I have brought us this script before:
https://www.nairaland.com/1305803/ero-tica-home-dreams-mow-teleplay
But we all ignored it. Here I am again, please do not ignore, I just want to know whether it’s okay, the story, format, dialogue.
Mr. Village boi do not look and pass this time.
Click the attachment below to view the script

tony ayo:
Mr. Village boi do not look and pass this time.
Click the attachment below to view the script

Lol. I no dey house. This ERO.TICA safe for me to read where I dey?
Go look am when I reach house! Hang on a minute - is it a short or a feature?

VillageBoi:

Lol. I no dey house. This ERO.TICA safe for me to read where I dey?
Go look am when I reach house! Hang on a minute - is it a short or a feature?

It's a tele-play pilot episode.

VillageBoi:

Lol. I no dey house. This ERO.TICA safe for me to read where I dey?
Go look am when I reach house! Hang on a minute - is it a short or a feature?

E-R-O-T-I-C-A


Abeg, villageboi....also read my own version of er.otica I wrote for your broda- speedyboi.


_{villageboi must be eroti.c today}

tony ayo:
It's a tele-play pilot episode.

Yeah, my bad. I did see you wrote that in your initial post - the last word of the 'link'. Sorry I wont be back till about 5pm... will def read it then.

sholay2011:
Abeg, villageboi....also read my own version of er.otica I wrote for your broda- speedyboi.
_{villageboi must be eroti.c today}

I did read it, no jigi-jigi inside na... if you continue shooting people to death or giving them the wrong 'meat' to eat the whole world go extinct? So you have to add to the population with ero.tica lol

VillageBoi:

I did read it, no jigi-jigi inside na... if you continue shooting people to death or giving them the wrong 'meat' to eat the whole world go extinct? So you have to add to the population with ero.tica lol

What a creative response!
















But what is jigi-jigi?

sholay2011:
What a creative response!

Thank you sir!

sholay2011:
But what is jigi-jigi?

It is a creative 'imagination'... that's all lol

abeg ooo, who is 'jigi jigi'..? Is she a character in the teleplay..? This one wey people dey ask of her...

^^^^^

Lolol. So all of una wan make I type 'fiki-faka' or whatever term you lot are using... che! Una don spoil well-well

Is 'fiki-faka' an animated japanese character? I want to know pls. I am ignorant.















_{But villageboi don spoil well well oh...see d various names he is calling bedmatics}

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS HORRIBLY LONG POST BY COPYING IT ALL OVER AGAIN!
IGNORE ANY BY-FORCE CENSORSHIP THAT THIS SITE HAS APPILED - It's 3.20am & I'm tired of correcting stuff.




First thing I’m going to say is I really like the ‘setting’ of the series’ – the dark murky dangerous world of a brothel…


Unfortunately for you – that is the ONLY positive thing I can say. I’ll drop a few pointers about things that didn’t work for me in the pilot episode script.

First, this is a pilot episode – What are the ‘good’ TV shows that you like? Go back and watch the ‘pilot/first’ episode of every single one of them. What did you notice? They are more often than not very exciting and very BIG! Why? Because they want to grab your attention and make you commit to coming back next week for the next episode. TV shows are a dime a dozen so why would anyone agree to give a TV series 2-10 years of their life as a dedicated viewer?

On the other hand you have a 36-page pilot and I couldn’t make it past page 15.

The simple truth is you have not developed any of your characters, you don’t know them well enough so they speak and behave in a manner that just isn’t real or even true to who they are meant to be. It is not convincing at all and that hurts the writing which in turn hurts the story.


You also do the newbie thing of writing what cannot be seen. Yeah once or twice can be overlooked but very crucial information being passed to the ‘reader’ that way kinda becomes a big flaw in script writing ability – let me immediately give an example here –

How did you introduce a very major character – Inspector Charm? Below is exactly as you wrote it.



INT. HOTEL ROOM – DAY

A man who is wearing no shirt-- face shaved-- seems inquisitive-- he is a police man, looks cute as one. He is drinking a hot drink in a small bottle while sitting on his bed in a hotel room as he stares at shanice’s picture he is holding in his hand; he is INSP. CHARM (40). Then an indistinct SPEECH of a FEMALE REPORTER on the T.V.


FEMALE REPORTER (O.S)
Few hours ago an incident happened here that took the life of a young girl whose name has not been disclosed.


Insp. Charm picks the T.V remote control and increases the VOLUME of the T.V.


