MSWC #1: The 17th floor mystery episode

#1


MSWC Terms and Conditions:
>>>>To join note that<<<<
You have to hold to everything stated in the challenge, if not clear ask.
You have to follow the Script formatting rules as state here: http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/howtoformatascreenplay
With thanks to ScriptFrenzy for letting us use that

You are allowed more than one entries.
You are allowed and even motivated to post wips… you help each other that way.
Winning means creating the next challenge but also moderating and judging that one.
All work submitted may not be used by others then the writer without consent.

>>>>Points to think about when creating a challenge<<<<
You have to include the title image and this disclaimer
Keep in mind that most people don’t have more time then mostly three evenings a week.
Pagecounts should be kept under 12, otherwise time is going to be an issue.
At least more then 1 subject has to be included in your challenge concept.
As a judge you have to pick a winner within one week from the deadline.
As a judge you have to write a small review (few lines) for every entry.
As a judge you have to award people who are getting better during the challenge.

[left][center]Challenge #1

[color=DarkOrange]Concept:
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The elevator always stops at the 17’th floor. Charles is an enthusiastic writer, in his early 30’s, who never got his break but makes a small living selling books. He lives at the 19’th floor and feels lucky tonight. He tries to set aside all dreams he previously had about why this happens and exits the elevator at the 17’th to find out why this keeps happening. He does find out.

Further Specifications:

You may not introduce more then 2 speaking characters, besides Charles.
Your formatted screenplay may be no more than 6 pages.
You are free to make up any outcome of this mystery, but make it believeable.
You are writing this as a short pilot for a reality mystery series (Think something along the lines of goosebumps/x-files/heroes/agatha christie)
All entries have to be posted as attachments in either .rtf or .pdf format (or archived)

Deadline:

April 12th 23:59 GMT

Have fun everyone. I am very curious what all you come up with!
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#2

This is a very cool idea, matsman. I really enjoyed reading your writing courses but I am still having trouble finding the right solution for the 17th floor story. I tried to characterize Charles as a writer who is always searching for the perfect story but he does not find it because he has not experienced anything that could serve as a basis for a story. Then he steps into the 17th floor and experiences something that is worth to be written in a book. He writes the book and it is successful.

But my scripts always tend to become too comprehensive with lots of other characters and additional story lines. After having written a bunch of story pieces and characterized some characters I stop it because it has become to complex.

This is really difficult. I spend the whole day thinking about a solution that fits for a short without long characterization of the protagonist at the beginning but it seems that I am not creative enough to find one that is really kind of cool and not only… well nice.

Nevertheless, I will try my best to meet the deadline because my writing sucks and I have to improve :smiley:

groet!
marcus

#3

hey Marcus

i know that the post was intially intended for matsman but i had something to add about my ordeal of trying to come up with something.

i too almost always seem to try to over complicate things. i had a few good ideas about this whole 17th floor story but figured some of them were just too long to fit into just 6 pages.

i wouldnt say IMPOSSIBLE, but it is rather nonsensical to try to fit a fully completed script in 6 pages. then i realized that the whole idea here is not to try to fit a fully developed story inside a 6 page script but to moreorless emcompass an idea that the readers would find interesting. for something a bit complex like the mystery of stopping on the 17th floor each time, my goal now is to try to do a story that has the potential for the rest of it to be interpreted or have readers on the edge without leaving them in the dark

i suppose this challenge would be easier if we had to write a 120 page script. but the whole purpose of this challenge i believe is to see how good we are with dialogue and actually writing the script rather than who comes up with the best idea.

at the moment, i have a story that could easily be a full length movie. but i plan to make 6 pages of the most important aspect of it. almost like writing a brief intro, a big climax and a brief ending.

you can say a lot in a matter of fewer words. just concern yourself with the idea and the dialogue rather than trying to make a detail story. otherwise you can get lost in all the detail. readers relate to the characters and their personalities. i find movies that are completely action based with shallow or almost NOT THERE characters to be rather boring. movies like DISASTER MOVIES ‘DAY AFTER TOMORROW’ etc focus mostly on the event rather than the characters who the audience relate to.

