Slick by Spencer McDonald - Short, Horror - An old man of the sea is fed up with CEO's and their waste so he cleans up the world of one more. 5 pages.  - pdf, format

Well, Spencer, it's not terrible by any means, but there are lots and lots of mistakes on display here, sorry to say.  Story-wise, it's OK, but it just doesn't quite deliver, either.

Lots of typos, missing commas, poor grammar, big blocks of text, over writing, etc.  Biggest issue, though is the fact that you use a total unfilmable as the crux of your story.  You tell us that Charles is the CEO or whatever of BG.  In a filmed version, this would not translate to film, and thus, we would have no clue who this guy is or what he has to do with the oil spill. To get this across successfully, you'd need another scene showing who Charles is...maybe a Flashback of some kind...not sure.

Good effort, and very timely with all the shit about the oil spill.  Keep at it!

Well then now now then....

Seriously Jeff, did you write this? I thought you would've destroyed this thing otherwise. Spencer McDonald??? Please stand up.

If Jeff didn't write it... Could be a good story without all the bad writing. Like what this got at. Need better delivery.

James

James, WTF?  Did I write this?  Hell, no!  How could I submit this under an alias?  No, I definitely did not write this, nor do I know who did.

Was it good?  Hell, no, but it wasn't piss poor, and it's most likely a first time effort, so I tried to be nice, for the most part.

Thought it was you having a bit of a, whatcha call em, pisstake. With the movie magic headers on the side.

If the real author shows up, I'll give the best advice I can. Still wondering. You did ask how george posted the latest Cabin episode under an alias. Was just my first thought.

James

Nice heartfelt story. And pretty visual. All the visuals are interesting and well conceived.

I think it's repetitive at the beginning.
The name "Charles" is not capitalized in one place.
The last slug should read EXT. OCEAN perhaps.

Too topical to be filmed right away.  Would be dated pretty quickly.

Not that we should forgive this inexcusable tragedy.

As I read...

1. "He stairs intently ahead, as if in a trance."  Should be stares.

2."He grabs the oars, and rows as if on a mission of some kind."  Drop "of some kind".  Reads better -- tighter IMO.

3. "Soon the shirt is soaks."  I think you meant soaked.

4. "An ages spotted hand jets into the cooler and comes out with a large sponge."  Should be age spotted not ages.

5. "The birds flaps its wings slower."  Bird not birds.

6. "With one hand he hold the birds beak open and inserts the baster to suck out oil."  Holds not hold.

7. "A tear rolls down his cheek against his stoic expression."  This sentece reads awkward to me.

Okay...a lot of typos, but nothing a good proofread couldn't fix.  As Hemingway put it, "The first draft of anything is shit."  So aside from needing a proofread the idea is good and extremely topical, but as TheRichcraft pointed out, too topical to be filmed anytime soon.  The ohter thing that needs work...too much telling and not enough showing.  I think Dreamscale hit on the fact that you tell the reader Charles is the CEO of BG Oil but we never actually see it.  Economy of words is another area that needs work.  You should be as lean (wordwise) as possible in a script.

Keep writing.  You'll only get better.

Thanks to everyone for reading!

I appreciate your honest feedback. Well, I appreciate honest (useful) feedback.

For those that gave me good advice, my hat is off to you.

For the past year I have been stagnant in my writing and am attempting to re-engage. If you are not sure who I am, I encourage you to search my name and read some of my stuff. It isn't all bad. I am not new.

As well, this was not written to be produced in anyway. This piece was merely practice. Yes I should have proofed it better. I apologize and will do better next time.

Looking forward to re-engaging and rebuilding my writing muscle as I re-find my passion and perfect it again.

Thanks again to all.

Spencer McDonald

Spencer, humble apologies. I thought someone was writing under an alias. Am wrong. I think most typos have been pointed out. The story is good for the current time. I hope you keep writing and posting here. I'll be more serious next time. Was on a bit of a bender the other night.

