In The Arms of Justice by Mindy Eddeson Wannabe - Short, Film Noir - Has a gorgeous socialite done one bad deed too many? - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Quoted Text int. courtroom – day

Not a proper heading

Quoted Text JUDGE PALMER I’ll allow it, but, you are on a short leash.

Think I’ve read that line a hundred times – need to be more original here.

Quoted Text POSTAL CARRIER I’m sorry, but, I have an urgent message that says I must delay this trial for Mrs. Nightingale.

Really? A Postal Carrier is going to stop the trial – and she is delivering “messages” not mail – unopened? This does not work on several levels.

Quoted Text JUDGE PALMER Then, I accept your guilty plea and sentence you to death by needle.

Again – this would never ever happen like this in real life

Quoted Text JUDGE PALMER Only two others know, the doctor and the tech specialist. As far as everyone else knows, you’re dead.

Way too on the nose.

There are issues here - one really has to abandon logic to buy into many of the major plot points. We have to believe that you could have a courthouse where men were banned at the request of a defendant (and the reason for that is poorly explained). You have to believe that mail carriers can stop trials and that convictions and executions can take place in a matter of days - it's just too much.  There is too much logic stretched to in an attempt to hit plot points and as a result the story just seems implausible.

OK...I started just skimming very early on, based on several problems:

Slugs are terrible.

Character descriptions are redonkulous and too long and detailed.

Character names - using first and last names continuously is a big mistake and very goofy.

The whole setup here rings so fake and forced.

The trial itself and how it plays out is again, so fake.

Doesn't work for me at all, sorry to say.

I'll start with a sample of dialogue:

Because I’m a socialite. Because
I’m beautiful, rich, successful,
have tight, firm legs.
She feels her legs, slowly.

Really? She feels her legs slowly? How about: 'she runs a perfectly manicured finger along the inside of her thigh' bit of effort, please..

It’s simple really. Phyllis
Nightingale seduced him with her
wiles and now, he’s dead and we’ll
prove it.

What? They're going to prove not that she killed him, but prove he's dead.

The exercise is about writing dialogue genuinely, realistically. I know this is noir, and I know this is an attempt at entertainment but these characters read like halfwits or 'housewives of NY/OC/LA, whatever.

I sincerely hope there are going to be some legit entries.
For a writer to pull off send up/parody/black comedy it needs to be clever and the dialogue needs to be great. These women characters are complete airheads obsessed with their wardrobe and makeup. Fluff stereotypes.

I liked the idea of an all female court and that scenario had potential.

I know... You're just having a bit of fun.
Fails the challenge imh.

Well, this should be disqualified simply because it's 13pgs. But other than that the story was just so weird. I get you guys are going for over-the-top female characters but come on. Film noir is probably the best place to have strong women characters than anywhere else. Femme Fatales and all. This could have been twisty and fun if the effort was put for in actually taking it seriously.

Better luck next time.

Quoted from Female Gaze Well, this should be disqualified simply because it's 13pgs.

It's 12 pages.  One of the few things it does tick off for the challenge.

Oh, I see. Title page.

Despite the somewhat cliche femme fatale aspect, I did enjoy this while Phylllis was talking. When Bethany took over, it got pretty dull, with endless chat about fashion.

The story at the moment is a little crazy and it needs more focus. Decide what it's really about and construct the story round that.

This felt more like a comedy at the beginning.  

It was way out to lunch, which in itself I really don't have a problem with, but this one just didn't hit the mark for me.  

Nolan  

Is this a pisser? If not then I think some dribble at least got on the floor.

Nothing here makes sense. From having a trail of the century with no men allowed, to an over the top central character who makes little sense to a last minute telegram we never read that get's eaten, to a head scratching plot twist(?) at the end. This just seems like a joke from beginning to end.  

The one smart thing I liked was to disprove the testimony of a witness by shaky memory of dresses worn.

That was... different.

Read more like a legal drama(edy) than a noir. Nightingale read less like a femme fatale and more like a hybrid of Paris Hilton and Scream Queens' Chanel Oberlin. In fact, I read some of her lines in Emma Roberts's voice.

As noted above, nothing makes sense at all. And a lot of your slugs are all-lowercase. What program did you use? Trelby ( and Celtx, if I remember correctly) would have automatically caught it and capped it.

Wasn't for me, sadly.

In The Arms Of Justice, kinda sounds a bit like a tea time movie, possibly by Brian Griffen, not a great start.

You know what, putting the title aside, it was alright. It at least was flexible enough to move in a few different directions, that being said it definitely needs work to avoid being a little bit cheesy.

I certainly didn't dislike it, but it's not going to take the big prize for me.

Cam

As I said in my comments for “The Venus Heist,” film noir isn’t exactly my thing, so I’ll keep that in mind and not judge to harshly.  You got stuck with the worst genre, imo.  One that I personally don’t think should have even been included… but hey, who am I?  I don’t make the rules.

Well, the second sentence of the opening passage is written very poorly.  That needs a total re-write.  Then you insert what we already just saw for to highlight a sub heading?  

Then the slugline isn’t capitalized.  This feels like a mess, sorry to say.

“Maybe five or six, right girls?” – that flew over my head.  I stupid tho.

This is really dragging…

I don’t know, the court stuff dragged, then the lethal injection/twist/convenient comeuppance all came on very quickly.  Not a huge fan here.  Not sure if this even rang true to noir, but again, I don’t really know shit about film noir.