so u have 6 pages or maybe more…waiting for a response from matsman…focus on the dialogue and how the people deal with the events they are in rather than trying to flesh out some big event.

you ever have this happen to you?..something happens to you in a brief space of time like say 5 minutes and you think to yourself that it felt like you went through some drama that you can one day write about. well 5 mins aint long but it seemed that way cause you were personally conected to whatever happened to you. my example was a car accident. it wasnt so much the actual event but the police and other passeengers that really made a scene. i felt like i went through some sort of soap opera.

once again, try to sell an idea, not an entire story. took me a while to figure that no way i can write the kind of detailed story i would like. almost like writing a trailer. try to sell us something.

i hope this gives u some idea about what i think this script writing is all about. well, for now that is.

kadetkebab

#4

Hi TerianSilva, thanks for joining in on the challenge. I know it is hard. I tried already to make life easier by ruling that you only can use two other speaking characters besides Charles. (oops made a small mistake there)

However most people who don’t finish something get lost in the details or don’t know where they are going. So I would suggest you try and work your way back from end to finish as I stated in my storywriting thread. Try to think up an ending or a reason why the elevator stops at 17. write that down and then go back and try to make a logical path, using one sectence statements to what happens until you come to the moment charles gets out of the elevator.

That is about how I went from the challenge to an plot outline. That and fairly early deciding who my three talking characters were going to be.

I hope that helps. feel free to post any thought or Ideas maybe we (I) can guide you toward a finished story. I will post my outline tomorrow for you guys to ponder over and critize.

Okay on to the next bit:
I had a question from kadetkebab about something I stated in the challenge:

hey matsman

when you mentioned ‘make it believable’ and gave references to heroes and x-files…i find this a bit out of place…

what exactly do you mean by BELIEVABLE? i dont think some people would look at heroes and X Files and call those believable.

the fact that you mentioned mystery series means that we are only limited to something along the lines of muder mysteries/detective/thriller genres. so if say, I, wanted to do something about ghosts, then i basically couldnt right? cause that would certainly not constitute believable.

i dont mind it if we are limited to only that kind of genre but i just wanted to clarify that this is what you meant by BELIEVABLE.

also the rules specify that we should not write any more than 6 pages. but then it also mentioned about not writing more than 12 as people have other commitments. just wanted to know really…is our limit 6 pages then? if so, Im fine with that but if we have the option to go up to 12 i might consider it. can you clarify this for me please? thanks mate.

kk

So this is going to be a long post but what the heck right! we all love reading if we love writing.

This is a very important question to ask. Especially so since I have a completely different way to think about believability.
What I meant by believability is that it has to make utter and complete sence in your storyline. I don’t care about what is possible in this world or in other dimensions I only care that you give reasons behind the plots you write.
As an example.
An evil race of aliens who attack our world is not believable.
An alien race, absolutely annoyed by years of terror from our radiowaves who looks to stop that irritation is more or less believable.
Or
A mutant cat living in an empty house is not believable in itself.
A mutant cat being seen by a number of people who are not belived by the police until a corpse has been found that displays claw marks is believable.

So that is why I put down the examples of x-files and heroes and agatha cristie. All those have plots that aren’t neccesarily real but they feel real as you read it.

So feel free to write a ghost story, a murder mystery or an alien abduction… all that would go into a mystery magazine. As long as you can make it believable.

An then the second part. The 12 pages rule I made up so that people who win and write a challenge have an idea about what the maximum number of pages is that could or should be asked with a deadline in a week. (thes are rules considering all MSWC)
The actual pagecount set in the challenge itself is the pagecount you have to abide to, which is 6 pages or less. (this is a rule only viable for this challenge)

Right with that being cleared up (please ask away if you have any doubts)

I have to make another point clear:
Speaking characters doesn’t mean characters who can speak
It means characters who have actual lines of written dialogue/monologue.

Okay thanks for playing everyone!
Looking forward to other thoughts/ vagueness I wasn’t aware of and works in progress!

#5

haha kadekebab, you were just ahead of me :slight_smile:

And indeed you are right. The big issue here is that you folks found this to be the best/ most interesting/ most fun concept to start a challenge with. However the problem with this concept was that is had the ability to generate a 100 pages script in no time. So you have to make it simple and hard hitting for it to fit within those 6 pages.

