An excerpt from my script review for Long Distance which will be available 08/19/25:
2.) Plot Stability
The premise of the story is solid.
What we’re going to focus on in this section however is how you choose to implement raising the stakes for your characters.
Your characters should absolutely face problems and challenges as they proceed through your story.
You know it. I know it. Hell, even the newbie writer reading this just said, “Yeah. No shit.”
What you need to be careful of is raising the stakes so quickly or so drastically that you give yourself little room to maneuver through the plot.
Hang with me here a second…
In the script, Andy faces the problem of dwindling oxygen.
He’s stuck on an alien planet, can’t breathe the atmosphere, so this is a real problem for him.
His problems equate to our interest in his well being.
This forces Andy to search out other equipment or survivors to find more oxygen.
Now, where this script goes too far is he quickly drops down to at or below 20% of his suit’s oxygen capacity.
Think of his situation…
He’s lost on a foreign planet with dwindling resources…he’d be in an understandable state of panic…panic means he’d be breathing heavier, consuming more oxygen.
Even after 20%, the story forces him below 5% or so and then he just…hangs in there.
Listen, a ticking clock is great, but you can’t show us the countdown of the bomb with minutes dropping off the clock, and then give the character less than 10 seconds to fix the problem and suddenly that 10 seconds stretches on for an eternity.
That’s what this felt like.
Twice this seems to happen, once in the opening and then again when Andy finally tethers with Naomi.
Presenting actions that cause a leak in a character’s survival is great, just don’t overdo it.
Give them a bit of room, which allows you (the writer) to introduce other concerns.
We easily could have had Andy repair the first leak and be at 65% or so, and then as he’s panicking, running, falling, etc. he suddenly notices that he’s lost a large chunk of air in less than an hour.
You already have the built in AI personal assistant monitoring his vitals, which could easily tell him that due to his current state, he’s burning through oxygen at elevated levels.
Now he has to find more oxygen and stay calm on an alien planet where things are trying to eat him.
How he accomplishes that should lead to interesting drama.
That was my biggest issue with this section. There was certainly good in here, but we’ll discuss where it went wrong in the next section…
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