If that is shot EXACTLY as written, in a million years no one is ever going to figure out what his job is. You TELL the READER (of the script) but you never ever SHOW the VIEWER. When you write you must THINK in IMAGES. A very simple line added where we SEE things in the room – you said a ‘shirtless man’ – Show his ‘Police Inspector Jacket’ or whatever hanging in the room somewhere or even on the bed with his gun holster and whatnot – we will have no doubt that he is a cop/detective or whatever. It is a pilot, you do not have the luxury of playing the guessing-game with your audience. Get you fishing hook under their skin because we are ‘Gone in 60 seconds’ to another TV channel.

However, I know you were not playing the guessing-game and it’s just bad writing because you introduce EVERY character like that.
Come-on, you even started your script with what cannot be SEEN –



EXT. ERO.TICA – DUSK – ESTABLISHING

ERO.TICA, a hotel turned brothel, Cars move in and out of ERO.TICA.


‘Hotel turned brothel’ – How in the world are we supposed to know that right then? I mean at that exact point in time of that ‘imagery’ being on the screen? It would have been better off if you had spent a few lines telling us what the ‘brothel’ erotica looks like. What are the comings and goings we SEE as you are establishing (what I assume) is the major location of the whole premise of the series?
And when I saw the Cars move in and out…’ my mind went “Cool, this is gonna be freaking awesome.” The imagery I had made up (since you didn’t tell us jack about anything) was a massive brothel built like a drive-thru McDonald’s. Who dash me?!

Let’s talk about other things.

Next Sub-heading – DIALOGUE



FEMALE REPORTER (O.S)
Few hours ago an incident happened here that took the life of a young girl whose name has not been disclosed.


Insp. Charm picks the T.V remote control and increases the VOLUME of the T.V.


ON T.V - female reporter speaks as the medical attendants’ carries shanice body (which is covered with a white sheet) on a stretcher to their ambulance. Insp. charm identifies the hospital name that owns the ambulance.


FEMALE REPORTER
(on T.V)
Course of death has been identified as cocaine O.D.



The dialogue of the ‘Female reporter’ is not that bad at all, however, I will point to what I think is the lack of ‘research’ and a type of ‘laziness that bugs our ‘writers’.

Yes Naija journalists are rubbish but you could have made her better – The very last thing she says is “Course of death has been identified as cocaine O.D.”

Seriously, she na magician or CIA? How she take know? We too write all this holy-holy somehow some character ‘magically’ has the answer. I don’t buy it – ever!

Watch ‘real’ news – Not our Naija crap journos that can be so dumb you want to slap them left and right.
Her line would be something like (ignoring that you wrote COURSE instead of CAUSE)

“Cause of death is a suspected drug overdose”.

Why? First the family of the dead girl can’t sue her for slander lol. Secondly, her boss won’t fire her for abbreviating ‘overdose’ and saying “O.D.” on air.

Anyway the above is minor but I added it to ask about a confusing TIMELINE. Just before this the reported had said –



FEMALE REPORTER (O.S)
Few hours ago an incident happened here that took the life of a young girl whose name has not been disclosed.



The ‘Inspector’ from a city thousands of miles away is already in a hotel room in this city with a picture of the dead girl in his hand ‘investigating’ her death. The timeline of events just seems odd.

There are a lot of cases of far worse dialogue throughout the 15 pages I read. Most people say stuff that just is not their character or shouldn’t be.

I’m not going to write all of it here as others reading this can simply read the script themselves if they want to. Anyway – the dialogue turns the ‘Pi.mp’ and his boys into such cowering idiots in the corner – a 13 yr old girl could walk into that brothel and bi.tch-slap them all and get away with it because the ‘characters’ are so weak. Imagine the pi.mp guy in front of his ‘boys’ is literally begging one of his girls for se.x – He’s the darn pi.mp – in his world he is ‘King’, someone to be scared of.

Then your scenes with the Inspector at the mortuary. Seriously? The guy is so stupid, even a 5 yr old boy cub scout would have more sense that him.

I’m sure you’ve heard someone say “I can’t believe he did that, it’s so out of character.” All of your characters are way, way ‘out of character’.

The mortuary scenes – the Inspector is first of all surprised that dead bodies arrive at a mortuary? Are you for real dude? Oh but before that the mortuary attendant barks ‘Who are you? Where do you think you are going?’ No be Naija big policeman the Inspector be? He would have dashed that ‘attendant' 4 by 40 hot slaps before flashing his ID card.
Then these attendants spend how long telling the audience the difference between - it’s and its – holy fukc we really need an English lesson from mortuary attendants in your pilot’? And the whole script is peppered with really bad spelling & grammar mistakes that you made – don’t get your characters to give us a lesson because that just becomes an insult.

Please no mortuary attendant in ANY hospital anywhere in Nigeria is going to find a dead body for the owner then turn to him with a big fat smile on his face and proudly proclaim “Voila” – I bet you a million dollars not even in France will a mortuary attendant say that word.

