Sylvia Dalloway

Shell Flowers - Good Idea, Bad Script Sylvia Dalloway

Julia Sayers-Miller realizes the dream of a lifetime by taking a chance trip to the vineyards of France with her best friend. When love and betrayal become intertwined, Julia must finally see things as they really are. She must not only choose between saving her marriage or keeping the love of her life, but she must also decide whether to save her best friend or save herself. Sounds like a great idea, right? On paper, it's anything but, at least in terms of Shell Flowers, the screenplay inside this book. (Make that two scripts when you add Tours de France, a morbid attempt at revising the aforementioned script.) Shell Flowers serves as a wonderful example of how to learn from the mistakes of others. It was submitted for a screenwriting contest, and although it didn't win, it did receive some valuable feedback (which is also included in this book). So read, reread, mark up, cut, paste, highlight, burn, your choice. But study it nonetheless. Make your script stronger in areas where mine were weak. Write better dialogue, create stronger characters and create characters with whom people can empathize and identify.