I just glanced at the reviews, and I'm not sure I agree with Ryan that this is purgatory, although I guess it could be in some sense. I considered it more of an experience that happens right before you die, like when your life flashes before your eyes. What I'm not sure about is whether this is a shared reality, or one person's mind, and if so, whose.

I think you have a good idea, and it's fairly well delivered until the end. And it's not that the ending is bad, not at all, it just needs to be written better. There are even some places where you mixed up Simon and Mike, which at first wasn't an issue, but then with the vague reality lines at the end it became a huge distraction.

Hey, if purgatory is a dentist's office, does that mean hell is inside, in the dentist's chair? Cool. And Satan is a dentist. I knew it.

Good effort, tweak it when you can.

I'm not an anti-dentite__ Jerry Seinfeld

A few thoughts;

# I like the idea but wondered whether this would be a bit flat if filmed - little changes visually. Lots of words.
# whilst I liked the different backgrounds something again felt a bit usual. You know, there has to be a lawyer then someone opposite such as the blue collar worker etc??
# why are they in the  waiting room? This doesn't have to be answered and I suggest no fault for this but I wondered whether it could be an angle to help develop the characters, could be a mid point change? Food for thought.

On balance an interesting read.

Well done for entering.

This is an easy to understand narrative that follows OWC rules.
I felt some of the dialogue was repetitive.
However, I liked the “waiting room versions” of the characters.
They were mostly opposite of how they came to be in that room.
I appreciate that kind of thought going into the story.
I don’t think it would film well, but it read pretty decent.

Regards,
E.D.

At first I was a bit skeptical - you have three characters "in chairs" then you write 'Heather sits" etc. Maybe it is a bit nitpicky but, I can already see they are seated. Then they do a few things past-tense. Sometimes I get a little tired of excessive proifanity and repetitive dialog as well, as if the writer doesn't have any other way for a character to express themselves.

That all behind us...

I suspect a few folks are going to give you hell in a handbasket because a few action blocks are four lines. I never saw anything over that, so you are fine there- but just so long as you understand that you are conducting a rythym, and one paragragh is what we will see in one shot.

I enjoyed it for the most part; fits the challenge. As for the "a-ha!" moment halfway into the read, I'm 50/50 on it. I think you should have tried at least to move it up, maybe a half page to a page so it's smack in the center and the corner is easier to turn, if you understand my babble. Overall, it didn't really bother me.

I'll tell you this much-- this one is on my shortlist when we start voting. It may or may not drop off but for now it is on the radar.

This one was okay.

When I read the logline, a certain Stephen King short story popped into my head (I won't say which one) and, sure enough, it has the same ending.

The punctuation problem has already been addressed, and I agree.  On more than one occasion, the punctuation, or lack of punctuation, drew me out of the story.

What really drove this story for me, though, is the dialogue.  It wasn't great or anything, and maybe even a little evasive towards the ending, but in the beginning, it really got me interested to see where this story was going to go, even though I already had an idea.

The ending is a little unclear.  I got that Mike killed his neighbor, but I'm not sure how he died.  Did he drown himself?  I got that Heather shot herself for letting an innocent man get executed.  But I thought Simon's wife was the one who took his daughter?  Simon says he killed the man who took her.  Is he talking about the lawyer that was representing his wife, or... I don't know.

It's just that not everything was exactly cut and dry at the end.

- Mark

I don't think it was that they knew each other before. They were all dead and were all dealing with what each of them had done wrong in life. Not together. At least that's how I understood it.

The only likable person here was Mike.

Other than that, I liked it and thought you did a good job.

As I go:

Ten points for the name "Nipper Orchard".

Page 1:  Simon's "matter of fact, yeah!" is very bold, but his next line seems very timid.  

Page 3:  "I am no lawyer..." "I am" is very formal...reading on I see there's an "I am" epidemic...
Simon's definitely not timid.  It's strange that he backed down from Heather earlier.

Page 4:  Don't buy that Heather is re-involving herself in the conversation.  Seems like she'd be annoyed in silence, or say something snooty.
There's also an exclamation mark epidemic.

Page 5:  It's weird that Simon waited a couple pages to bring up his beef with Heather's company rather than starting in on her right when she said the name.  In fact, he didn't even comment then.

Page 8:  Unless he has no testicles, he feels it.

Thoughts:

Ha!  Strange one.  

The transition isn't really pulled off; or, the first half doesn't really serve the second.  The tone is light and the shift to heaviness is abrupt rather than fluid -- abrupt, the unbelievable kind, not the effective kind.

I rather like the central premise here, actually.  Is it too much of a coincidence?  Maybe.  But the last moments suggest something of a supernatural nature, so that takes care of that, in my opinion.  

This just isn't structured very well.  The build up to the violence needs to be a little more logical or I can't really buy it.  Then, much more importantly, the build up to each confession needs to make sense.  Maybe Heather's life (whether or not she's dead) flashed before her eyes and she wanted to confess...I could potentially buy that, but I think something could be stronger there.  It would help if her confession was foreshadowed somehow.  Certainly, I don't know why Mike bothered to confess then.

Maybe it was just my preconceptions of Simon but he read as more of a harmless goof than an actual violent person.  Not sure what it was about him that led me to that reading.

There's a lot of pretty awkward dialogue that needs to be written.  Some conjunctions would be nice.

So, to sum up -- three people are put in the pressure cooker and end up admitting to their sins.  I like the premise, I don't think the pressure works, in the script as is.

Thanks for the fun read!

The beginning seemed distractingly purgatory-like and there wasn't much of a punch in the plot twist, but the characters' confessions / realizations are voiced well, that moves the story along nicely.
I think this was generally well written and entertaining.

I liked the idea of this but I found it a little 'clunky' to read. It didn't flow quite like a lot of the others. I think my biggest problem with it were the parentheticals. There were a lot of them and I think in most cases unnecessary, you should be able to tell by what is said how it is said, and I think you can with most of your dialogue.

The other bit that slowed my read I think was just a naming error. When Simon swings at Mike, connects then Simon falls. For a second it had me thinking Mike wasn't real, kind of like Tyler Durden in fight club. It's easily corrected but just illustrates a little thing like that can send somebody off on the wrong track. Or maybe just me.

A good idea that could be sharpened up a little.

Arty.