Lipstick and Dynamite by Robin D. Graves - Short, Thriller - A fashion model engages in a sinister game of cat and mouth with an unbalanced CEO of a cosmetics firm — with catastrophic results. - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Okay - first one. In general - format wise, et al all solid. A fairly good effort for a OWC. A couple of typos:

Quoted Text BACK TO PHYLLIS who run her tongue over the coffee stirrer.

Should be “runs”

Quoted Text PHYLLIS Bullshit. You have no cred, no resume. When she’s done with you, you’ll be as broke as the day came into the world.

Need a “you”  after came

Quoted Text Transformed now by makeup. Phalaropes.

Phalaropes. – I have no idea

Quoted Text DOROTHY (FILTERED) Brilliant. Remember, lead her to the back of the house. We need eye-witnesses.

A bit OTN - don't think you need the eye witness line.

The Burger house seemed an odd meeting place for these two ladies - I am sure it was purposeful. It just didn't seem like the right venue.

SPOILER

Not a fan of the ending. Yes, we get a surprise murder (although the more time the reveal took the more you could see it coming) - but we get no reason. Dorothy could have simply not conspired with the gal at all. I couldn't find the purpose for all of the machinations leading to the end.

Again - good work given the short time.

Simple and focused

Quite like that.

The meeting in the burger hut was in some ways standard, but I felt it worked - that late night 'one on one ' meeting. Neutral zone.

The reversal at the end, whilst not wholly unexpected, wasn't too bad.

What would have been better is if daughter and mother were in this together - that would have been unexpected

Fair effort

**Spoilers**

Like Dave, I couldn't see the reason the old lady had killed her.  The more I look at it, I can see a few things in the dialogue suggesting that it will be the old lady.  I honestly didn't pick up on it though.  I just don't know what her reason was, so I was a little lost.  

Other than that, I liked how things built up in this.  

Nolan

OK, I ain't buying this, sorry. It reads as a send up or tongue in cheek. If it is then it's gloriously over the top on one hand but I'm not convinced translated to screen that your audience would know what to make of it or that it's quite clever enough.

The dialogue for me is so unbelievable- perhaps you decided to go that way deliberately. All the action of brushing her hair, applying makeup etc. Sorry to sound harsh, maybe you'd have been better presenting it as film noir, but even then, the dialogue? Nuh. I groaned way too much.It needs to be way more clever and snappy and easy on the ear.

Quoted Text Out of the Jag steps CHERRY SMITH (mid 20’s). Girl-next-door looks. No makeup. Shoulder-length blonde hair in a frazzle. Cherry lowers the iPhone from her ear. She’s slender and statuesque. A white blouse hugs her sweet shoulders and breasts. Blue jeans loves her curvaceous hips. Cherry glides through the parking lot with grace and purpose. Like a model on the runway PHYLLIS SHEPARD (late 40’s). Athletic frame, runner’s calves, attractive in a harsh, corporate way. Her jet-black hair is pulled back in a tidy bun. Wears an Armani jacket, blouse and slacks..

I really hope you guys spend this much time describing male characters as you do these female ones...oh boy.

Wait, Cherry isn't a lesbian?

Wait, Dorothy? I gotta re-read this. I actually have a fondness for the power lesbian.   So, although a bit dated like 90's melrose place dated, I still enjoyed the ludicrous nature of the action and dialogue.

I need a re-read..again

well written by someone who knows their stuff but it didn't really get moving. And the ending while slightly different wasn't justified. Well it might have been but I'm not keen on re-reading to see why as I don't want to see that word Phalaropes again.

It sounds scary lol

Quoted from stevie well written by someone who knows their stuff but it didn't really get moving. And the ending while slightly different wasn't justified. Well it might have been but I'm not keen on re-reading to see why as I don't want to see that word Phalaropes again. It sounds scary lol

Dude it's a bird...

So I guess Cherry was double crossed by Dorothy. It takes a bit of inference. I thought the story fell short in this one. It's hard to build up a story entirely through dialogue and have us care. Dorothy is a mysterious figure. The business and relationship between these characters can only be sketched out so far in one meeting, so I never really felt invested.

On the upside, I thought some real tension was created on the road when Cherry’s car breaks down. It was just hard to connect to the final beat when Dorothy is such a wild card and Cherry’s motivations aren't fully elaborated. Feels more like the set-up for a feature.

Not bad for a week’s work, though.

Quoted from Female Gaze Dude it's a bird...

So how would a reader know that without googling? And how would it translate in a short film?  It just seemed some random word

Quoted from stevie So how would a reader know that without googling? And how would it translate in a short film?  It just seemed some random word

A bird enthusiasts would know.