The pilot addendum gives a hint to the try to sell and idea thing… and some other points I thought about when adding that, however I will not reveal them as yet. Ponder it over… what are the other purposes/characteristics of a pilot.

I have a real love for the short story genre… and have read the most wonderful stories in only 150 words, one real horrific even. The hardest thing about writing them though is that everything has to have a purpose (in books that is the case too, but it will not be that noticeable if a scene doesn’t help the storyline much) so try to have as little environment changes as possible, as little characters as possible and even as little storyline as possible.

Try to focus on one idea and let everything revolve around that.

Okay enough posting for me this evening :stuck_out_tongue: Cheers everyone!

#6

hey matsman

i have another question actually. i know from what i said earlier it sounds like i am finding this challenge easy but trust me when i say, that is so not the case. it’s not so much the fact that i am having a hard time coming up with something but it is just that this concept may be a bit different from what i had in mind before.

and that is something i have never really given thought to before. i mean, i had intentions of one day trying to write a script. but my mind was always set on just dialogue. so far, all the examples of script i have looked into are conversations among people.

i have not really read a script that is mainly action or suspense based. and the question i had was: does it necessarily mean that for each page of a script relates to about one minute on film? cause when you think about this concept, it is more action based rather than dialogue based. solving the whole mystery of why he keeps stopping on the 17th floor isnt something he will just walk up to someone and confirm through dialogue. (well he could but then the whole script would be shite and you rpob wont find yourself getting a job writting scripts for a living):smiley:

i’m afraid i did not see this before i jumped to the conclusion that this concept was necessarily the best to work with, especially if you are only dealing with six pages. maybe if we had the option of using 12 pages it would make things a bit easier. but the logic of him finding out what is going on is something he will have to physically investigate. and 6 pages doesn’t really leave a lot of room for dialogue.

so i was wondering do you have or know of any scripts that tries to convey suspense building? i mean look at scary movies for example. when someone hears something and starts slowly walking to the basement in the dark to find out (you know the whole long drawn out scary tactic that always leaves you saying “YOU STUPID BIG BOOB BIMBO, HE’S RIGHT BEHIND YOU”)…How would you write something like that? i mean, a scene like that could take say 10 minutes and could probably be written in one line.

so in this case, with this concept, although we have 6 pages to work with, im sure this whole thing can expand within a time frame of say a few hours or even a few days…do you agree?

#7

The short answer is yes, however a few days might be pushing it.

The long one involves mentioning that I came across the same basic trouble but found that there is also part of the solution for lenghth. However I also need to state that you very much want to look into the head of Charles and doing so requires him to dialogue, monologue or voiceover. So make sure you don’t go all out on an action based script.

I see this challenge a bit like juggling. You need all ingredients (character building/ dialogue/ suspense/ action) but touch upon them just so quick and light so that you can use your hand later to touch the other… while the first is still in the air :slight_smile: makes any sense?

Trouble is that I am not a script writer, nor actually wanting to be one. I just love to write no matter what it is. So I don’t have any examples ready other then my own. I think you have to search for action movies, the badder the better. There have to be some steven seagall scripts on the net… and he hardly talks at all in those movies (I got a colleage who loves that stuff… ) and probably the aliens scripts.

So I think the best answer I can give you at the moment is to use your inner camera to note what is going on and what we see. I hope AllWritey (who probably has/knows a script as example for less talk more action) can help you out more specifically.

And…

solving the whole mystery of why he keeps stopping on the 17th floor isnt something he will just walk up to someone and confirm through dialogue. (well he could but then the whole script would be shite and you rpob wont find yourself getting a job writting scripts for a living):smiley:

Actually while not completely true I think my solution falls about within this construction thing… But I will post my outline later so you can see for yourself… and decide whether it is shite or not :stuck_out_tongue:

Hope this was some help

#8

Quote:
solving the whole mystery of why he keeps stopping on the 17th floor isnt something he will just walk up to someone and confirm through dialogue. (well he could but then the whole script would be shite and you rpob wont find yourself getting a job writting scripts for a living):smiley:

