Iron Garbage by 0 - Short, Drama - An aging bellhop faces life's harsh realities as he's intertwined into the life of a championship boxer. 12 pages - pdf, format

Good

Oh man, I've read two scripts and they both are good.

This could be an very good OWC

SPOILERS

I won't comment on detail but what I liked was

The dialogue - often it spat from the page

The dynamics - we were often left thinking, where this going, what they going to say

Truth - this could be made up, I assume not, but this bubbling sense of truth was powerful

Look, it has issues - as we all do - but this is a contender ... Boom boom

Advice - keep it a tad more contained, like a stage play.

Have to say I didn't know what a bellhop was...guess now

Good work.

This was well-written and not really anything to critique from a technical perspective. As far as story goes, Marshall was very well developed. Definitely not a sympathetic character, borderline sociopathic. Cliff was a good opposite for Marshall. His lack of motivation to do anything other than what he was doing was polar opposite of Marshall, whose ambition was singular and uncompromising. Liked it. Hope you take it further. As far as filming, definitely doable on a shoestring budget.

Code a man whose always got a warm smile on his face.

Who's.

Code Cliff scoffs, amazed.

Scoffs is not a good choice. I had to do a double-take on the word. He goes from mocking to amazement in one sentence.

Nice little story. I see it as about getting old and gaining things along the way that actually mean very little in the end. Like a game of monopoly.

7.5 out of 10.

Sorry,
This didn't work for me.  I found it rather boring.  I guess I didn't like the main character, so, I didn't feel bad for him, at all.

I imagine some will like it, but, it didn't work for me.  There was no conflict at all.  Just a lot of talking...

5/10

There's a few choices made with the language that don't seem quite right...

e.g. Marshall glares around - why? He's just had a pleasant chat with Cliff, no real explanation for glare... glances perhaps. Happens again a few lines later.

The drama is okay, but it felt a little familiar, seemed expected for some reason.

Dialogue was decent though and the characters were drawn out well.

Anthony

This didn't work for me, it dragged on quite a bit.

I can't really pinpoint the problem but it wasn't the story. I thought it was about an outside perspective on a boxer's fall from grace, Marshall seems like a really bitter individual and Cliff was there to see it first hand, over many years.

The rooftop scene at the end was poignant, we get a sense of the hardships over the years... everything which has brought Cliff to this point, and we realize... this is their story and it'll only be told by the two of them.

I didn't buy into it though sadly, heavy drama like this isn't what I'm into but others were right to appreciate the story that was being told.

notes:

- very long conversations for a  moving elevator

There's talent in the writing here, but the story is not quite working. And it's easy to identify why: nothing is happening.

Now please don't misunderstand that. I am not suggesting you need gunfights and crashing elevators. I'm talking about simple dramatic narrative. Set ups and pay offs. Conflict, tension, turning points. It's all missing. All we have are two dudes talking on an elevator every few years.

Look, the dialogue shows promise, and dialogue is a gift. Many capable screenwriters struggle with it. The writer is blessed with talent in that department.

But narrative requires plot developments. Let's compare this to another talky OWC I read today called Feels Like Falling(and I don't know the writer). In that story the el operator tries to convince a woman he befriends to leave her abusive husband before he harms her. She doesn't have the courage. So we wait to see if something happens to change that. This will be a turn when it does. And the turn comes, sure enough. What happens is she gets pregnant. This gives her the courage to leave him because she doesn't want the baby in that environment. But when she informs her husband she's leaving, she is shot dead. Another turn in the story. And because the husband is a cop he's able to make it look like suicide. So now everything has been set up: we want the el operator to somehow get justice, since he's the only one who really knows what happened. This justice comes at the end when he pushes the guy down the shaft to his death. So the plotting is used to build the expectation to keep us reading.

There doesn't seem to be that here. Sure, the characters experience change in their lives...but WE don't witness it! We just hear them talk about it. A lot.

That's not narrative. That's just two dudes reflecting.

The writer no doubt has talent, and I never say that lightly. Next step is to learn how to build plot points into the narrative. These are the things that propel the story forward and keep us interested.

Le'ts take a wild look at your story and try to create an example. What if Marshall is in his 30s and after all these years he's about to finally get a shot at the title. But if he gets into trouble(maybe he did when he was younger) again he will lose his chance. And Marshal is in a bar(forget OWC rules) and a girl is getting picked on by thugs. If he steps in and kicks ass he will get in trouble and lose his title shot. So what does he do? That's plotting! We would be on the edge of the seat wondering what he will do. And to use your example, Marshall steps in, but he never raises a fist...he just takes a beating so the girl doesn't have to. He saves the girl AND doesn't get into trouble, all while demonstrating his character.

