A Day in the Life of Death by Michael Donovan Horn - Short, Drama - It began like any other day for Death.  An endless cycle of gathering souls - but what happens when doubts about the job begin to unavoidedly pile up?  10 pages - rtf, format 8)

Hi Michael,

SPOILERS

I read this script and have to say that this isn't for me.  Death is your main character and he/she never talks, just contemplates a little.  You need to explore this contemplation better.  Various people die of various ages.  But there are instances where people are touch and they die and other instances where they live.

For example: Death wipes Anna’s tears.  Anna doesn't die here only when Death takes her hand.

When Marcus first speaks, its about driving death anywhere he wishes.  Death's covered in blood.  Does Marcus know he's Death or not?  Because if he's going to give away lifts, surely it's to the nearest hospital.

The Blues Man came across as a nut, playing music to trees.  Was this the intention?

Overall, describe less deaths, give Death a personality and a reason to contemplate.  Maybe focus more on Marcus and Anna, who knows.

All the best


Javier

Initially, you only describe Death as an “ageless figure with melancholy eyes.” Ageless has nothing to do with its appearance so all we really know is that he/it has sad eyes. It could look like Gollum for all we know. Well we know it has feet. We can only assume it looks like an ordinary human because of the apparent lack of reaction from people who see it.

The first block of dialogue is an enormous chunk with some rather silly rambling. A woman is talking about the day her son died and says lines like, “His blood glittered in the sunlight,” or, “All I could do was wail like some scolded child!” Come on now. It’s 18 lines of dialogue. Obviously, some of it could be cut.

Is there any particular reason why the young man literally sleeps on the road?

A woman falls into Death’s arms and survives but Death touches the blues guy and kills him.

Any reason why you have a wryly saying “to God” when the mother screams? I think most people will get that without spoon feeding it to them.

The pages aren’t numbered. That’s annoying.

On page 4, we find out Death is in the form of a female. It would have helped visually if we had known that up front.

Death gets baptized? What was the point of that? It was an interesting avenue to pursue but you copped out on it.

You have places where there are several spaces skipped.

Although a chick might be chic, the reference to a young woman is chick with a “k.”

Okay, Death carried the baby off and the baby is coherent and communicating with Death the whole time. But the woman on the bench; Death drains all her life away from her and just leaves her body there.

And do we really need to watch the woman lay her head on Death’s shoulder in slow motion? And Death taking her hand? The laying of heads on shoulders and the taking of hands is hardly slow motion material.

Why did Bobby’s death make Death think of Anna crying? Presumably, she wanted to experience love. You didn’t adequately relate that though.

The number of characters feels like it’s just mounting endlessly at this point.

Marcus isn’t too smart taking a bloody handkerchief back from a stranger.

Okay, I don’t get the kiss of death. Why did she kill him and then bring him back to life? Why didn’t she just kiss him without killing him?

Okay, now there are times to leave certain knowledge up to the reader/viewer. But the situation with what Death wrote on the bathroom wall isn’t one of those instances. In this case, it’s clearly a copout.

Aside from its flaws, the story is at its core a very intriguing premise. Some of the dialogue is pretty good too. Ultimately, it has too many inconsistencies and one too many instances of just switching directions to avoid a challenge.

So overall, it turned out to have a lot of potential I didn’t initially expect it to have but it needs a greater commitment from the writer to be a really great script.


Breanne