u/lapshablabla

Hi there, I'm writing a screenplay with a character who is a final-year conservation student specializing in paintings and paper.
I don't have a background in art conservation, and I'm trying to avoid giving her generic "art expert" monologue.
I'd love to hear from actual conservators or conservation students. So:

There's a morning scene where she's going through old sheets of paper before study/exam. She's tired and half-muttering to herself, trying to remember something important. I'm specifically looking for something less obvious than basic terminology. I don't want her to sound like she's reciting a textbook or like the writer googled "art conservation terms."

For someone at the end of their degree:
What kind of things might she be trying to recall before an exam or any other kind of important task at study? What might she mutter under her breath while looking through old notes: perhaps half a sentence, a list, a correction to herself, or a "wait, no..." moment, maybe? She needs to be really concentrated.

Thank you in advance!

How do I improve the form of the moment where the character is realising the situation they’re in?

* * *
RENATA'S gaze freezes on the last line. Her eyes drift to the side. It hits her. Beat.

Her face hardens. She clutches her hair, fighting to keep the hysteria at bay. A sob breaks through. Her breathing becomes ragged. She loses control.

RENATA
(looking up at the sky)
Fuck!!!
* * *

I am a beginner and scenes like this cause some problems, I just don’t get how deep the feelings should be described and by which ways.

Comparing to other scripts doesn’t really help, different writers make it different ways.

Please give me some scene prompts!

I want to improve my scene writing before I start working on full screenplays. The problem is that whenever I try to write a standalone practice scene, it always turns into the start of a bigger story. If it doesn't, the scene feels incomplete and I lose motivation.

I'm obviously not looking for AI-generators. Instead, could you give me a few scene prompts? Things like a location, characters, a central conflict, objectives the scene should achieve, or any other constraints. Just enough to give me a starting point so I can come up with the actual scene myself and focus on making it as strong as possible.

Thanks!

I want to improve my scene writing before I start working on full screenplays. The problem is that whenever I try to write a standalone practice scene, it always turns into the start of a bigger story. If it doesn't, the scene feels incomplete and I lose motivation.

I'm obviously not looking for AI-generators. Instead, could you give me a few scene prompts? Things like a location, characters, a central conflict, objectives the scene should achieve, or any other constraints. Just enough to give me a starting point so I can come up with the actual scene myself and focus on making it as strong as possible.

Thanks!

I made an AMA about this three weeks ago, the day after my amputation. Yesterday I got my stitches removed, the wound is fully healed, and now I’m getting used to my new normal. Since some time has passed, I figured I’d do another AMA, because now there’s a space for new questions.

Quick backstory: my friends and I (female, 18) left a bar and decided to go for a swim at a lake in the middle of the night. The place was closed and we’re not the ones who go home at the moment, so obviously we tried climbing over the metal fence instead. A couple of people made it over just fine, and I was where the fun ended.
I grabbed the metal beams sticking out from the top of the fence, but realized my arms weren’t strong enough to hold me while I swung my legs over. I decided to jump back down and try again.
It was dark and I got pain shock, so it completely prevented me from understanding what had happened. I honestly thought I’d just cut. Then someone shined a flashlight on my hand. The only part of my right middle finger that was still intact was about half of the first phalanx. Everything else was gone, just exposed bloody bone. The skin, muscles, and everything else had been ripped away. The nerves were still there, which made it even more horrifying, I could still move the finger, even though it wasn’t really a finger anymore, just a moving piece of exposed bone.
The most likely explanation is that the ring I was wearing on that finger got caught on one of the beams. When I jumped down, my body weight did the rest, leaving the finger hanging on the fence. That’s only a theory, though - again, it was pitch black, and we never found the missing part.

While everyone around me started panicking, I walked toward the highway exit and kept saying to the person next to me, “Promise me this is actually happening to me”. My brain was desperately trying to invent other explanations, that I was too drunk and hallucinating, or that this had happened to someone else and I was somehow experiencing it from their perspective. Someone called an ambulance. I could feel myself starting to lose consciousness, but fortunately right person stayed with me the whole time and kept me awake. Everyone else was freaking out, except of me and the friend who helped me out. I never had a panic attack, not in the ambulance, not in the hospital. And no, before anyone asks, it wasn’t because I was high. I had sobered up by then. So I ended up joking around with the doctors and with the friend who came to the hospital with me.

The doctors gave me a choice: attempt to reconstruct the finger, or amputate it. At first, I insisted on reconstruction. But about an hour before surgery, the doctors explained in much more detail what reconstruction would actually involve and what kind of result I could realistically expect. So I changed my mind and chose amputation. My family completely disagreed with me, and my friends couldn’t understand why I would make that decision. Making a permanent, life-changing choice in the space of an hour at 18 years old was incredibly difficult.

The healing process has gone perfectly, although I unfortunately ran into more than a few incompetent medical professionals along the way.

AMA.

Sorry for the wall of text. I trimmed it down as much as I could, but last time I skipped a few details and ended up getting a bunch of stupid, hostile questions, so I’d rather cover the basics from the start.

