Backlash by Jacob Dotson - Short, Crime - A drug deal goes wrong and we see how it happens. 19 pages - pdf, format

I had to stop reading this. It's way too unrealistic which pulls me out of the story. However, you may be quite young... so the advice I'll give you is, stick to what you know.

Jacob-

Gave the first few pages a read. The dialog is a little on the nose and too many "we see" and "we hear" references. A few formatting issues (like the use of "continued" on every page), which are easily fixed. Also, the action descriptions go into too much detail. We don't need to know every single move in a scene.

The dialog isn't bad, and you might benefit from the simple exercise of reading it aloud. I think it could be trimmed a bit and still communicate the message.

Hope the feedback is useful. I'll read more as time permits.

Hey man,

I think the logline needs some work. It should tell us a little something more about the story or the protagonist.

Overall I think the script needs a lot of work. Mostly found issues in overwritten action and fairly lazy on the nose dialogue. The story is pretty good it just gets a little fuzzy at the end.

Page 1- There’s a little grammatical error here. Not exactly sure what you were trying to write but it reads “Yeah, Victor told me it he got one from it.”

Page 2- Some over writing of action in the middle of the page after the wide shot. You don’t really need to say that it’s an uninterrupted shot. You could probably cut this down from six to four lines by just rewording.  “He pulls out a metal box and places the money inside.” Just combine and shorten the clauses.

Page 2- “During this, we hear the following dialogue” This is also not really necessary. Just space out the action of him bagging up the coke between the lines of dialogue.

Page 9 “I brought you in for questioning. You were found guilty of possession of cocaine when I
frisked you.” That is not how the justice department works in the United States.

Dialogue needs some work throughout. A few examples:

Page 11 “Believe me, I’ve tried. We never find anything on him. That’s why I’ve been staking out his house. I figure if I can’t bust him directly, I’ll bust him through one of his customers. And tonight, you were the luck of the draw.” I find it a little hard to believe that a detective would ever bluntly tell a suspect in an ongoing criminal investigation what he was doing. I feel like most cops would tell Greg to go f*** himself for asking a question during his interrogation. Also I’m pretty sure you have a mixed metaphor in “You were the luck of the draw.”

Page 12 GET RID OF ALL THE (BEATS)

Page 16 “Freeze!” Really?

Page 16 You have VICTOR pulling the trigger and realizing that it’s empty, but I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be Bugera.

The ending is a little perplexing. Is Victor a cop? Is Bugera not a cop? If not, he definitely just can’t light up a guy in the middle of the street without any legal repercussions. If he is a cop, I don’t think he would be so nonchalant about someone dying right in front of him — Cops do not like when people die regardless of who they are.

Even with all its flaws I still liked some parts of it. Give it a rewrite in which you tweak the dialogue, get rid of some the clichés, and tighten up the ending and it will be much better.


-Colin

Thanks a lot guys for taking he time to read this. It means very much to me and I'll definitely change the stuff you guys have pointed out as being either "on the nose" or "cliche" and so-forth.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe cocaine is ever named anything...unlike heroin, in which you can always find it "stamped" with a certain unique name - i.e. Blue Magic, Black Cadillac.
Overall, this was pretty unrealistic, as someone else has said.  Big time.

Well, it is a work of fiction...

Yeah, it is a work of fiction, but I think what she meant with the previous comment was that the way the characters react is unbelievable.

The dialogue is very on the nose and the action is clunky at times. Here's an excerpt from your script:

DETECTIVE BUGERA
Freeze!

Freeze? Very cliche and unrealistic.

Adam turns his head to see Detective Bugera. Greg proceeds to take this opportunity to knock the gun out of Adam’s hand. The gun slides all the way to the other side of the room. Adam curses.

If Adam curses, have him curse. Action paragraphs are for action and dialogue blocks are for dialogue.

And that block of action could have easily been: Adam turns and sees Detective Buger. Momentarily distracted. Greg knocks the gun out of Adam's hand. The gun slides across the floor.

Greg gets on the floor and starts crawling to the gun. His hand is still over the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. Detective Bugera takes a shot at Adam, but Adam ducks and the bullet misses him.

Once again, this can be trimmed. If someone crawls, it's safe to assume they're on the floor. And don't write he "starts crawling". If he's crawling, he's crawling. So simply write: Greg crawls to the gun, his hand over his wound.

By this point, Greg has reached the gun and turns around to shoot Adam. But Adam has just gone up the stairs to the foyer and out the front door. Detective Bugera chases after him.

You should write as things happen - remember, this is happening as we read this. So a better way to write the above action block is:

Greg reaches the gun and turns to shoot Adam. But Adam escapes to the foyer, Detective Bugera chasing after him.

Now, Greg is all alone and severely wounded.

We know he is all alone because the only people in the room are Bugera and Adam. And they're gone. Just write "Greg writhes in pain, clutches his wound" or something like that.

VICTOR (V.O.): Hello?

GREG: Victor, the deal went bad!

The camera cuts to VICTOR’s end of the line. He’s driving.

VICTOR (surprised) Shit, really?

GREG Yeah. The police were involved.

VICTOR (surprised) Are you serious?!

GREG Yeah. And they’ve kinda busted Adam.

VICTOR Kinda? What do you mean, kinda?

GREG Well, the Cop chased Adam out the front door. They’re outside right
now and I have no idea what the fuck is going on.

VICTOR Jesus Christ.

GREG Yeah. So, can you drive over here and possibly take me to a hospital?

VICTOR Why?

GREG I was shot.

Now, that big block of dialogue pretty much described everything we've all ready seen. Try to be more subtle. I doubt after being shot, he'd take the time to describe everything exactly as they occurred. A few lines would have sufficed.

And as for the camera directions, unless you're directing this yourself, I'd lose them. They're distracting.

Now, as for the story...

This was extremely unrealistic, work of fiction or not. All the dialogue rings false. When he's in the interrogation room, Detective Bugera tells him that he was found guilty of possession of cocaine. So Detective Bugera is the judge as well? And then shortly after, Greg is wired? I just couldn't buy it.

And the names for different types of cocaine... sounds very Pulp Fiction-ish... and they don't really have names for cocaine like they do heroine and marijuana.

I had to stop by page 11, the dialogue force feeds us everything, and it just feels so wooden. There's no layers, everything has one dimension. And if the dialogue is going to drive a story, is needs to be a lot stronger and not as obvious.

I believe Detective Bugera is talking about how he can't seem to nail Victor for anything - Victor hardly seems like the crafty criminal type. He pulls a bag of cocaine out of a dresser drawer for God sake.

And Greg turns rat pretty easily and he's so matter of fact about it.

Sorry to sound harsh, but this script needs a ton of work.

Thanks again guys for the feedback. This is my second script, so I was expecting pretty harsh feedback, hence why I put it on here. I do plan directing it, which is why there's camera direction.