Homicide Hotline by Johnny Diaz (RegularJohn) - Short, Thriller - In a prank gone wrong, four troublemakers persuade and guide a caller through murder. 15 pages - pdf, format

Hi John,

Dark little tale this and I enjoyed it.

Just a couple of things:

Page 1 - I think you meant clever instead of cleaver.

Page 6 - Joel refers to Benjamin as Benjamin, rather than Steven.

JOEL (O.S.)
One second Benjamin.

Page 11 - Ezra leaves the apartment, but on page 12, he's sitting beside Morgan on the bed. I'm not sure who this actually was.

Page 12 - Just a couple of typo's.

MORGAN (CONT'D)
Seriously, how's you find out,
Steve? Did she write in on one of
your post-it notes?

I think this is pretty good. I could visualise it easy enough, but the Ezra issue on page 11 made me read it a couple of times.

Nice.

Kip.

Thanks Kip for the feedback.

Can't believe I goofed up those names.  It's supposed to be Joel with Morgan, not Ezra.

Should of picked up those typos as well.  Thanks for pointing them out.  Let me know when I can return a read.

Johnny,

I stopped after 6 pages, couldn't bear to read another word about these four fuckos. They sound and act stupid so I'ma go out out on a limb and wager that they probably are really fucking stupid. Stupid people aren't interesting. They're just stupid. And need to be put out of their misery. Quickly.

You're very detailed when it comes to character descriptions. Why? Does it really matter that one of 'em s'got tall hair? As of page 6 - no. Keep the physical descriptions to a minimum and instead show us something that's gonna get us inside the minds of the characters (obviously somewhat difficult when you've chosen four empty heads as your protags).

The writing itself could be tightened up a bit. You're doing okay in terms of active verbiage but too often you regress to passive writing. Fix that. Also, take out anything that isn't moving the story forward. It's annoying to read that Derek "places the beer in the fridge, grabs four and places them in front of everyone at the table". Do I give a shit about what he does with the beer. Hell, no. Since they're drinking them later on, will I assume that he brought the beers to the table? Hell, yes.

A homicide hotline? For real? Just think about how much suspension of disbelief it requires to buy that some would actually use a hotline like that.

I'm gonna take a wild guess here. One of these four bozos is the one fucking Benjamin's wife, right? If I'm wrong - my bad. If not - then that should tell you a lot.

Finally...proof read your shit. There's an embarrassing amount of typos in the six pages I read. Two on page one alone. Please, that's fucking sloppy. As soon as you finish a script the first thing you shouldn't do is upload it to SimplyScript. Instead, put it away for a couple of week - don't even think about - then go back to it with fresh eyes and comb out all those little eyesores.

Typos/Wrong'os:

Quoted from page 1 (tsk tsk tsk) Oh ha ha...Yeah, real cleaver (should be clever)

Quoted from still page 1 Joel leaps over the couch and joins the them at the table.

Quoted from page 2 Hey. We're gonna need him sober if he's gonna be? towing your fat tits back home.

Quoted from page 4 You wanna know?.. (should be: You wanna know...? or just: You wanna know?)

Quoted from page 5 Joel takes a drink while the throwing four of a kind jacks down on the table (you should lose either  "of a kind" or "jacks", it's overkill)

Quoted from page 6 One second Benjamin Steven.

You've probably already figured out that I didn't like your script. Bummer. But that's how it goes sometimes. To each his own. I wish you the best of luck with your future projects.

Cheers
Rob

Thanks for the read Rob.  Sorry it wasn't to your liking.

I'll take your advice on the abundance of detail as well as the two to three week break.  I should have thrown pisser into the genre but can I say.  If I do come back to this, I'll definitely have to mix up the characterization, perhaps only two complete dip****s.

Again, thanks for tearing it up.  It's what I need.

Hey Johnny,

I'll try not to be as harsh as Rob but I do agree that things need to get cleaned up. There's several times throughout where you have said the name Steven instead of Benjamin, especially on pgs 10 and 11. Other typos have already been pointed out to you that need to get changed as well from Rob and Kip.

As for the story itself, I'm on the fence with it. Hard to believe that someone would call up a homicide hotline to tell how or why they would kill someone is a bit unbelievable and if Morgan wanted to kill the wife and Benjamin so badly then why that way. First off, Benjamin's calls can be traced to Joel's phone that the police could use to connect to Morgan and Morgan himself is doing all this because he wants to save the daughter. Why?

If Morgan is supposedly a good guy for saving the daughter then why do I hate him so much for being a dick to Benjamin throughout the story and again why does the daughter need saving?

With a rewrite maybe you could expand on that.

Description of characters should be to minium as Rob pointed out, for example at the beginning you could have Joel (24) skinny, sits on a couch with a cell phone to his ear instead of what you have. Also after the line, The front door opens. Morgan (23) and Ezra (19) enter holding Chinese takeout in hand. Just another example to help lessen the action lines and help tighten the writing a bit.

