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Universal Hospitality: Episode One
How It Rates
Description
Things can get pretty crazy when your trying to run a hotel in the middle of outer space.
Comments
Good times. I don't know if it was the intention, but I imagined this as a cartoon. A few typos, so a little more polish would help, but it was enjoyable.
Great fun! Engaging characters helped with easy dialogue and a fast pace. I found myself wishing there was a plot to tie it all up, but really enjoyed the Douglas Adams-ish light-heartedness in spite of that. :) Well done.
I couldn't help but think of Red Dwarf reading this, though other than space the two don't really have much it common. Initially, the script style used threw me off, but once I got used to reading it, it went pretty smoothly. While there wasn't anything that really made me break out laughing, it was definitely an amusing story to read. Do you have any more episodes planed?
I did enjoy reading this. You are talented, and you have some FUNNY stuff in there. I pictured a 30 minute sitcom in my mind the whole time. It moves at a frantic pace, and you throw a wide variety of minor characters at us. Definitely not boring!
I think it can be improved in the following ways:
- As mentioned above, you need some polish. A couple more editing passes to kill typos and tweak some grammar issues.
- Your format is more like that of a play than a TV/movie script, though your layout doesn't follow screenplay formatting standards. My advice is to simply rewrite it as prose. It will work just as well, and you won't have to waste words on camera directions. If you don't do that, then stick to common formatting standards so your reader knows what they're looking at.
- **SPOILER ALERT** You have some great ideas here, and I would love to watch this on TV, but you really only have the barest skeleton of a story. Ultimately, it's a sequence of funny events, culminating in a revelation that, while sort of nice, doesn't tell us a whole lot. You've given us ACT 1 of a 30-min TV show, but storywise, it leaves us hanging. I wanted the clone thing to have more impact. Personally, TV shows have clear beginnings, middles, and endings, and that's what this story needs.
But still, I'm with ArlaneEnalra, I want to read Episode 2! Keep up the good work.
You have some great characters here and good bones for a story. It was funny. Kinda like Seinfeld meets Spaceballs. I was turned off by the script feel of the story. The lack of internalization left the story feeling one-dimensional. I agree with the poster above, you either need to write this as a script or as a novel--but not both at the same time.
Thanks for sharing~ Sam
Despite the episode 1 in the title, I really was not expecting a script, and it did throw me a little to begin with. I also found the formatting a little confusing to read, you may want to space it out a bit if you want to stick to script, as the directions were intermingling with the dialogue. I couldn’t help but picture this as taking place in Fawlty Towers, which is quite a lot to live up to. In all the stories I’ve read through, I think this is the first that has gone for overt humour, and it makes a nice change to read. I’d prefer to have seen it as prose, but that’s personal preference. You keep the story incredibly fast paced, but it all feels fairly amusing instead of actually funny. The humour comes from the situation instead of the characters, and I’d have liked to have seen it more the other way. There is definitely promise here, up the gag rate and you could really have something.
Please consider reformatting the manuscript so that there's some white space between characters' lines. Putting stage directions in italics would also help. I tried to read this as it stood but the text just blurred together and I could no longer follow it after about the first page.
If you do reformat it and repost it let me know and I'll reread it!
"I speak French Canadian" -- heh heh heh. I agree with the above commentators. There is some good stuff here, but it needs a bit of proofing. As for the script style, I like that (I have a fondness for audio plays), but it needs to be formatted into a more readable version. It was funny and madcap, though. Absurdist sci-fi (another one of my weaknesses).
--Patrick...