The Magic Fortune Cookie by Richard D Dubose - Thriller - A young woman writes supernatural fortunes for her father's restaurant and after one of his costumers wins the lottery she is kidnapped by the Chinese Mafia. 87 pages

contest: Placed in top 100 on Amazon Studios Premise War via fan voting and received buyout offer from the Director of Flight Plan starring Jodie Foster. - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

I only read one page, and found multiple problems – none insurmountable, but nits that foreshadow bigger problems.

First action line, “eat their food” should just be “eat” (unless they’re eating the tablecloth).

Second action line, “People walk by and ignore the restaurant entirely”. It’s an INT scene, so it should probably read, “Through the window view to the street, it appears passersby ignore the restaurant.”

Third action line, “Across the street…”. That should be a new scene. EXT. STREET. Actually, with the scene above it could easily be one scene, EXT. STREET, one restaurant with a line out the door, as the Young Owner takes names of customers on the sidewalk, and waves to the Old Owner of the restaurant across the street, who’s doing nothing.

Also, you give us the name of the busy restaurant, but not the quiet one – which I have a hunch is where the real story takes place.

The dialogue – very stiff, on the nose. I don’t know stuffed-shirt vanilla white people who talk like that, let alone the elderly Chinese characters in the story.

I really liked the logline, so I’m guessing the story is there, but it probably needs a deep proofing.