One more thing I think that if you decided to start your script with the part about Benjamin looking up at the window while he's in the car I believe that it would create an intense moment to start with. The start you have with the guys drinking and swearing can be a turn off and Rob is right in that they come off looking like a bunch of frat guys. Maybe after Benjamin's opening scene the four guys are already in the room and they talk about saving the daughter. Just my two cents.

My best advice, read more scripts to get the feel of it and read the comments to those scripts to see what advice the reviewers gave the writer. Hope I've been able to help somewhat and good luck with a rewrite so should you choose.

Take care,

- Dirk

I think your script just needed to be cleaned up, but at the same time I think you might be on to something. I'm just a sucker for comedy.

Quoted from ShauntaeAllen I think your script just needed to be cleaned up, but at the same time I think you might be on to something. I'm just a sucker for comedy.

Hey Shauntae,

Welcome to SS.

Just a quick tip when reviewing scripts... Explain what you mean and why you made certain judgements. Johnny can't possibly improve based on the feedback you've given

Dan

First off, thanks Dirk for giving it a read.  There are quite a few holes in the plot that I just didn't fill as well as a bunch of unnecessary detail.  I'm still working out the kinks of my own scriptwritting so thanks for the pointers.

Shauntae.  Thanks for the read.  Maybe this was meant to be a dark or tragic comedy but right now, I've cast it into the dark corner of my hard drive.  Haha.

John, I actually thought this was a good step above most of the other shorts I've seen on here.  The writing was crisp and concise and held my attention.  I did see where it was going pretty much the time you introduced Benjamin (Steven?--that was one problem I had--I couldn't tell if that was intentional or just an oversight).  I spotted the errors grammatically (there was one more--you misspelled "registered" on the title page), but I didn't see anything egregious from a formatting standpoint.  So I'll give this one a thumbs up!

Gary

Hey Gary.  Thanks for the read.  Grammar is such a pain in the a** for me.  I really gotta slow down and READ my script.  So lesson learned!  Thanks again

Johnny

Page by page notes/reactions:

INT. JOEL'S APARTMENT- LIVING ROOM – NIGHT

- You need to press the space bar once in between “APARTMENT” and the hyphen.

I’m not a stickler for format and will look past typos/technical errors if the story is good. However, having a mistake in your opening slug is simply lazy, man.

“JOEL(24) sits on his couch in the middle of a filthy,
disheveled apartment with a cell phone to his ear. He is a
skinny man with short, blonde hair and pale skin.”

- See about trimming this down to make it flow better
For example

"JOEL (24) skinny, pale skin, short blond hair, sits on his couch in the middle of a filthy, dishevelled apartment. He holds a cell phone to his ear."

-  Always try to describe your characters right after (or before) you mention them. Plus “disheveled” should be spelt “dishevelled”.  

JOEL
Oh ha ha...Yeah, real cleaver
asshole! Why don't you go fuck
yourself!

-“Cleaver” is spelt “clever”
     
See about replacing the word “and” in the action lines with a comma, it helps to speed up the read.

JOEL
Hey. We're gonna need him sober if
he's gonna towing your fat tits
back home.

- Put in “be” between “gonna” and “towing”. Or just take the “ing” off “towing”

“broken –down”

-Lose the space between “broken” and the hyphen.

“Scolds”

- You have used this term twice without any dialogue which leads me to think that perhaps you mean “scowls”

Regardless of the awkward and oft overwritten prose, the dialogue is quite strong, amusing and naturalistic even if the four guys (besides Ezra) are billigerenta?sholes. They aren't the most likable bunch in the world, are they...? Which is not a criticism if they're written well and I think you do a decent job for the most part.

MAN (O.S.)
Well...first I'd get out of my car.
Walk across the street and into the
apartment building. Go up to the
second floor and to the second to
last door on the right.

- Let me guess, the apartment block his cheating wife is at is the same apartment block the four guys are currently situated in…?

MAN (O.S.)
Steven.

- I presumed Benjamin was using an alias to obscure his identity but then Joel refers to him as Benjamin in the next page.

JOEL (O.S.)
One second Benjamin.

and Benjamin doesn’t react. So was “Steven” an actual error?

“He corrects his throat with a crack of a smile.”

- This doesn’t make much sense.

MORGAN (O.S.)
Hello Steven, my name is Kaleb. I
don't know how serious you are-

- And now we’re back to Steven. What’s up?

MORGAN
You still there Steven.

- There should be a question mark here and a comma before Steven, (a hard grammatical rule when one character addresses another by name)

“favoring his knuckles and
cursing under his breath;”

- What do you mean by ‘favouring his knuckles’?

“Morgan's face contorts into a scold as he looks at Ezra.”

