Blossoms and Dust by 0 - Short, Drama - When visiting her mother's place, a career woman must realize she made a mistake that she cannot correct. 3 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Code With sunglasses and business attire, MARISSA HARLING, 47, plods along in her stilettos.

You should omit the pronoun as it obstructs - slows it down.

With sunglasses and business attire, MARISSA HARLING, 47,
plods along in stilettos.

Also, the preposition 'with' should be changed. I'd suggest 'in' but then you'd be using 'in' twice and that's just messy.

Code MARISSA (V.O.) No. That's only what I make up now. To feel comfortable. I get it, there is no second chance. Now that it's too late, I finally get it.

Isn't that when realisation dawns for all of us?

Yeah, OK. A heavy message here. Perhaps not executed the best in its present state, but it could easily get picked up and worked on alongside a director to get the best out of it. Needs some work, but I like the idea and the message the story shares.

Hi,

The message here is good. THe way it was was handled was on the nose for me. The V.O.'s of both Marrissa and her mother did not work for me. They were kind of heavy-handed.
Her conversation with the doctor sounds stilted.
It could be a nice short. You don't even need all those V.O.'s to get the message across I think.

Well executed with formatting and inserts. Nice little flashback as well. I know someone will bring up the abbreviated Doctor use (Dr.) that should be spelled out but not a big deal.

Very heavy message with a really open ending. To me, something is missing but not sure where it should go.

Definitely from a seasoned writer. Good work.

Not bad.  You barely used the jump rope, and I thought the jump rope had to be at the nursing home.

The jump rope didn't have any meaning at all...

Pretty heavy stuff handled pretty on the nose.  

The voice over doesn't work for me either.  Too easy.  

And why was she considered a bitch at the beginning?  I mean, I know she didn't visit, but, she didn't fight with her or call her names or anything.  There are far worse things that a person can do than just not visit...

But, pretty good.  Would have been higher if the jump rope had any kinda meaning.

Dan

Agreed that the message here overall is good -- the route it takes to get there may not have been the one I would have taken, but we all have our personal preferences. I'm not a big fan of voice-overs -- I'd rather see a flashback to a time where Marissa and her mother were in some discussion and she keeps going back to that memory.  I feel like that might have more of an impact here.  Other than that, pretty decent effort here.

Best of luck,
Gary

Another one with no use of the prop. Didn't the rope and/or dice have to be prominent in the story for this challenge? i have read a few now - but will go back and review them soon - where the prop is just randomly thrown in. What was the point of the challenge if perps aren't sticking to the criteria?

The criteria weren't that strict. Although the more skilled writers will make the props a part of the story, it isn't a must.

Ok this one wins my favorite title and logline.

For me... this one needs some work. The dialogue is too on the nose. All the backstory is in the dialogue and I want to see it not hear them explain it.

The voices were good I like that she is hearing voices.

I think it would've been neat to maybe hear a psych session while seeing the movie play out on this one maybe.

I still love the title and love that is all she was left with.... you cannot regain time ... good moral lesson in this script and I love a story with some message behind it.

I enjoyed reading this.

Good work writer.

Sorry but this really isn't my thing.

I found the dialogue cringe worthy.

The last line in particular made me laugh and I'm sure that wasn't the intent. It made me think of a line from The Room, "if a lot of people love each other the world would be a better place to live."

There's the potential for something really great here. I feel like you're somewhat close, that you know what you want to say. But the execution is off. The voice-overs aren't working. Could they work if re-written and used more sparingly? Maybe.

I kinda liked this one:

MOTHER HARLING
(V.O.)
That's my girl. Just get it
done and get out of this lifeless place,
honey.

The rest was painfully heavy-handed and repetitive.

You spend two pages exposing us to the inner-workings of her mind. Then you end in a therapist office where she talks about the inner-workings of her mind. We already know exactly what she's thinking. She feels guilty, she's trying to come to terms with the finality of it, she can't take back her mistakes. We know because she said those things in voice-over over and over again.

Then she proceeds to say the exact same things to the therapist. And the therapist tells her not to feel guilty. Which is exactly what the mother has been saying through voice-over. It's endlessly repetitive.

My suggestion would be to start with the therapist meeting. Weave that together with her visit to the retirement home. The voice-overs will be that of an engaging, ongoing conversation between the therapist and Marissa on her loss. So we're shifting back and forth between therapist and the "remembrance" visit/burial.

