain from his (not "is") fall starts to resonate (not "resinate") in his head." (How can you film pain resonating in someone's head? Maybe some kind of sound effects, but what does pain even sound like?) / (p. 88 again) "one of the warmest and brightest smiles Nick has ever seen" (How do you film the fact that this smile is really nice compared to other smiles he has seen before?) / (p. 99) Marcus is playing with "another well known pool player" (How do you film the fact that either one of them is well known?)….

- Sometimes you're satisfied with just summarizing what happens, when you should clarify it in detail. Examples - (p. 9) "He is quarreling with a person on the other end" (what does he say that tells your movie's audience that he is quarreling?) / (p. 16) "A series of images are shown on the projection screen" (images of what, and for what purpose?) / (p. 30) "Nick is distracting her, causing much giggling (what is he doing that distracts her?) / (p. 48 ) "Prepares for a quick shower, then make over" (what happens on screen, specifically)? / (p. 67) "Nick is… surveying the area for a new stretch of highway" (what is he doing, physically, and what equipment is he using?) / (p. 79) "He seems to be reminiscing as he quotes the lyrics verbatim" (Don't tell us, show us – quote the lyrics verbatim in his actual dialogue in the script) / (p. 80) "The guard immediately radios to close the front gate" (Have him talk on his radio and say "Close the front gate"!)  

- Some things can be written much more simply, e.g. on p. 81 where Devonte (not "Devote") "pivots to his side to avoid the gunfire, uses his SUV as a shield" (why not just say that he "ducks behind his SUV" ?) / and on p. 98 where "Devonte still silent, manages to shed a single tear, which rolls down his cheek" (how about just "Devonte still silent, but a tear rolls down his cheek" ?)

- I don't see why you always use the full name "Mike Richardson" in the scene descriptions involving him. After you first introduce this character, why not just say "Mike" (there's no other Mike that you have to distinguish him from, I don't think….)?


Some things I had questions about:

- The logline isn't quite accurate, is it? The thing that actually caused Nick "to experience a series of life altering events" wasn't the "encounter with a storefront Santa," it was Mike Richardson ratting out Arcadia to the feds, wasn't it?

- I was confused about the store Santa thing anyway. I guess Arcadia was Santa? (Santa has a scar under his left eye of "four to five cm.", and Arcadia's is "3 to 4 cm." – why don't you just say it's 4 cm. for both of them?) But why is this powerful crime boss a drunk Santa harassing a young woman outside a liquor store when the story starts? Is he stalking Nick? Why? Surely he can have one of his henchmen do that – if it's even necessary (I don't know why it's necessary, though, doesn't he already have Nick's address?)

- It was never clear to me who all those phone calls to Nick were from, all those times when whoever was calling didn't speak. You sparked my interest with that, but as far as I could tell nothing ever happened….

- Not sure what Kelli means on p. 90, raising her eyes to the ceiling when Nick asks "what did you have to give up?"

- p. 96 – Not quite sure I believe Angela's sudden change of heart toward her father, it seemed too easy after how much she had shown she hated him before. Maybe it's okay, they did have a conversation; I just had doubts….

- On the other hand, I thought you handled the Marcus getting back with Krystal story really well. Nice exchange at the top of p. 105. And then his old girlfriend shows up, on p. 108, and screws things up, but… surprise, we find out near the end that Krystal and Angela talked to that girl and got the truth from her (really nice twist there, although I don't know why Krystal wouldn't call Marcus immediately and tell him about that – maybe cause she didn't have time?….)

- p. 114 – I'm almost certain you don't "play" with a newly born baby girl. Or "talk with" her, either….


Moving on to the more positive stuff...

- Some good lines in your dialogue – "you can take that Hyundai money and buy Kelli a purse." / "That thing does everything but prepare the in-flight meal." / "Talk and you'll want to cut your own tongue out." / "after hearing his story and mostly taking his money" / "all this family fortune (not "fortunes") came by you working for a murdering drug dealer." / "I mean that in a good way. I look at you and Kelli and I envy you"…. / "life doesn't end with the death of a loved one, it just adjusts" / "Your father is just going through the worst trial of his life. He doesn't need family support."

