Equipoise by AJ Lovell - Short, Drama - 4 People from different backgrounds are brought together by a shared experience. 9 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

This was an enjoyable read. The plot was rather subtle in that it progressed through the dialog. You have a nice assortment of characters. I liked how Steve started out as a jerk but progressed to become more accepting of the others. Obviously, you intended this to be more of a lesson in life than a story with a problem resolved or a twist.

I like your style and I think I learned something from reading this. When Edith had a long stretch of dialog near the end, I liked how you broke it up. It made it easier to read and follow. I may start doing that myself in my work.

My only criticism is about some of your character descriptions. I understand the purpose of the descriptions you chose, but they don’t follow the Show, don’t Tell rule. You can’t point a camera at cocky, streetwise and well educated. That has to be shown through dialog and visual descriptions.
For an example, when we see a character for the first time, it’s like meeting a person. We don’t know they are cocky or streetwise. We don’t know if they are well educated. We would only know that if the wind whispered it to us like a narrator. We might be able to deduce some of that from what they wore or from facial expressions or perhaps piercings and tattoos. Most likely we would learn that over a short period of time from their behavior or from what they say.

I will sometimes use non-visual descriptions as a supplement to visual ones. I would describe someone as wearing a sweater over a button-down shirt, glasses and appearing well educated.

Thanks for the read and the feedback