Just a quick note: I'm doing okay mentally and emotionally, so please don't feel like you need to comfort me or tell me how sorry you are. I appreciate the sentiment, but that's not really why I'm here. I'm posting this because I think it's an unusual experience that most people will (hopefully) never go through, and I figured people might have questions they're curious about. Feel free to ask anything you're genuinely interested in.

I'm 18. The night before last (Saturday to Sunday) a group of friends and I decided to go to a lake at night after drinking. I wasn't blackout drunk or anything—I was aware of what was happening and making my own decisions. When we got there, we found out the area was closed off, but we decided to climb over the fence anyway. A stupid drunk 18-year-old decision for fun which ended up costing me a finger.
Three of my friends made it over without any problems. When it was my turn, I grabbed onto some metal rods sticking out from the top of the fence. Halfway up, I realized my arms were too weak and I'd still have to support my weight while swinging a leg over. I decided to jump back down, rest for a minute, and try again.
When I landed, I felt my hand catch on one of those metal rods. I assumed I'd just scratched myself. Between the adrenaline, the darkness, and the alcohol, I didn't really feel much pain. Then someone shined a flashlight on my hand.
The only thing left of my finger was part of the first phalanx. The rest was basically gone. There was exposed bone and a huge amount of blood. No skin, no muscle, no nail.
At first it felt unreal, like a dream or some kind of trip (I don't use drugs). I just started walking toward the road and the lights—we were in bushes near a highway exit—repeating over and over: "I lost a finger. I just lost a finger." Looking back, I think I was trying to make my brain accept what had happened.
The ambulance arrived quickly. Everything moved so fast that I didn't really have time to process it or cry. Instead, I kept making jokes and laughing at the absurdity of the situation.
The doctors gave me a choice between reconstructive surgery and amputation. At first I chose reconstruction without hesitation. But about an hour before surgery, I changed my mind and decided to go through with the amputation instead.

AMA!

Need feedback. Would you read further? Any advices on language, characters, plot, formatting or anything else? Tell me your opinion. Thank you in advance!

I‘m reading a Parasites (2019) river now. Sometimes there are descriptions like „That gets his attention“ instead of „he turns interested gaze toward it“ or „Fortunately she didn’t hear it“ instead of „she kept talking as nothing was said“ and so on. Yes, it gives actors the space to make own job how they feel and at the same time make the emotional undertone understandable for the reader. But when I use sentences like that, it appears to be problematic to readers, due to „non-specific“ and „prose“. I analyzed the context and sometimes I understand why telling works, but not always—still the script of Parasites is considered good and professional. Can you guys explain it to me, if you understand, cuz I’m totally confused.

I‘m reading a Parasites (2019) river now. Sometimes there are descriptions like „That gets his attention“ instead of „he turns interested gaze toward it“ or „Fortunately she didn’t hear it“ instead of „she kept talking as nothing was said“ and so on. Yes, it gives actors the space to make own job how they feel and at the same time make the emotional undertone understandable for the reader. But when I use sentences like that, it appears to be problematic to readers, due to „non-specific“ and „prose“. I analyzed the context and sometimes I understand why telling works, but not always—still the script of Parasites is considered good and professional. Can you guys explain it to me, if you understand, cuz I’m totally confused.

Psychological Satire, 11 pages

I am going to rewrite the script to make the main topic more specific and clear, showing it in more interesting way. It’s difficult for me to understand what the purpose of the story looks like for the audience now, so I need your opinion:

What, as you think, ist this story about? What can you tell about characters? What would make the story more clear and interesting?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dPf1iushsrYlA5gUx41qEck6OXcuAvwk/view?usp=drivesdk

I appreciate your time and attention, thank you in advance!

Even though I've been writing for quite a while, I was always dissatisfied with all my work halfway through and abandoned it. So, I decided to write something short and simple (although this task is even more difficult than writing something complex). So now I really need feedbacks to get motivated to write and edit further. Be as critical as you want. Format, plot, language, characters and so on, everything what comes to your mind tell me. I‘ll be really thankful for your time, attention and knowledge sharing!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dPf1iushsrYlA5gUx41qEck6OXcuAvwk/view?usp=drivesdk

Title: An Article About the Great Present

Pages: 11

Genre: Psychological Satire

Logline: A middle-aged man goes to an interview at a local newspaper to fulfill his youthful dream of becoming a journalist, but encounters injustice.

Is that a strong tool or a harmful one? Of course, any technique can be executed well or poorly, but speaking more broadly: if the internal and external conflicts aren’t just connected but actually grow out of one another, does that make a story feel flat and one-dimensional, or does it make it more cohesive and focused on what really matters?

I am writing my first serialised screenplay. So basically each episode needs to be structured according to a standard act-based narrative, AND the entire season must possess an overarching structural framework. However, I am struggling to figure out how to take the structural model I am accustomed to — the kind I’ve learned to condense into a single, self-contained unit — and effectively distribute it across four or five separate episodes. If anyone has experience with this, please share your insights on how to organize it