A DIY Project by Olga Tremaine - Short, Comedy - A middle aged woman gets ready for a night out with her husband. 2 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hello Olga.

Gotta love short shorts!  Writing stories these short can be a bit of a challenge as you have to build some rapport with your audience to have any kind of effect.  This one didn't do it for me unfortunately.

I believe that for such a short story, the set up was overwritten, almost as if this was originally a part of a longer script.  I like the idea and you've got a decent flow but I would recommend you expand this one.  We should get a feel for Katie and her battle with age and neglect rather than us sort of being dumped at the doorstep of the grand payoff of which was a bit underwhelming.  Hope this helped.

-Johnny

FYI, if the scene doesn't change but time does, you could use the LATER mini-slug.

This reads more like a novel than a script.

Wasn't really anything funny that stood out, felt like more of a drama.

The reveal didn't work for me, the only reason we are 'suprised' is because of the misdirection of the logline.

Sorry but I think this one needs some work.

I get a sense of some underlying message about our obsession with youth and beauty and inability to accept the natural process of aging. But this story has been done a thousand times over, someone who wants to look/feel younger gets turned into an actual young person.

That's not to say it can't be compelling if you give me a unique take on it or a particularly unique character. But that might be hard to do here in two pages... perhaps this could be fleshed out into a longer story.  

So this is a "Be careful what you wish for" story. I get that.
But there could be more here. What's Katie's actual goal? Why is it so bad that she looks 20 in the end? Who is Ron? What does he look like. What would his reaction be to Katie's transformation? I just want to know more about the characters.

Thank you all for the read! I appreciate your time. Will work on it.

Olga,

Some notes.

Like the others, I find this one typical and predictable.  Now, if it had gone the other way...she gets older...then it might work.  Or if she did it on her husband in order to get a young stud...  well, that might be fun.  But the way it is now simply isn't novel enough.

Best
Richard

Hi Olga,
I understand "short" but this is tooooo short. The premise has been used but you can still use it writing more pages. The beginning is too novelistic ... remembers that script readers like simplicity and white more than ink.
Modify it and you'll be on your way.
My best,
Fausto

Always loved this short. I gave it an excellent back in the MP days. Surprised no one has filmed it yet. I may want to take a crack at it one of these days.

1 pages are always a challenge. So kudos for keeping this "story" within a page. That being said, why keep it so short? Because in doing so, you're sacrificing too much. I would flesh this one out. The ending doesn't work at all, the message is unclear, and the set up is too vague.

This short doesn't reward the reader at all. You gotta give us some sort of pay off.

I like short shorts...however I'm not so sure about this one. It really needs expanding, as per a few of the comments above. The subject matter about rewinding age has been attempted several times, usually with disastrous consequences in final output.

As things stand you've got half a trailer's worth here, I don't really count it as a short script as there really isn't the final payoff required to close out the piece. Instead I reckon you've got half a script here, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, you just need to stick on the imagination hat and get back to it.

Does Katie end up with a modelling contract? Does she get turned away from the swingers party they were to attend later, due to her age? No idea, it reads well so finish it off would be my advice.