- However, I do think you need to tighten up lots of the dialogue. As just one example, the dialogue between Nick and Aunt Gerri on pp. 85-86 seems unnecessarily long. If it was me, I think I'd just FADE OUT when she says "Come here." (Although you do have to somehow get in the detail that she's just waxed the floors.)

- I liked the tension between Nick and Mike Richardson. And the great exchange about it between Kelli and Nick on pp. 18-20. Might be interesting to have more on how their relationship turns upside down after Kelli's death….

- p. 37 - Usually it's the man who falls asleep while the woman goes to the bathroom. Happened in Pretty Woman, as I recall, and A Star Is Born…. But you turn that cliché on it's head. Nice touch.

- pp. 41-44 - Good scene starting with the Hector and Frank Arcadia phone conversation. "I see I need my security fired." (good line, indicating their strained relationship) / "He jots down the name Nick C." (making us think Nick is his target) / "Kelso stay. I have another project I need to go over with you" (keeping us in the dark about what that project is)….

- p. 60 – "WHOOSH! From above Kelli soaks (not "soak") Nick with a bucket of cold water." Good ending to that scene, after we thought it was already over.

- p. 65 – Good scene of Kelli leaving just seconds before Nick's flowers arrive. (Hmmm… and you say "Kelli's assistant's (not "assistant") face is beaming." Which made me think that maybe she was expecting flowers from someone herself, which would be good irony, but if that's the case it's not clear….)

- I like to be surprised in films, and I was absolutely surprised when Kelli died. She's a good character, and you spent some time developing her so we know who she is, so it didn't seem to make sense that you would have her die so soon. Big shock when she does! But then, the thing that makes it work, is that she comes back later in the story – as a ghost, or a drug-induced hallucination or whatever she was. Really effective surprise on p. 88, when he "turns and is face to face with Kelli," who says "Hey, good looking!" Good stuff….

- That thing about Kelli coming back is maybe (to me anyway) the most interesting thing in the story. A really good twist, but I'm not sure how to understand exactly what's going on. You say it was the fentanyl? I was also kind of hoping that, on the last page when he's talking to Kelli up in heaven, he actually hears her voice answer. Maybe that would be something more than you intended, though….  

- Not sure about that necklace. It's the gift he gave her on p. 32, and then as a ghost (or whatever) she removes it from her neck on p. 91 and gives it to him, and when he wakes up in the morning it's "hanging from the lamp on the nightstand." Makes me wonder what happened to it after she died - was she buried with it? Or was it put away in storage in some box somewhere? I think the fact that it's hanging from the lamp in the morning is intended to be miraculous, but if so you should make sure we know that it was totally out of Nick's possession the night before.

- Your overall message is a positive one, that every moviegoer will agree with – we need to appreciate our family. I guess Nick has lost both of his parents, and so the family that he devotes himself to turns out to be Kelli's. And it seems like he becomes almost the head of this family by the story's end, since he brings them all back together while Mike has pretty much disgraced himself. And yet, Nick is actually alone now that Kelli's gone. Hmmm...

- I don't remember if there was much about Nick's memories of his own parents in this story, or anything about his relationship with his younger brother. Might be good to say something about those things. Was he longing for a family in the early parts of the script? I can't remember.


Anyway, that's all that I have to say. I hope it doesn't come off as too pedantic and there's something here that you can put to use. Good luck with your script.

- Michael

A very quick item of feedback.
117 pages is too long for a Spec, which I presume this is.

Get rid of the bulk of your CUT TOs and your page count will be greatly reduced and the script will be more streamlined and easier to read.

Unless you're cutting from say, a location in India, to a location in Australia, your cuts are not necessary. Writing a new scene heading does the cut for you.


Also, this type of thing:
Nick reaches in his pocket. Puts a folded piece of currency,
places in the Santa's hand.

Suggestion: Nick reaches into his pocket, pulls out a twenty-dollar bill, places it in Santa's hand.
Or:
Nick pulls a twenty-dollar note from his pocket, slaps it in Santa's hand.

Quoted from KDub37 Readers, Please feel free to give honest critique for Kinship.

I will wait until you weigh in on the valuable feedback you have already received.