Ok first of all the Inspector pees his pants because he discovers that a mortuary is where dead bodies are brought constantly then he goes on to poop his diapers when the mortuary attendants that have now become detectives tell him “Oh boy this ya babe na ashewo because that Erotica joint wey she dey work for na ashewo joint.” Sorry but who exactly is this ridiculously stupid Police Inspector?

Then immediately after being a sh.it-faced baby, he grows a liver and insinuates that they shouldn’t ‘mess’ her dead body or he will ‘SHOT’ this hospital down – At this point the imagery in my head was – I’ve been misled, so all this time he’s not really a cop but a B-52 Bomber pilot because he’s gonna ‘shot’ the place down with a nuclear bomb from 10 million miles above the stratosphere – Sod it I gave up reading at the start of page 16 and started thinking up creative ways to kill myself – like jump of a stool or drink a cup of pure water.


The only character I liked was 'Shanice' because she's dead and couldn't open her mouth like the other characters to say something stupid or do something daft and out of character. And then you go and spoil that on page 5 by naming another ashewo 'Shanice the Second'.. duh??!! Yes you might have a magical reason for that somewhere but I'm sadly already way past caring about this script to care why.
Even the names of your characters ... jeez dude. You name the pi.mp 'Pi.mp-K' and his sidekick is 'Django'... seriously? One - never take any name known from popular culture - think up your own 'original' names. TWO - Any guy named 'Pi.mp-K' can never be more than a lowlife crackhead bottom-of-the-gutter pi.mp.



You have a good idea for the setting of something that could be a very interesting series. As said at he start – watch a lot of ‘first’ episodes of TV shows. Also a must watch for you are these two series for starters –

Rogue (only one season so far) – with Thandie Newton – I really want you to see the behaviour of the bad guys’
The Killing (3 seasons) – A brilliant Danish TV series that the US has also copied. I’ve seen both and prefer the Danish version. What made 'The Killing' a worldwide hit is because, unlike normal 'detective series' where one murder happens per episode this one was one murder (eg our SHANICE here as per the title of yours) that spanned 3 whole seasons... just food for thought.

Good effort, I'm sure there is something there. Do not forget the important things - Think in images when you write, develop and ACTUALLY research characters - do not 'guess' how they will behave - go out there and find out for a fact.

Mr. Village boi what took u so long. I know there will be words flaws because it has not been proofread. I didn't attach ur name for u to lie to me, i'll go back to the script and do some re-writes, thanx anyway.
@ other viewers, i need more critics on this, i need to improve.

Bro, I tried downloading your script but it couldn't open on my phone (and my laptop get as e be for now ).

But I would infer some things from what Villageboi has said (and would try not to repeat all he has said so I don't end up writing an epistle like he did )

First, I commend you for this effort and your readiness to even improve on your craft. But please, since you are a Nigerian (I assume you are going by ur moniker 'Tony ayo') and even a yoruba, try including our "tiwa-n-tiwa" names in your scripts. They may be yoruba/ibo/hausa names. It instantly helps to mentally draw the movie closer to your Nigerian/African audience (I assume you are not writing for Steven Spielberg yet), even if the story is not that Nigerian-like.

Instead of Shanice, lets have Chioma; instead of Bruce Wayne, give me Lawrence Anini . Let white people too see our movies and discuss characters like Kola, Kemi, Dauda etc. It goes a long way IMO.

Also, the part where Villageboi complained about 'the characters being out of character' is very vital and can crumble a very solid plot since the audience gets confused on what each character stands for.

As a fellow scriptwriter, I explore the advantage of also being an actor. I act all the characters mentally while writing and put myself in the character's position. For example, " if I was Clara, and I've been known to be impatient, how do I respond to a friend asking me to wait for her while it's taking her eternity to get dressed?"

That's how I think before I write each statement that slithers from the mouth of each character and all this would help dialogue-wise.

My advice is restricted 'cos I couldn't open the document but I hope this helps. Your best is yet to come.



_{But your title get as e be oo...e.r.oti.ca}

tony ayo: Mr. Village boi what took u so long.

I forgot it was Friday. I did actually get home around 5pm but was straight out the door within 90 seconds... didn't get back till very, very late. You can see I posted that @ 3AM!

VillageBoi:

I forgot it was Friday. I did actually get home around 5pm but was straight out the door within 90 seconds... didn't get back till very, very late. You can see I posted that @ 3AM!

You no sabi say you be hot cake and u don get ministry for this section. God preserve you for us...

sholay2011:
You no sabi say you be hot cake and u don get ministry for this section. God preserve you for us...

Shebi you fit read PDF for your phone? I've added it as one here so others that might have problems downloading can read and comment too if they want to.