- Again, I’m presuming you mean “scowl” instead of “scold”. Also, how is he looking at Ezra when he stormed out of the room in the previous scene?

“Ezra focuses his glare at Morgan as he sits beside him on
the bed. Morgan lies back on the bed and places the phone
on the crate beside the bed.”

- Reads awkwardly, “bed” is mentioned three times. Maybe rephrase it as:

“Ezra glares at Morgan as he sits beside him on the bed. Morgan lies back, places the phone on the crate nearby.”

Also, where is this “crate” coming from?

“Derek hears a CREEK behind him. He turns his head. A
GUNSHOT before Derek falls to the ground. Blood and brain
matter gush from his head. Joel scurries onto the bed.

JOEL
What tha fuck!

Benjamin enters the room, points the gun at Joel and shoots
him twice. Joel screams and collapses on the bed. He turns
his sight to Morgan as he stands. Benjamin's eyes widen.”

- It appears we go from the bedroom where Derek is (at least that’s the last place we see him heading towards) to the bedroom without any scene headings.

“Three bloody holes leak like broken faucets.”

- Nice description.

Ok, as you can see form the page by page notes, your writing needs to be paired down. It’s rather rambling and long winded at times, some strict tightening up will remedy this though. Also, your descriptions can be confusing, poorly written or just not make any sense whatsoever.

Having said this, I will reiterate what I said at the beginning that I can get over technical errors and subpar prose if the story is worthy and here I think it has good potential…until the final couple of pages that is which left me reeling, and not in an altogether good way.

Are we to believe that Morgan had all this planned? I was initially thrown by the line:

MORGAN (CONT'D)
Seriously, how's you find out,
Steve? Did she write in on one of
your post-it notes?
(looking back at Joel)
"I'M FUCKIN' YOUR CASHIER IN
APARTMENT 214! FEEL FREE TO WATCH,
YOU LIMP-DICK FAGGOT!!!"

As in, how did Morgan know all this information but it’s soon made clear that he is the “other man”, seemingly an employee, of Mr. Henson, and this was all part of his master plan, yeah? If this is what you intended, my questions/issues are as follows:

- How did Morgan know that Benjamin would call the hotline and not just show using the element of surprise?
- What are Morgan’s motivations for orchestrating such a complicated and bloody set-up?
- How is Morgan acting so relaxed? He’s just killed someone and Derek, one of his friends, has been killed yet he’s hardly batted an eyelid. Not to mention, that he’s indirectly caused the death of Mrs. Henson presuming she’s the caller who committed suicide instead of homicide-suicide who Joel and he talked to three days previous, right?

MORGAN (CONT'D)
But I couldn't have Mrs. Henson gun
me down too.

- Why would she have done this, I’m led to believe these two were lovers?

JOEL
This is fuckin' legendary.

- Again, he’s acting so flippantly that I just don’t buy it, or even begin to fathom his reaction to the whole scene. Plus, he’s been shot twice. Is it supposed to be extremely black humour at play here or what?

Morgan calls Mrs. Henson a “cheating whore” but was he not the guy she was cheating with?

Maybe I’ve picked this up all wrong but if the story pans out the way I think it does in that:

Morgan was cheating on his boss’s (Benjamin) wife. She rang the hotline wanting to kill herself (not really  sure why, guilt?) and her husband (again, why?), he “convinced” her to just commit suicide instead. Then he lured Benjamin to his apartment (or actually just waited by the phone for him to call) with cajoling and goading and proceeded to kill him too under the supposed justifiable banner of a vigilantly taking out an adulterer and a “murderous bastard”.

Then I got some serious problems with the direction you took this in the end, as I’ve stated above i.e. character’s motivations/reactions and plot mechanics/plausibility.

Please, I’m curious to hear your intentions with this, I must be missing something.

Regards

Col.

Hey Col.

Thanks for the read.  It's my first attempt at a short and I'm grateful for all the great feedback.  I'll try my best at addressing each of your addresses.

I apologise for the lazy logline.  There's no excuse for that.

I've learned to condense character description to speedy up the progress of the plot so thanks for pointing that out.

Grammar is another weakness of my which should not be taken lightly.  I'll be sure to clean that up on my next submission.

The mix of names is another error I made and intend on fixing on my next rewrite should I pursue one.  Again, thanks for pointing that out.

I'm glad you pointed out the obvious hints at the cheating lover.  That was a main concern in writing this short so I'll be more descrete in future shorts.  Thanks.

Kip touched on the mix up of names which I've already addressed in the rewrite.  Hopefully there are no more problem with the mix up.

You've spotted a few action lines which are awkwardly written which I intend on correcting.

With the ending, I'll PM you on the specifics but I cee where you are thrown off on this ending.  I'm thankful for your read and I'll gladly return a read.

Johnny