The idea is touching, but there's way too much dialogue and for a challenge of 3 pages, that's too much. I think you should try and show more, talk less. But that's just my opinion.

Dialogue is unnatural, too on the nose and the writing is quite awkward in parts. E.G.

"Marissa cools the dark bags under her eyes with water she picks up in her closed fingers."

That's a really awkward way of saying someone splashes water on their face.

As for the story, there really isn't one. A person coping with the loss of a loved one is a powerful emotional experience and this has the potential to be a powerful few scenes but it just trails off at the end with no satisfying conclusion.

I've seen a lot of short scripts and films which simply pick a very painful experience and just describe it as is. Personally that isn't enough for me.  

The Mother Harling ghost/memory aspect was good, shows potential. I would recommend focusing on that. How about making this her story? She could be a ghost, watching her daughter but she can't hear her daughter and her daughter can't hear her. This would be challenging but could be quite powerful as she watches her daughter go through a guilty grieving process but is powerless to intervene in the real world anymore.

Just a suggestion!


-Mark

Writing is very awkward.  Dialogue is very poor.

You have Mother Harling speaking in VO, yet she's never been intro'd, so we wouldn't have a clue who's speaking in a filmed version.

The concept is here but the execution is very poor, sorry to say.

I feel emotion while reading this, but I have to try and change most of what I'm reading in my head, which is never a good thing.

**

Nice straightforward drama. Dialogue's up and down. The part of this that I think really shines is the idea of hearing the voice of a relative and wondering whether or not you're just making up what you'd want them to say. I think you could put all of the focus on that and get a strong short out of it. Start with the voice, focus all the scenes on that relationship/inner conversation, and then close out with -- I dunno, maybe just a physical touch from Dr. Houser, a hand on the shoulder, could say it all, instead of that last dialogue.

Anyway, it's a well-used three pages. But I'm most interested in that one aspect.

This was a difficult read for me.

Did someone post this showing how "not" to write?

How do you plod in stilettos?

>The Janitor is about to exchange the nameplate Mr. Bell for Mrs. Harling

I took it to mean she was moving in, being replaced by Mr. Bell.

Nurse #1's Dialogue is really bad.

>E-ven-tu-a-lly dare to come here

But wait, NURSES were somehow one character so Nurse #1 wasn't introduced and there is no Nurse #2 or #3 etc...

The following

>Below the hanging triangle handle, on the bed sheets,

I had to read that a few times, my eyes glazing over to realize that that

hanging triangle handle thingy was what you see in hospitals.

This is a small apartment. The level of care wouldn't be like that I would suppose.

My jaw might have hit the floor in an over the top moment when I discovered the last page.

Someone was just playin' here. Ha. Ha.  :-/

Sandra

Writer,

A good subject, but this fails at the end because nothing is learned or discovered. Perhaps Marissa discovers something that her mother had kept that proves her mother always loved her, and that the guilt Marissa felt was somehow not needed because a mother's love transcends all. I get that's what you were going for with the photo, but there's no indication Marisa felt anything upon viewing it. Nice premise, just needs a better execution.

Steve

This has potential, but the V.O. for the most part annoyed me. Especially the back and forth. I would suggest not having two people doing V.O. I did like the very last dialogue though. Well written too. Just needs some tweaking to really get a good story to come of it.

Okay, you had me until page 3, thought this was going to be one of the best ones...

Disagree with the others about the V.O. People talk to themselves all the time and in cinema that would take the form of voice-over. And it's natural to imagine your loved ones talking back to you. I do it all the time.

Agree with the others that this goes off the rail with the therapist. Marissa's dialogue is very on the nose, and the therapist speaks way too much - not really what they do. And in the end the therapist really offers nothing.

I like this one though because survivor's guilt and family relations are a very meaty playing field. I would suggest you keep Marissa tortured on page 3 or whatever length you expand this to when free from the contest constraints, and find a way to show that either her mother understood, or - maybe some guilt is truly earned?

Very nice.  Heartfelt and a reminder to us all, Say it now before it's too late.

one the nose, heavy handed, not sure the voice overs were really used well here.

Thanks for your feedback.

I can comprehend all of your comments. In the 2017s challenges, I always felt compelled to hold the deadline only. At least I could accomplish that. Then it seems I lost something on my way, perhaps mostly inspiration and fantasy.

The message of my script has potential, you're right, but I must make it a truly dark melodrama that works more emotionally.