But, In reality, whenever I read something I don't get I google it. That's one way to learn new things.

“Cat and mouth” Intentional?  if so, I like it.

Burger World – does this take place in the Beavis and Butthead shared universe?

Writing is a little stunted.

MOM, TEEN, OLD LADY – caps… but you probably know this.  Big deal.

Dynamite?  What is this Looney Tunes?  

I liked the ending.  

I don’t have much to say about this one.  I didn’t stop as I read, so that’s a good thing.  

Solid little piece.  Pretty good.

Upon re-reading I've decided this one is a classic!

It's vampy, melodramatic, and a pure 90's bitchfest! And I think the writer did this on purpose.

Me likes.

Not a good way to start at all - OVER BLACK should be left aligned.

The opening passage describing "Burger World" is terrible and ends in an orphan.

Very awkward phrasing going on early.

Cherry's description is redonkulous...so bad it must be on purpose...or at least I hope it is.

Characters not being properly intro'd with CAPS.

Writing-wise, this will come down to individual readers who either love or hate the style.  There is talent here for sure...I just wish this writer didn't feel the need to try so hard.  As is, it's a tough pill to swallow, but I respect it just the same.

I don't know who Dorothy is or why at first, Dorothy is simply "WOMAN'S VOICE".

I also don't know why you chose to end this the way you did...probably so to provide a surprise ending, but does it really work?  Not for me.

And, I think the ending kinds of sums up the whole script - as in "Why?"  What exactly do we have here?  We have an exercise in cool writing, but a story and characters as cliche and meaningless as a Stouffer's frozen dinner...at the store, it's a good idea, but after it's been eaten, there's no reason to think back about it.

My advice - tone down your writing and make it stand out for just being good writing, not writing that wants to be seen as good writing.

I visualize Sin City as I read this. And if that was the intent - Congrats! A few typos, oh well...

My interpretation is that the old lady/Dorothy was setting up Phyllis to take the fall, am I right?

I liked it - good job.

This is an interesting one.

There's a couple of small typos but overall the writing style is clear and the formatting, to my eyes anyway, was pretty much there. The story line worked, a nice little twist, all pretty positive.

Where it lacked for myself is the pace was properly slow, it dragged a fair bit and made the reading tough. This may be my only criticism but it's a biggie, as the only reason I managed to get through it was the storyline kept me interested.

Mix the pace up a bit, you've clearly got the skill to craft a piece of work like this so just complete the package.

Anyway, pretty good effort

Cam

The women sound natural and the dialog is pretty good but it was hard to get into this for some reason.

For me it's a talking heads entry. The reason is its structure - you build slow, not letting us know why the should fight over Mother for a long time. Then they keep talking about who did what for Mother and I miss action and motivation... I might have missed the motivation behind their fude - it's a bit subtle for me as well.

Maybe if I retread it and made myself get into this...

Writer

A solid piece for a OWC. The writing shows you have talent and style. I'd suggest focusing more on character, dialogue, story and less on the insignificant details. It takes almost a full full two minutes before these characters start talking and all because you describe in detail things that are not important and will probably be changed if this was produced.

For a short, it is better to start as late as possible. You could have started this with "Well, thanks for joining me on such short notice." and lost nothing. Everything else could have been explained naturally as you went along.

We then have a long conversation. Dialogue is good and these two ladies are snappy but they sound identical.

We finally get some action at the end but the dynamite and the twist feels a bit out of left field.  

The ending to me seems perfect for a Tarantino style film and even the title would be one Quentin himself would use I'm sure. So my advice is to make the whole short like this. If you give it more of a Tarantino touch all the way through instead of just the end, make the dialogue more snappy and ludicrous, make the characters larger than life then (in my opinion of course) this would be excellent.

However it is good and meets the criteria of the challenge, well done!

-Mark

I'm glad I'm not the only one curious about the "cat and mouth" in the logline. I decided to read this due to the "Robbin' the graves" pun.

"Blue jeans loves..." Grammar?

Wow, that's a pretty up-to-date business card.

Ooh, Armani. Expensive.

Not famikliar with that specific model of watch. Must be as expensive as the Armani.

"A" sugar? A spoonful? A cube? Packet? One tiny grain? Typo?

"The two women size up each other." Not familiar with that expression.

"A small-caliber handgun." Make? Model? Caliber?

"Back to Phyllis, who run(s) her tongue over the coffee stirrer." (?) You mean "spoon?" I'm confused.

Quoted Text PHYLLIS Bullshit. You have no cred, no resume. When she's done with you, you'll be as broke as the day [you] came into the world.