You know what, it has its flaws but it also stands out as being different.

I quite like the noir element.

Could do with a decent polish and it most feels a touch slapstick in parts, but if you kept to the court alone, you may have a filmable script.

Writer,

Decent effort but I'm just not buying it. I think you had a decent entry for Film Noir, had a good feel to it, but the way you went about it seemed false - explaining why there were no men, the courtroom drama, which I assume is very hard to do, needed many more pages to be done right. yet, here it is all crammed into the space of twelve, which already seems a bit much. the end reveal, the twist, then the other twist. Just all too much to take in, and doesn't ring true. However, great effort for a week in a very tough genre!

Steve

Film Noir isn't my thing either but I battled through it.

The author knows his craft and the script presented well. I just couldn't get into it

First off, the ‘noir wit’ is playing a little more like straight comedy. Probably not helped by the less then realistic all female court room. Obviously that was part of the challenge, but I'm smiling just thinking about how jury selection must have gone.

“...he’s dead and we’ll prove it.”

Presumably they'd want to prove a little more than that.

“PHYLLIS NIGHTINGALE: Your Honor, this person can recall what I wore on so many days, but, she can’t recall what I wore on the day I allegedly said that I wanted to kill my husband?”

This is unconvincing, and why it's a good idea to not try to represent oneself in court.

No offense, but it's hard to tell if this meant to be played straight or if its parody. If it's meant to be played straight, there’s a litany of realism issues. If it's meant to be a parody, it's kind of awesome. There's definitely a jokey vibe, and it's so over the top that it's hard to take seriously. On the other hand, comedy isn't listed in the genre.

I think I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt, just because I found myself smiling through most of this. It works. I'm just not sure it works how you intended.

So forced and so long. I started skimming (guilty) and just lost it. Sorry, not for me.

I think the setup of the all female court is flawed, she may possibly have got away with an all female jury...

First couple of pages were okay, and I was enjoying it, but then we delved into fashion and it started to tail off for me.

The ending seemed a bit of a cheat, it seemed like she was gonna win at trial anyway, so the whole fake execution didn't ring true.

Nice try

I liked Phylisis defense - the outfit argument - think that was clever.

The rest of the witnesses we haven't get to hear - you had a montage, where you show them at a stand. That would be a strange montage I'd say.

Hard to buy into all women court. And all this to learn she's sleeping with the female judge. Phylis kills that one - didn't get why though, seems like she enjoys killing those who does well by her. Phylis' character is over the top for me I guess. The plot even not so as her character.

This one reads like a 1930s boiler.  Cliche and thin, the story doesn't work for me.  And I don't like coincidences, especially ones that solve the story.  

Concept ties into the title well. More of a parody of film noir with a touch of comedy at the end. Logic issues. Too much story stuffed into the last pages.

Reads like a parody rather than film noir. The reason for the all female cast stretched my suspension of believability so far it snapped and spanked my own ass.

Some of the dialogue was quite snappy and wistful but the story felt unnatural and quite forced.

Film Noir is terribly difficult to write, so points for trying but not one for me, sorry.

-Mark

Title and logline too vague for my taste…

P1 lots of identical images are written down several times. One time is everything needed.

Funny, I like the humor…

There's only a slight tone, if any, of the noir genre BUT the comedy is great.

Okay she's dead…

P9 "Denise"- needed to scroll back to get who's Denise again

Okay, she is not dead

Ufff. Pretty satiric… it didn't hit the genre well. It was funny and light. I had some fun following the story. The humor here was my favorite of the challenge. Good job. This had a lot of welcome easiness.

So this is my last read.

UGh.  Where to begin.  

I'll say this.  The writer clearly ran out of space.  12 pages isn't a lot and I think he just ran out of space...

I wonder how this would play out without the space limitation.  I mean, the synopsis wasn't even fulfilled...

Dan

This was mine.

To answer a few questions that were on here:

1.  Dave, thanks so much for pointing out the error of,
int. courtroom - day.  That was a software glitch and Celtx is looking into it.  It shows up in all caps on the site, but, drops to lower case when downloaded or printed.  Very odd.

2.  I bet that most don't know this, but, the mail people have the right to interfere in anything.  Here is another fact most don't know.  If you are driving a car and in one direction comes a cop car with the lights on and in the opposite direction is a mail truck with the lights on, guess who has the right of way?  

It's the mail truck.  As I understand it, they only have their lights on when lives are at stake.  I know, odd, right??

So, the mail woman could interfere in the court case if I was acknowledged as a life-changing message.

I ran out of space.  I had to rework everything and it just didn't work.

I will do better next OWC.

Dan

Quoted Text You know what's so crazy, I was going to wait until the open discussion and reveal to say this, but I was WAY too harsh on 'In the arms...'. And I'm not just saying that bc you told me it was your's...I had no idea. But, I was gonna note that as far as NOIR mechanics go this was as close as you could get without the lackey guy falling for the femme-fatale. Although, I do love lesbian-noir. I spent a summer in college studying noir in and out for my senior thesis. I had been nabbed to write a short play that was a parody of noir, so I sort of know it in and out. No expert. But I know it. I was gonna write mine as a male-driven noir...noir is a form of thriller. So no worries on that one. The red herrings. (with the note and clothes) The weird ending. (comeuppance) and the intricate weaving of her manipulation

Yes, I'm quoting myself, I'm a weirdo.