4th and Long by Vicky L. Neal - Drama - Jenna Ramey was born to play football.  Under the guidance of her father, Sam, a college coach, Jenna becomes a solid quarterback with great agility rarely seen on the field.  She excels in youth leagues, followed by high school and then college ball, where she leads her team to their first bowl win ever.  But then it’s suddenly over for Jenna.  No future seasons to look forward to.  She is lost without the strong connection to the sport she has known her own life.  Women’s leagues would be too easy.  Men won’t want to play ball with her any longer.  Her only hope is to pick up a coaching job to stay around football. 129 pages - pdf, format

In spirit of the Superbowl and lingering football fever, I clicked on this. It’s a little long. At 130 pages, there’s probably a good 30-40 pages you can trim. As a football fan, it’s hard for me to accept the notion of a female player (especially at QB, or any position other than kicker). I’d have an easier time imagining a talking dog or mule joining an NFL team. I don’t mean this as an insult, rather that the further you divert from reality, the easier the premise becomes to accept. But okay, I’ll buy in and proceed.

The opening scene’s reveal of a female QB should be bigger. It might be better if we think it’s a typical college bowl game until we’re hit with the fact the QB is a girl – it’s an idea that’s supposed to surprise us. And you don’t really need a bunch of talking heads going over how unprecedented it is to have a female QB. I think most will understand already that this is big news. Maybe one or two lines, not several pages. Also, you should maybe condense her home life, and eliminate the scenes with her coach. It reads as mundane chit-chat. And the pictures and trophies are enough to reveal her history – young girl, gifted athlete, succeeds in a game she shouldn’t have. The less said the better. At this point, we can already assume her life is turned upside-down. She’s become a media magnet, and a girl with something to prove in a male-dominated world. In the context of your story, her relationship with her father is important, and a quiet scene with the two fishing, or some other shared activity, would capture the emotion better than many pages of family life and dialogue.

It may just be me, but the relationships read very much “on the nose.” The sick dad, her problems with her fiancé, and her doubting mousy friend. And the proposal scene (along with the one preceding it where he shows the dad the ring) is especially cliché, perhaps consider using it as a button end to your story instead. The conflict feels very manufactured – she can’t marry him because she’s entering the NFL. Why not? Football players get married all the time. And why would her fiancé even consider that she would turn down an opportunity to play in the NFL if that’s her dream (not to mention the millions in salary and signing bonus she would forego). I think you need to find some other source of conflict, or get rid of the Chad character altogether. And blatant depictions of feelings are unnecessary. Emotions should be gleaned from the context of the scene, rather than from a tear drop falling from the protagonist’s eye -- it’s on the nose.

There’s a lot of chit-chat you can trim from the practice scenes as well. It’s unnecessary to have her banter with the coaches, and she comes off as being mouthy, not clever. It might be better if she’s just there to work hard and try and make the team in the face of adversity and  sexist attitudes. It’s a movie of the week plot, but I guess that’s what you’re going with here. Basically G.I. Jane on the gridiron.

The middle portion really drags. As she tries to make the team, we know practice is going to be tough, a montage here might work better than twenty-some odd pages of detail. Also, there’s little suspense of a second round draft pick making the team, it would be a bigger shock if she DIDN’T. What if you went with the angle that she wasn’t drafted at all, that she joined the league’s worst team as a free agent, and even then as just a publicity stunt (after being passed on by everyone else). Then, making the team would be a long shot and a surprise.  

I’m just spitballing, but your story could also use another major character -- another plotline to run parallel to Ramey’s. An ESPN reporter documenting her story, or a female exec in the NFL pulling for her – a guardian angel behind the scene who fights for her while she’s out there striving to succeed. This would give you something to cut back and forth with, and break up the monotony of being focused on one character the entire time, and would add more depth to your story. If a female player were to make it in the NFL, there would definitely be a lot going on BEHIND the scenes.

Actually, the more I think about it, if you had a female GM running the team and drawing heat for allowing a woman to play, you’d have a more interesting story. To me, she’s a more compelling protagonist. She’d be the one who has to deal with the uproar over the decision, manage publicity, maneuver against the team’s management board who opposes the move, and special interest groups for and against a female player that would invariably arise. We know what football is like on the field – we’ve seen it time and again. It would be more interesting to have a look behind the scenes: in the front office, the boardroom, the way league politics works, how deals are made, etc. An ambitious female exec who makes it to the team’s highest management position stakes her career on a female athlete to save a struggling franchise, and together they prove the naysayers wrong.  It’s just a thought. But I would rather see this, than another clichéd football film.

p.s. on page 102 you have an error. She goes from being kidnapped to the middle of a game, it resumes on 104.