I Saw a Clown Today by Lance Tarver - Short, Dark Comedy - Smith, an optimistically annoying employee, decides to eat his lunch in the park when he meets an unusual clown that will change his life forever. 12 pages - pdf, format 8)

Spoilers:
Sort of an Homage to "Office Space"?

Lol i can see that, I never really thought about it. It was just an idea i came up with one day, didn't want to write it, then finally got the motivation. Was going to film it but couldn't find the right location.

Smith must be hallucinating because I didn't get this at all.

This would have been better (if a little more predictable) if it was all a joke his co-workers were playing on him (due to his annoyances). In fact this was what I was expecting until I read the end and thought this is a little weird...

I had to read this after seeing the comments. Seemed like the sort of thing I would write.

First name Smith, last name George, that had me in stiches. crack up.


The first half is really clever and goes full circle with the clown mirroring the same annoying behavouir that ticks off Smith's coworkers. Why didn't you just use the conflict with the clown as something that gives Smith a life lesson in how being a prick to people is not a good idea. That way Smith has a story arc and your story has a point.

As you have it in the second part of your story, Smith killing the clown and then killing everyone who catches on to the fact that he is a murderer just sends your story off on a tangent that spins out of control and destroys everything you set up in the first half.  

This is a great story with a great idea, but the second half has nothing to do with the first half at all.

I enjoyed all of your comments, all being valid in some way. I totally agree there might be a better story arc if he'd learned something from it all but that was never my intention. I just wanted to write a completely dark comedy that I could put several cinematic shots in to heighten the dark comedy it's supposed to be. I like it the way it is, of course it does kind of spiral out of control at the end but I wanted that. I wanted Smith to feel like he had the perfect life, one that he annoys several characters with, and I wanted it to suddenly come crashing by meeting a clown that was twice as annoying as he is, almost like his parallel. Sure it goes a bit extreme with the murder, but that was my intention all along. I wanted it to be dark purely for a more cinematic undertone while filming.
But I do appreciate all the comments! Thanks for readying :)

Read this recently - interesting, but certainly wierd. Unpredicatable. Which a lot of scripts aren't. Takes you places you don't expect to go. Which if you like that, is a good thing.

If you do ever get round to filming it, make sure you let us know.
Simon

oh, boy.
Barnum and Bailey had just come to town.
A crowd of people came and paid,
but I just had no luck,
cause I had no buck.


I kept waiting for Smith to wake up and find the event was some moral dream about him being obnoxious; which he should because at least then the story might move toward making some sense.