A Bleak November Day by Marty Gillan (blackrose87) - Short, Drama - Sean is forced to emigrate from N.Ireland to Glasgow in the early 80s. He is found living homeless and alone many yeears later.  8 pages - pdf, format

Dialogue was good. Formatting was way off. If the writer is here I'll come back to help.

Spoilers!!!

I got that the tramp was Sean some years past. I didn't get any more. I am U.S. so am not familiar with the history or the geography of this one. So I can't really comment on the rest of it.

Where's Ren when you need him? Probably down at the pub.

Jaems

Quoted from jwent6688 Where's Ren when you need him? Probably down at the pub. Jaems

Hmmm. [cough]. Who rattled me feckin' cage?

Ah, young James,

I was down the pub, but they threw me out. As per. The horrible gits. I shall take my custom and swearing elsewhere today.

I'm on extended holiday at the moment. And for the foreseeable. Plus I left me laptop somewhere. I think it was Euston, but my memory is hazy. Where am I? Oh yes.

To BR87,

Dunno what's going on with your spacing in the dialogue. Needs the opening paragraphs breaking up a bit as well. Most of the other paragraphs too, come to that.

It's a shame there's mistakes as some of the writing and dialogue are good. I was around Scotland and Belfast in the early 1980s visiting relatives. There were not in prison, by the way.

The religious iconry in the coundcil house is spot on though. Got sicka seeing it when I was a kid. There were more pictures of Pope JP II than there was of anyone else.

Write more. Some say it gets easier if you do.

Not a bad short. Needs a good bit of polishing, but, then again, don't they all?

R ox

A few weird spacing issues in dialog mostly is where I noticed and one slugline was a little long, it was the...INT. FRONT ROOM OF COUNCIL HOUSE - DAY. On these lines you just need basics and the rest should be in description. Other than that not to bad, I really enjoyed the dialog and the idea behind this story.

Hey Marty,

I just gave this one a quick read based on some of the other comments.  A lot of times, I will just start reading a script without looking at the log line.  If it's working for me, then I keep reading.  In this instance, I finshied reading and was a bit confused until I went back to the log and everything fell into place and the real import of the story hit home.

That said, I think you might want to consider adding in a flashback.  In retrospect, I guess you were kind of hinting at that with the reference to the people's clothes and the Margaret Thatcher headline, but as a reader, I was guessing that this story was based in the 80's.  I know that this would kind of spoil your ending in a way, but the story itself isn't really about the twist, is it?  I think it's deeper than that.  It's very universal - boy leaves home with high hopes, and many years later we see him as a broken man.  I think even if you added in flashbacks and the reader was on to the fact that the Tramp and Sean were the same person, you still have a very good story.  The reader will be left wondering what happened to Sean in the interim that lead him to this life.  

You might want to give this one anothre read with an eye on the typos.  There were a couple of dropped periods.  No big deal, just figured I'd mention it.

Anyway, I thought this was an interesting piece and I enjoyed it.  Best of luck.

Craig

Martin

Nice work. While an undoubtedly sad story what struck me most was its refreshing honesty, particularly the realistic dialogue and its inherent idiosyncrasies.

Formatting needs work as others have mentioned so I won’t dwell on it. You got a worthwhile story here that I’d prefer to focus on that.

Being from the south, I know enough about the troubles without actually having firsthand experience. However, from my knowledge, I think you effectively captured two distinctly different moments in time here associated with the troubles which are unfortunately, probably all too familiar.

The stark contrast of Sean's hopes and dreams in leaving his home behind mixed with the bittersweet farewells of his friends and family members to the sheer dismantlement of these aspirations in the present day scenes when we see the sorry state Sean has become. A veritable “unhappily ever after” ending if ever there was one.

Having said that, one could derive some glimmer of hope and inspiration from the closing moments. When, after witnessing Sean get a kicking and loses his precious tonic wine, the very realisation that he still has his ring stirs up that rebellious, steely resolve once more so he goes on singing without a care in the world. There is certainly some hope, admiration and a sense of indomitable pride to be taken from that final image.

Of course, the flip side is that one could speculate that this hardy stubbornness and vocal nationalism may have, in no small part, assisted in his destitute existence by hindering communication with others, relationships, friendships, work prospects, or the idea of settling down in a so called foreign land.

Anyway, good job here. An interesting angle on things.

Col.  

Hey Marty, I doubt I'm going to actually read this because your Logline is so terrible.  I'm amazed no one has brought this up.

There are at least 2 glaring errors in your 2 sentences of your Logline.  And I'd actually say there are 3, if you include "N.Ireland" (lacking a space).

"emigrate" - "immigrate"

"yeears" - "years"

This is what's known as "Red Flags".  When you've got spelling errors/typos in your Logline, it's no big surprise you've got similar issues inside.  Some people have issues when I bring this sort of thing up, but IMO, it's just not acceptable.

Emigration and Immigration are two different things Jeff. Or rather they are the same thing, just from two different perspectives.

You emigrate from your native country and become an immigrant in your new one..

OK, thanks, Rick, and sorry Marty.

Looks like there are only 2 glaring errors in the Logline then unless "yeears" is actually a word I'm not familiar with and "N.Ireland" is correct without a space.