Actually while not completely true I think my solution falls about within this construction thing… But I will post my outline later so you can see for yourself… and decide whether it is shite or not :stuck_out_tongue:

[QUOTE][/QUOTE]

actually i take this back. if a conversation is good enough bewtween two people, it would work. i have seen movies where i get so engrossed in the chemistry of the characters that they really draw you in. what i meant by that was i didnt think it would be so simple to have Charles walk up to someeon and ask why the elevator keeps stopping on the 17th floor and get a direct response.

but if that is you’re tactic, im sure spanned across 6 pages, these characters would have something certainly interesting to say.

well i wont bicker anymore. thanks for the help. i shall carry on…:buttrock:

#9

:smiley: kadetkebab, feel free to call anything shite as long as you give reasons. I don’t mind at all.
I rather have people telling me off but be honest then people telling me great but only doing so because they see profit doing so. Not that you don’t, just to clarify you don’t have to rectify what you said earlier.

BTW I have here my outline:

My main solution is that the elevator is actually possessed by a ghost/poltergeist of a guy previously known to be in love with the girl. So the elevator is in love with the girl.

Three talking characters are: Charles, the girl and the elevator.

[i]scene 1:

Charles is standing in the elevator and is guarding the panel with the floor buttons.

int. 2 elevator doors open we look, inside of an elevator. Three people are standing in a small heap one bespectacled but rather dark mysterious stranger looking man is standing in front of the control panel. All the other people are looking at him as if he were crazy. The doors open, a man walks in and wants to press the button to the floor he wants to go but Charles jumps in front of him, and cut of the access to the control panel. the man looks grumpy and tries again. Charles once again defends the buttons from human touch. The man breathes in, starting to shout but before he actually can start accusing Charles the doors of the elevator close.

Series introduction sequenz:

M journal

scene 2:

Charles gets out of the elevator on the 17’th floor (#2)
and puts a piece of wood between the doors of this elevator (#2)
Charles quickly runs to the window and sees his neighbour entering the building at floor level.
Charles goes back towards the elevator (#1) but keeps around the corner so he will not be noticed by anyone near the elevator.
The elevator comes up to the 17’th the doors open and Charles sees his neighbour in the elevator standing and waiting for the doors to close.

Mumbling to himself Charles walks back to the elevator and presses the call button.

Scene 3:

Charles has entered the lift but is surprised to see the lift go down after going up to the 18’th floor.
Charles tries to get some of the buttons to work but no avail.
Down in the lobby a girl is waiting for this elevator.
Charles is happy the doors open and wants to get out but walks straight into the girl.
They talk while going up to the 17’th
She mentions she is going to move and the lift stops immediately
while calling the service the elevator starts to speak through the digital floor screen.
Charles and the girl talk with the elevator.

Scene 4:
Charles and the girl escape the elevator
the elevator commits suicide by plummeting down towards the basement.
Charles invites the girl over to his place but she turns him down.

-the end-[/i]

I hope to finish my first draft (I am on to my 6th page but it will probably be longer) tonight so I can hopefully show that to you tomorrow… feel free to take it apart and yell at me if you think something is stupid or not in line with the challenge.

Cheers!

#10

Well with the deadline creeping frightfully closer…

How is everybody doing?

I’ve finally managed to finish my first draft. Weighing in at 6.5 pages I still have some optimising to do and I still have to correct my formatting. But I will have a final entry!

How about you guys? Nearing the third rewrite already?
BTW no-one said anything about my outline, but if you want I have my first draft as an attachment for your reading pleasure!

Final version coming up quite close to the deadline I am sure. Which is close to 48 hours away!

Bye!

#11

hey matsman

sorry for the late reply but i read your post of that outline several times and i couldnt really understand it. so i didnt know how to reply. but i read the attachment you sent and it’s cool.

i wanted to mention something actually. i dont mean to sound like i’m taking the piss but is there a specific format for making a script. i mean in terms of font size, spacing, etc.

cause for me 6 pages ain’t a lot. but i thought of using a smaller font size to fit more on the pages. would you consider that cheating in any way? i mean i started with point 12 font size and went down to 10 just to get more in one page. please tell me your thoughts on this. if i should avoid doing this or not.

kadetkebab

#12

Yes I have thoughts about that! haha when you follow the link about formatting in the rules you will come on a page set up for a screenwriting competition that has all formatting info on it. Including this:

FONT, MARGINS, AND SPACING

Screenplays live on letter-sized paper (8.5 x 11 inches). They’re always written in Courier font, 12 point, 10 pitch. No bold, no italics.