You had something close to that...except we had to hear about it instead of see it.

This was obviously written by someone who knows what they’re doing, but for some reason it didn’t quite hit me the way it should. I suppose my main problem was I never really felt a connection between the characters, or how they really effected each other. Did Cliff really have any better idea of who Marshall was by speaking with him rather than simply seeing him on the news? It didn’t feel like it to me.

We maybe could’ve used more of Scottie. The most noteworthy thing about watching Marshall turn into this shell of a man was the knowledge that Cliff’s son wanted to follow in his footsteps. I just noticed JSimon’s remarks and it does seem a bit uneventful.

What if Cliff started a little more naive about Marshall’s extravagant life, and Scottie doesn’t have a desire to be a boxer until Cliff brings him to Marshall’s fight. Now as Cliff sees Marshall succumb to the life, he’ll be worrying that he set his own son on this path as well.

Just one of many possibilities. It sounds like a good concept still finding its way to a story.

Nicely crafted for the most part.

I thought some of the dialogue, particularly towards the end of the story went unnaturally long. I also expected (and this may be unfair since it is just my bias) that Marshall would become less eloquent as time went on (i.e., punch drunk). I would have like to seen that reflected in his dialogue.

I'm not sure you needed the wife beating thread. It was a bit of a derailment for me. Would have preferred something along the lines of him going broke despite all the purses he won.

Overall - solid tale. Good work. A consider for me.

I like this one, but I find that Cliff didn't grow, didn't change.  Marshall had his ups and downs, and I was hoping Cliff would too.  No such luck.  I liked Scottie better when he didn't show up.  In any case, this is a nice little story but needs more emphasis on Cliff.

Best
Richard

Well written, great characters, interesting dialogue.

It's bold to try and tell a story that spans decades via brief encounters in an elevator but for me there wasn't enough story, action or tension to keep me interested. I found myself drifting after about 4 pages and struggled to get through to the end but you know how to write, that's for sure.

-Mark

Quoted Text I found myself drifting after about 4 pages and struggled to get through to the end

This is exactly what happens when a story does not build in enough plot points. The writer has skill, he/she's just not building enough points into the story. Mark lasted 4 pages...that's about right as a general rule. If you go about 4 pages without a plot point you'll start to lose your audience, no matter how good the writing. By plot point I mean some new development in the story. That could be almost anything, but it should be some development which redirects the story or grabs our attention, compels us to keep reading to see what comes next.

Congrats on your entry.

Need to reword the first sentence to read better.  Had trouble at first but know what you're looking for here.  Just word it better. The visual is okay though.  Is Cliff colored or the bag?  Again, reword that too.  Marshall wouldn't "glare" around he would "glance" around.

I'm finished  To me, seems a little long for a short (that sounds funny) but not sure how much you could cut out.  Character shorts are hard to do but you did okay.  Kept me reading.  Not sure really what to make of it, but might be hard to do with the time changes.  Good luck with it.

There's alot to appreciate here, as well as alot to respect.  There's a voice and a style on display, that although not quite mastered, is a nice change of pace to read.

But, this is a big chug to get through and feels much longer than 12 pages...but I did get through it and I'm happy I did.

As others have noted, there's very little if any action here and in terms of story, well, let's just say I understand what you were after and applaud you for pulling this off as well as you did.

Technically speaking, this style is a take or leave it affair.  Some will love it, while others will roll their eyes.  It's dense...too dense.  The writing is not visual and there's alot of completely unnecessary asides and tells that easily could be done more effectively and more efficiently.  You could easily shave off 1 or even 2 pages, and that would move things along much more smoothly.

I think using 5 SUPER's in a 12 page script is a mistake.  There are simple visual cues that would be more effective.

When you FADE OUT, you have to also FADE back IN...and you never did.

Dialogue is well written, but again, as in the actual writing, there's too much, and at times, it realy drags on.  Too many big dialogue blocks.

All in all, you seem to have found a voice and style you like using, and that's great.  You can fine tune this down to something that's a little more effective, a little more pleasing on the eye and mind's eye, in terms of the read itself, and work on some akward phrasings and transitions.  For a week's time, though, this ain't half bad.

Story-wise, there's either very little here, or there's an extremely deep and sad tale that many can relate to.  But, this will be hit and miss, night and day for readers, and IMO, that's what it's all about.

Although I can't tell you I loved this in any way, I can tell you 2 things...I won't forget it, and I appreciate the effort, as it's extremely difficult to pull this kind of script off, period, but in a single setting, with no action whatsoever, and in a single week, Kudos is well deserved.

Good job!