Ok just tried - the PDF is more than 200KB so I'll divide the script into 2 as I no sabi add larger things here.

^^^^^^^ Tnx.

Mr sholay, i really appreciate ur comment. For d characterizing aspect of the script, a 10yrs old who is a newbie in scriptwriting already know dat u must be the character to really write about him/her. What village boi pin pointed was that i'm putting the wrong dialogue in the characters mouth, shit happens. I wrote this script in 10hrs (5hrs per day), so i was expecting such comments from village boi, that's why i kind of invited him.

tony ayo: I wrote this script in 10hrs (5hrs per day).

That answers the question and why it is clear to see the problems with the script. All 'good' writing comes from RE-writing ONLY. This isn't really even a first draft but the first words that came to your mind and it shows. It's basically the skeleton of the idea (which quite frankly should never be shown) upon which you build muscles, flesh and skin to get to your 'first draft'.

tony ayo: Mr sholay, i really appreciate ur comment. For d characterizing aspect of the script, a 10yrs old who is a newbie in scriptwriting already know dat u must be the character to really write about him/her. What village boi pin pointed was that i'm putting the wrong dialogue in the characters mouth, shit happens. I wrote this script in 10hrs (5hrs per day), so i was expecting such comments from village boi, that's why i kind of invited him.

Oh...I see.










_{I thought Villageboi said ur characters were 'out of character' and not just about the dialogue. Do you know what that means?}

sholay2011:
Oh...I see.










_{I thought Villageboi said ur characters were 'out of character' and not just about the dialogue. Do you know what that means?}

dialogue is one aspect that makes a character to be out of character. Sometimes when you write the dialogues of ur characters as a conversation, u find it hard to stop the flow, that's when u might mistake the right dialogues of ur character.

tony ayo:
dialogue is one aspect that makes a character to be out of character. Sometimes when you write the dialogues of ur characters as a conversation, u find it hard to stop the flow, that's when u might mistake the right dialogues of ur character.

I disagree with your post bro. The bolded even makes your message confusing...though I got it. Not to derail the thread with my own argument, I wud let sleeping dogs lie.























But btw , you mentioned smth in ur post that when writing a dialogue, you are carried away with the flow and bla bla....bro, dat shouldn't be. I rest my case.






























Em...but seriously , you ve not yet mastered writing in characters which you claim a 10-year old newbie in scriptwriting wud av grasped. Your dialogue shouldnt carry you away with its flow (when it is not river Jordan) but rather, you should carry your dialogue.

sholay2011:
_{I thought Villageboi said ur characters were 'out of character' and not just about the dialogue. Do you know what that means?}

Make I go buy magnifying glass for market? This font dey tiny lol. And yes you're right in that it's not just about the dialogue that makes a character out of character...

... but I beg make una no argue too much. Na small by small all of us dey learn things.

^^^^^ Abeg make una no vex for my argument. Me too wan learn ni oh.

sholay2011:
I disagree with your post bro. The bolded even makes your message confusing...though I got it. Not to derail the thread with my own argument, I wud let sleeping dogs lie.























But btw , you mentioned smth in ur post that when writing a dialogue, you are carried away with the flow and bla bla....bro, dat shouldn't be. I rest my case.






























Em...but seriously , you ve not yet mastered writing in characters which you claim a 10-year old newbie in scriptwriting wud av grasped. Your dialogue shouldnt carry you away with its flow (when it is not river Jordan) but rather, you should carry your dialogue.

bro, i don't really know where u are getting at. First, i didn't say a 10yrs old will grasp the dialogue or whatever u are trying to say, i said a 10yrs old KNOWS that u have to BE the character to WRITE about the character. I'm not a professional, maybe you are, and for nairaland sake i can never act like one, i'm just a beginner here, i have a scriptwriting software on my PC, the only reason why i'm not using it still, it is because of conversational aspect of it, because after each dialogue, u'll have to insert a character's name before u could write another dialogue, the flow isn't there (for me oo). U said something about carrying ur character/dialogue along, not ur character/dialogue to carry you along. Let me tell u bro, the only reason why a movie-remake seems different in character wise, its because the dialogue/behavoural aspect were different from the original, professional writers even finds it hard to be a character just like dat, they're not God to be more than who they were created to be, if u added that it takes research to be ur character 100%, that i won't doubt, that was why villageboi added that my script lacks research. I've seen comments concerning the scripts u posted here, and u are not that good in ur character/dialogue authentication.

^^^^^^ Thanks.

It takes time guys. We are all learning and we hopefully pick up new things everyday. My writing isn't great, it's barely even 'good' but like you both I strive to make it better and better... and you know what? It's something we ALL can do if we keep on working on it.

u can always do better Mr tony.

prof800: u can always do better Mr tony.

thanks prof.