Page Margins:
Left: 1.5 inches
Right: 1 inch
Top: 1 inch

BTW something I didn’t notice before (I still have to make my text comply with the formatting rules stated there) that it has a few examples of scripts that are good action scripts… and they tell you how to write action scripts.

Final deadline is less then 24 hours away. Please if you are going to see trouble ahead about not being able to finish on time… give some notice and we will see what we can do about that.

#13

So I finished! and just in time with only 6 hours to spare!

Here is my final all formatted and tailored to fit within the 6 pages… (worked in a different font which meant I had to cut down about 1.5 pages of the first draft)

Looking forward to more entries… since I don’t know how everyone is doing at the moment. Try to at least enter something!

Cheers!

#14

hey matsman

well i got ur last post and thought it too late to change back to point 12 font…so i dont know if that would disqualify me. but as much as i tried and considering the deadline is around the corner i thought i would hand mines in as well.

with point 10 font size, i managed to fit it into 6 pages. what does 10 pitch means anyway? is that point 10 font size if your script is a pitch? if that is so, then i prob would consider this a pitch then:p

hope you all enjoy it. it was fun. can’t wait for more. oh and i almost forgot to mention something matsman…i was reading somewhere that when you mention numbers in scripts you are suppose to spell out the number. i know, writing seventeen and nineteen all the time took up quite a bit of space.

well can’t wait to read what you’ve all written.

#15

Hi :slight_smile: well in that number case… I have used numbers throughout… BTW in normal writing language the rule is about the same… no actual numbers you’ll have to write them out at least until ten. After that it becomes a little vague.

And as it is the first time I guess I will not disqualify you :slight_smile: that’s kinda harsh, but I will keep the longer text in mind okay?

And BTW I have no idea what pitch is… so we’ll have to google that.

Anyone else?

#16

Soz guys I am going to be a bit late.Posting soon

Kev

#17

Hi guys
Sorry for being late. My bad. I have had an extremely busy week. So much so that i only had time to start writing Yesterday (Sat).

I wrote it and at 7 pages had to edit. Also my MC had to be renamed coz i forgot that he was to be called Charles!!!

Anyway here it is.
I will read the other entries next week OK!!

Kev

#18

Soo, AllWritey, what was your main character called before you changed to Charles? (just curious…)

Well here is the deal. I have pm’d TerianSilva (Marcus) so maybe he will also post the things he did last week. And I have already read both the scripts. So that doesn’t take too long. Its really cool we all took a completely different approach to this. Even though there are a lot of similarities as well. A ghost story/murder mysterie and scifi story :slight_smile:

But I degress, my proposal is that each of us take a try at judging the others, since you cannot be as objective about your own work. If all goes well that gives us a winner and set the circle in motion. If there is a tie I think we can work it out or make a random choice.

Judging means telling which script think the best, as well as a short paragraph on each script you judged telling us what you liked and disliked. (Make sure to write both!)

Tell me how that idea sounds to you. I will try to do it today, so keep your email open! :slight_smile:

#19

yes that sounds like a great idea matsman…but i assume we have to wait for the others.

should we just make a post on this thread or an attachment with all what we have to say about each script?

#20

Well I say put it into a post… that will hopefully keep the amount of writing down.

Lots of feedback is good but if I am going to go from beginning to end, I will end up with so much small stuff, from spelling mistakes and typo’s to badly choosen words and fishy dialogue. And I really only want to hear the bigger things, and opinions too… since I probably will notice the small stuff when I read it again someday.

So smaller is probably better. Here is a Checklist… so everyone has an idea what to look out for. The Checklist is written by Terry Rossio from wordplay.com

Marcus, I am waiting for you! :slight_smile: