Something Awful by Marcello Degliuomini - Short, Drama - Two shady cops, a troubled teen, and a missing girl, come to a head on a late night call. 15 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Thanks Don for uploading the new draft.

Marcello - gave these a read. Hope these notes help in some way.

Quoted Text VICKY No sweetie. Go back to bed.

Need a comma after No.

A nitty issue, but: this

Quoted Text EXT - SUBURBAN STREET - NIGHT

Probably should either be INT/EXT. PATROL CAR - TRAVELLING - NIGHT

or

INT PATROL CAR- NIGHT

Since all of the subsequent action takes place inside the car.

Quoted Text VICKY’S HOME/ JOSH’S BEDROOM - NIGHT

Should be:

INT. VICKY’S HOME/ JOSH’S BEDROOM - NIGHT

Quoted Text ROBERTS Good evening Ma’am. You called the Police tonight?

Need a comma after evening. I won't mention again suspecting that you have it in other places, but whenever you have a name/title of someone being addressed - there needs to be a comma. e.g., It's "How are you doing, Dave - not - How are you doing Dave.

Quoted Text EXT. VICKY’S HOUSE

Missing NIGHT.

Quoted Text INT: VICKY’S HOME

Missing NIGHT.

You also have this problem throughout.

I'm at the point where the officers have their gun drawn on Josh - struck me as odd that they wouldn't have shot him right then.

Quoted Text VICKY If this is some kind of sick joke.. I’m not laughing. ROBERTS No ma’am, no joke. Just a very fucked up situation for you.

I didn't care for the above dialogue at all - they've already essentially told her they're going to kill her - pretty sure she is beyond the - is this a joke thing.Just seemed like an unnatural reaction.

Not crazy about the ending.

Best of luck

Hey thanks for giving it a read.

I actually took out NIGHT intentionally at one point. Like I literally went back and removed NIGHT from every slug. I guess I figured once the story was set at the house. Then the back and forth NIGHT slug wasn't needed. I guessed wrong.

Appreciate the advice on the patrol car slug. Wasn't too sure if I had to use INT or EXT in the car scene. Now I know.

And that dialogue where it's revealed to Vicky the officers next move, was something i was toying over a bit. Changed it couple times.. I wanted to show Cruz's confliction about what was happening.  But by adding that, I subseqently was stuck with Vicky's character not fully believing what was happening. Probably should have just killed her off and cut that out. oh well.

Im a little rusty I know lol.. Havn't sat down and wrote in like 3 years. But im gonna get back on it.

Thanks again man.

My pleasure - twas an easy read.

For what it's worth - the NIGHT thing is just a standard format issue and I clearly knew it was night. So who knows, perhaps your way is crisper.

Fixed a few things,  cut it down a few pages, and tweaked the ending. I think this works better.