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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board  /  Short Thriller Scripts  /  The Perfect Story
Posted by: Don, June 16th, 2018, 10:26am
The Perfect Story by Tom Batt - Short, Thriller - A down on his luck reporter is challenged to get an interview with a millionaire recluse to save his job and uncovers a conspiracy. 16 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Posted by: stevemiles, July 2nd, 2018, 4:50pm; Reply: 1
Tom,

An ambitious sell for a short.  There’s a lot to work with here and noir/crime-mystery tends to need space to breathe; to let the investigation unfold at its own pace.  Without it you risk falling back on expositional dialogue to do the heavy lifting.

It’s an easy enough read but I knew what I was getting after the first page.  A lot of the dialogue is driven by such exposition.  There’s little subtlety or subtext to the exchanges which has the effect of stifling your characters to the extent they sound the same as they’re constantly serving up neat chunks of information to serve the plot.  Think about holding back, using mystery/suspense to pull the reader along with you.  Again, it’s a tough genre and a lot to ask for in a short space.

How has Sam kept his job this long if he readily admits to not being a ‘consistent writer’?

‘Sam waits for a moment. He looks around the cafe at the other customers. Suddenly a phone starts ringing the other end.’ - Given the preceding sentence, it read to me as if the phone is ringing at the other end of the cafe, not the line Sam is on.

There’s a number of instances where you’re driving the plot by convenience and not logic.  The more holes or inconsistencies a plot develops, the harder it is to have confidence in the story:

How does Sam expect a maid to help him secure an interview?  A little inside knowledge perhaps or a further lead to those that can, but what kind of influence does he expect her to have on this reclusive millionaire?  Feels like a clumsy angle for an experienced investigative journalist.

Is the large house ringed with a wall or a hedge?  Or both?  If both, then why go to the trouble of building a big gate and tall wall on one side if you’ve got a hedge on the other - especially a hedge with a hole in it.  Isn’t one of the bad guys a gardener?

What’s happened so far to give Sam a reason to sneak into Logan’s grounds?  What he hears at the pool could warrant such, but before that?  I don’t understand what he thinks he’ll gain from sneaking into the grounds.  How is this likely to get him an interview?  What’s his goal here?

I think you could stand to pose a more specific question/mystery surrounding this reclusive millionaire.  That he’s decided to shut himself away didn't strike me as all that significant.  It could be, but we're not told enough about Logan to know why it stands out.  What’s the question surrounding Logan that Rick and Sam believe a two minute interview could lead to millions of paper sales?

The house is described as being seen in ‘the distance’ through the hedge - how is it that Sam can hear people talking from where he is?  He then crawls through and looks around to make sure nobody is present.  Okay, so they’re at the pool, but where is this pool in relation to the house?  Out front?  Back?  What are we ‘seeing’ here?

‘...an old photo of Logan with his deceased wife stands…’  How would we know A. who the picture is of if we’ve never met Logan.  B. that his wife is deceased?

So they kept the murder weapon - the ashtray?

Sam uncovers a murder, narrowly escapes being killed himself yet doesn’t go straight to the police?  It makes no sense, he’s got nothing to hide.

Not sure what to suggest here.  It’s not a bad concept - the hired help murdering their rich, a-hole boss and using his reclusiveness for cover to live it up.  I like the twist that they get away with it by framing some desperate reporter, with the suggestion they’ll move on to another victim.  It could be that you find a way to shorten the idea - make it more contained, both in plot and location.  Maybe lose Sam stumbling across the murder and have them setting him up to take the fall from the outset.  

I appreciate what you're going for, but for me this just didn't pull together to create a satisfying whole.

Hope this helps,

Steve
Posted by: eldave1, July 3rd, 2018, 8:24pm; Reply: 2
You can be more efficient in your descriptions.

For example, this:


Quoted Text
The editor RICK MARSHALL, 50s sits at his desk. He is
slightly overweight and sweaty. He wears a white shirt with
braces and a red bow-tie. He holds a cigar in between his
sausage like fingers.


At the desk, RICK MARSHALL (50s), overweight, sweaty. clad in a white shirt and a red bow-tie.  holds a cigar in between his sausage like fingers.

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