Even Steven by Bryson (13thChamber) - Short, Crime, Thriller -  When a math teacher can't pay back his debts to a loan shark. He'll have to do the unthinkable to break even. 8 pages - pdf, format

I thought it was pretty good, there's a small grammar mistake on page 3 "Matthew's wears a mask of worry" and page 4 "All his finger wiggle". I thought it would have been funnier if at the end Matthew brags about killing Klondike, instead of just telling Willie the truth. Overall it held my interest and was entertaining, good work.

Hey 13 th. First a couple of notes.

"I can’t do this-there’s has to be
another way. I can’t kill anybody"

I'm not a fan of characters talking to themselves. And this is why. It's very expository. You're having the character explain to the audience how he feels. In real life, he would not say it out loud, and if he does, it would be some mumbled garbled stuff. I think all you need to do here is show him pacing, or drinking. If he has to say something, limit it to "There has to be another way!"

A couple of times the dialogue was confusing. For example Matthew says on page 3 "how much can you give me?" Klondike doesn't answer. But then a few seconds later, he finally replies saying "so how much?" So his answer is basically the same question, which is confusing. Now, I get that these guys are loan sharks. But at the time, that's not clear. I figured they were drug dealers. So I thought Matthew owed for that. Not sure if that is really made clear until the end.

In general, pretty good work, generally well written. Despite the hiccups, at times the dialogue is quite good. That's what polishing is for! So solid effort.

I would also add that I'm not sure Willie would forgive the debt. Why would he? The guy had a heart attack. For that matter, I think Matthew might try to suggest he did something, like poison, to cause the heart attack. That's what I would do. That might even scare Willie a little, which is what he needs to escape his clutches.

I'm not sure I cared for Willie's last little monologue about the "funny with my money". Something seems off there.

But good work overall.

Bryson, I'm not going to be able to get past your logline.  You've got it as 2 sentences, but in reality, it's not 2...it's 1, with a comma where your period is.  Your first sentence here isn't a sentence.

When I see such obvious, simple mistakes in a logline, I know what's going to follow in the actual script, and I'm just not going to subject myself to them.

Sorry.

Wow thanks for the reads. I'm actually extremely relieved I was able to keep you guys reading. I was getting to a point where I was beginning to question myself as an aspiring writer. Anyway, I do agree that I should of had Matt lie, that would have been good. I plan making this better to hopefully shoot. Thanks for the input, I'll be on the prowl for your works. Thanks again.

Dreamscale, that's understandable. I know your kind of a no nonsense critic, so I'll take what you said into the next work, peace.

I hadn't read the log. I opened the story because I recognized the writer as someone that's been around. Yeah, that log is a bad sign. Fortunately, I don't recall any sentence fragments like that in the actual script. My guess is the writer forgot to do a log until he was filling out the submission form.

Well, not to be a dick or anything, but I opened this up and did attempt a read, and found 3 fragments in the first 3 passages - as I expected to.

The first 2 entire pages are nothing but dialogue.  The dialogue and few action/description lines are pretty much all awkward.

Just saying...

There's actually one in the first line of the script, a huge fragment. I try not to read for that, I admit. I read the dialogue and try to pluck as much info from the action lines as I need to get through the story. Except for a couple of dialogue hiccups, I was able to get through without issue.

But you are right, that poor grammar in the log, and then right off the bat in the first line will turn away any serious readers.

So, 13th, definitely work on the grammar. This isn't bad at all for early work, though. nothing to be discouraged about.

Exactly, and I don't mean to discourage Bryson or anyone else.

But these sorts of things will get your script tossed immediately by many a reader.

Overall it was pretty good, fairly tight and to the point. The only things that drew my attention were:

# Motivation is a bit lacking - how much does Matthew owe? If we had a fifty grand figure, then we know it's high stakes; maybe Willie acknowledges that Matt is a persistent return customer.
# Matthew's recation in the car - came across as a little unrealistion - I had the feeling that if this was real, then Matt's reaction would be more dramatic.
# K dying is fine, but I think it would work better if there was a reference to it earlier - maybe when he first does his 'Holy buckets' bit, he could then wince, so we a reference.
# The nattative structure is there, so there is room for emphasising the different emotional reaction for Matt in each stage: disbelief (Act 1); Fear (Act 2); Relief (Act 3), and it's worth enhancing the script with it.

Best o' luck.

As I go:

Page 1:  Willie's dialogue is pretty cliche.  In fact, you could cut the first two lines of the script with no loss of understanding for the audience.
"Time out"  In my opinion, this phrase is a little schoolkid-ish and Willies' saying it blunts his effectiveness as a character.

Page 2:  I was getting the impression that Willie had all the power in this scene until Matthew interrupted him.  Matthew's scared of this guy, isn't he?  You don't interrupt a guy you're scared of.
"Slay"?  Like a dragon?

Page 3:  "I can't do this-"  We know what he's thinking.  He doesn't need to say it.  The pacing is enough.
The story isn't really going to be interesting until we know a little more about Matthew.  I was hoping that when we went to his house we'd learn a little about his life.  Otherwise, who cares about him?  He's just some clown who borrowed money he couldn't pay back.
It's a bit of a stretch that a successful shark would snort cocaine in front of a prospective client.

Page 5:  Learn to spell "you're."

Page 6:  See...the coke is just not professional.  Successful criminals are professional.  

Thoughts:

Well, the story's kinda interesting.  What is the point you're hoping to make here though?  I'm seeing the story of a guy who's stuck in a difficult situation and who is eventually driven to the decision that he's actually going to kill someone.  After he's made the decision to go through with it, divine intervention/random circumstance ends up taking care of his problem for him.  The logical extension of this, to me, would be that he now has to deal with the fact that he had decided to kill someone.  This is where I think the script could be interesting.

As is, though, you've got two highly unlikable characters and one that, while relatively inoffensive, really gives us no reason to like him either.  We don't know why he needed the money, we don't know how much money he's weighing against a dude's life, and we don't really know anything about him except that he's a teacher.  We have to care for this guy, and for that, we have to know more about him, and, I would argue, we have to see that it was good intentions that got him into the mess that he's in.  This is true no matter what the point you're trying to make with the story is.  If we don't identify with the main character -- and believe me, we don't, for any particular reason -- it's going to be impossible for his journey to make a point to us.

I'm sure other people have commented that it's kind of an odd move for Matt to tell Willie the truth, and for Willie to then set him free from his debt.  I mean, is this a touchy-feely ending?  I think Matt has to lie, or Willie has to uphold his debt, or Matt has to mash -- other shark, forget his name -- that dude's head in even though he's already dead, to prove to Willie that he did it.  

I think Willie needs a good character to relate to.  One scene of conversation between him and another character.  Could even add some jeopardy to it.  Might be cool to see one of Matt's young students recognize and approach him while he's in the car with Willie.

To clarify; what is this story telling us -- or, why will the audience hook onto it?  And once you've determined that, the entire script should be aimed directly at that central idea.  there's a lack of focus, a lack of character development, and a lack of theme, but that's not to say that the elements of all these things aren't there.  I think this is well worth re-writing and exploring further.

Thanks for the read, I enjoyed that.

Chris

Thanks for the reads, and merciless reviews. I really do appreciate it, and I will re-write this one to make it more focused. One thing I tried to do was keep everything tight. I usually get wrapped up in details so I tend to break some of the rules when I write. As for the logline, believe it or not, that's how I start writing. I usually start with a logline to get things rolling. This logline, though is not the same one, I wrote it when I submitted the script (leistkev your right). Once again thanks for the feedback and honesty, this is really appreciated.