James

When aren't we on benders, James?  I see some curves directly ahead of me tonight!  Gotta keep the car on the road...

Simple little revenge. Predictable story. A few grammatical errors and a bit verbose.

Hi Spencer, overall I liked it. The story fits what happens right now with the oil spill.

The writing is very visual. I can picture almost everything you write, such as the oil-filled ocean, the sunset, the steaming pot, etc. Just watch out for typos and grammar mistakes. And there's too much black on the first page, you might want to trim out some of the action/description. Just tighten it up a little bit.

How do we know Charles is the CEO of the oil company? You might have to add in some dialogue between the Man and Charles to convey this information. And please give our protagonist, the Man, a name.

I think it's good for a straightforward thriller/horror.

Herman

No apology needed by anyone.

This story sucked up the place. I believe it. Been on my own little bender lately. Big time writers block. Just wanted to ship something.

Next shipment will be better. Story wise it will be better. Typographical maybe not. That is why I pay someone to proof read my feature lengths before being shipped for reading.

So, for anyone interested in helping me please focus on story story story.

Everything else can be fixed with cash.

Spencer McDonald

Send me your scripts and I'll be glad to proofread them for cash, lol.

I only do that with my feature length scripts. The shorts... well ya gotta take it as it comes. So if someone don't be liken the mispellin' then too freakin' bad.

Thanks for the offer. Might have another feature for proofing near the new year.

Hey Spencer

This didn't really capture me.

I dug the idea. The prose was fine but I think can be tightened more. The characters was so and so. Nevertheless, this felt as part of a longer piece. Maybe expand on the characters a bit to show how they ended up in the boat.

Sorry I couldn't provide much more assistance.

Gabe

What's happen in the gulf is a tremendous tragedy, but I'm no sure that the story addresses it in the best way.

Obviously, that is just my opinion, and I am not a big fan of preaching stories -even if they preach my way, such as this one.

I think there's a better way to get one's message across, and that is giving both sides of the argument. To this end, I really don't know wich Charles's defense could be -that's where research comes into action.

As a way to rekindle with the typewriter, I say it's good. Keep at it.
As a story, I think it needs more work.

t

Hey Spencer,

While there were some typos and grammatical errors that kind of took me out of the story, there were some nice visuals here.  For the most part, it was nicely written.

However, there were a couple of things about the story that rubbed me the wrong way.  At first, it seemed you had a nice, caring man doing his own little part to help with a catastrophe.  Which I kind of liked that part.  That's really what kept me reading.  But then, there's a total role reversal and, to me, at least, the man becomes the bad guy in my eyes when he begins torturing Charles.  It just seemed so out of character the way you set him up from the beginning of the story.  It never actually comes across and believable.  Or, maybe I'm just a fan of the school of thought saying that goes 'An eye for an eye only leaves us all blind.'

I guess the main problem, and where the story ultimately falls flat, is that there's no real clear cut protagonist, or antagonist.  In the end, I didn't really care about either of the characters.

Another problem is that the script won't translate well to film, because we, as viewers, have no idea who the man in the box is.  We only see his eyes.  The viewer has no clue that this guy's name is Charles King.  The viewer doesn't know he's a former CEO.  They have no clue he was a former CEO for Black Gold.  They have no idea Black Gold is mainly known as BG.  You tell us that information, but the viewer can't get all that information from 'two coal black eyes and a duct-taped mouth.'

That aside, why did you name a man who's only in half the story, but didn't name the main character?  The one the audience is supposed to feel for.  The viewer has no idea who anyone's name is.  And how did an old man get away with kidnapping him?  And why did he kidnap the former CEO and not the current CEO?  If Charles was fired for the spill, then why doesn't the old man feel that the firing wasn't enough punishment for Charles?

There's just a little bit too many things that don't add up, and that's really what made this story not work for me.  Like I said, the writing wasn't bad and I liked the visuals, but there has to be a little more explaining and expanding for this story to hold any ground...  I mean water, for me.  :-)

-  Mark