I think "Then" needs a comma.

"Dangerously unpredictable." Where have I heard that term before? *cough*Trump*cough*

A seven-line chunk of dialogue? You might wanna break it up or shorten it. I'd actually cut out all but the first and last sentences.

Can Phyllis please also remove Trump from power? ;D Why the underlines?

"Daughter Frankenstein" ??? What does Frankenstein have to do with anything?

"Phyllis's eyes widen: MURDER THE BITCH." I could easily visualize this, and see it in film.

"Skyrockets" is one word. "Counteroffer" doesn't need a hyphen.

Is it a manila envelope?

"Bots her dark red lips on the envelope." I guess that explains "cat and mouth?"

Are you telling us to listen coyly to the back-and-forth?

XJS?? Huh? Had to Google this. Apparently, the last model was made in 1996.

Phalaropes? Who? What? Google says it;s a bird. Still confused.

Why not just tell us it's Dorothy?

"Eyewitnesses" doesn't need a hyphen.

Car won't start? Did you remember to bring more plutonium? #BacktotheFuture

Numbers are usually spelled out in dialogue. Don't know how to handle 911 in this case; I guess leave it to personal preference.

You hear the door slam and realize there's nowhere left to run. ;D

There's the titular dynamite. Somewhere, Jimmie Walker is happy about this.

"Calibre." British?

*SPOILER*

WTF? The Mother killed Cherry???

And Why is THE END at the top of page 11, wasting a whole page? And why is it left aligned? You could just as easily remove THE END and save a page.

It was a little better than I thought it was gonna be. I actually made it all the way through. Not much else I can add.

I don't mind the story too much except I didn't find a reason for the old lady to pop Cherry.  Did I miss something?  And there's no guarantee that Cherry is going to tell 911 that the other babe is following.  And of course, the other babe may well have the best alibi in the world.  Hence, the old lady did all this for naught.  Too many holes for me.

Writer,

Good writing here that was a bit too wordy. I would've cut down some of the exposition, tightened up the action and made this more insistent. That's not to say it wasn't. You built good tension, and I loved how you worded some of this - the Jaguar growls to life. I appreciate things like that, and there was more like that here, and I liked it. Good writing that needs a polish. However, the story went by too quick and the final twist didn't have the impact you were going for. It makes sense, but it just didn't floor me. I feel this piece needed something else to it - not quite sure what, but it was so straightforward that when the reveal was shown it was just like ... well, oh yeah, that makes sense. Too neat. I don't think I'm making any sense here! Anyway, it was a very good effort for the challenge. Good job!

Steve

The pendulum really swung back and forth for me on this piece.

I like the fast paced, slick writing style, but I hated the dialogue.  The whole thing kind of reminded me of a Kevin Williamson script in all of the best and the worst ways.

One big issue I had was the whole piece was a bit too vague.  Why the double cross?  Why go through the whole charade?  It left me with too many questions.

I'd definitely love to see more of this author's work when not tied to the rules of the OWC.  While I ultimately didn't care for this piece, I'm sure he has written some content that I would love.

Brian

I think the descriptions are overdone, and some aren't really possible, e.g. how can we tell anything about Phylis's calves when she's wearing slacks.

But I liked the exchange in the burger joint, flowed nicely.

Unfortunately the end didn't work me, left me scratching my head a bit.

Decent effort,

I enjoyed this.

I thought Phylis's  lesbian lover would have been the killer.  I would have less dialogue and more of the tension car scene at the end.  

Overall I great entry for me

This is a very good title, there's for sure an ironic touch dragging this into comedy as subgenre
Logline exactly SAME

generally interesting plot so far

but second half of p 5 dialogue eventually is too mucho, too slow, too repetitive.

Okay, plot was good but your execution was overwritten. The concept would fit better into 6-7 pages only Imo.

I liked the characters. Good work.

@logline was more focused on the final reveal, check that if you like. There was a moment in the script when I thought: wait that isn't exactly how this script was sold to me…

I feel betrayed.  I don't get the ending at all.  I mean, it makes no sense:
SPOILERS
Why would the mother kill the woman she hired?  

We need to know something.  


This didn't work for me.


Dan

Cat and mouth - let's see. Yup.  It's a game of which bitch will be the rich bitch. Apparently, that prize is awarded by the richest bitch. This was decent. A little more buildup in the point and counter of their insults would help. I felt the THIS BITCH MUST DIE moment hadn't arrived yet. The rest was fine - a bit wordy but I got used to it. FWIW, I could see this scenario play out as film noir in a fancy restaurant.