Sweet Brandy by Not Him, The Other Guy - A plain-spoken father recounts a tale of childhood tragedy in an ill-judged attempt to comfort his grieving teenage son.  Location: Public Bathroom. Object: Urn of ashes.  Short, Dark Comedy

Ha! Nice one. No complaints with the writing talent - good work. A couple of the dialogue blocks were fairly long-winded but I dealt with it. Kudos!

Definitely well written, but it didn't really gel with me. I kept waiting for something to happen. If it was actually filmed I'd wonder if I'd feel a little cheated that I had to listen to all this dialogue just to get to the joke that he was talking to the wrong person. Kind of like one of those jokes where it takes 20 minutes to tell, and then has a purposely underwhelming punchline (Norm MacDonald's Moth joke comes to mind). But this is kind of reversed, your punchline was quite funny, but it seemed to take a while to get there.

Still, maybe a good actor could make this dialogue really compelling as he tries to comfort his son.

This was really well done. I like the cadence of the dialogue, maybe a a little too much of it but it didn't take away from the read. I had to go back and re-read the last bit cause I didn't catch the twisty bit,  but that is on me bing distracted most of the time. I totally got what you were trying to do with it and it worked well IMO.  Good job.

Enjoyed this one. Some talent here with writing dialogue. Some sections could be tightened up. I think the monologue would be more engaging if we hear "Seth" behind the bathroom stall make some sort of acknowledgement through noise. A sniffle, a cough or some sort? Just so it leads the audience to believe he is actually in there until the reveal.

The humor here really wasn't for me. The long blocks of dialogue seemed to drag. And the punchline didn't really hit for me, with the girl's father going into the bathroom. June's dialogue suggests that the girl's father is beating Weldon up, but we just see the girl's father storming in. So, what's Weldon still doing in there? And is this a unisex bathroom, or were they in the girl's room? I'm not sure if the story was graphic enough for the 14 year old girl to be that terrified.

I dunno, maybe this went over my head. Good effort, though.

-- Michael

Quoted Text IN THE CUBICLE

You mean stall???

Okay - cute little mis-direct there. The dialogue - while very genuine - was way too long for me.  Any interruption would have helped (like the wife knocking on the door or something).  

But I do like the story.

Good work here, dialogue, although a bit too long winded, felt really authentic.

I enjoyed the payoff.

Probably my favourite so far.

All the best.

This is a very fine script, but it's not a comedy, so I have to take that into account when scoring it.

Definitely a dark comedy if you ask me

And, well, that there's death. She
comes to us all, man and beast, be it
at the hands of time or a fireside
implement to the base of the skull.

Funny stuff.  

Mixed bag for me of pure genius, and some of it going over my head.

Had to reread this one... so Weldon went into the girl's bathroom by accident. Not sure why that went over my head. I may have skimmed past the part when you describe Seth coming out from the bathroom on the opposite side. Which does make it funnier since that's pretty much the joke lol. Still not sure if the humor was really for me, the dialogue was a little long, which may be why I skimmed over that one part. Nevertheless, now that I "got" it after a reread, it does make more sense lol.

Some really good dialogue. Though, there's a LOT of it. Maybe there's a way to cut it down just a tad?

Still, well done. I enjoyed it.

I have to admit I really liked this one. Read it more than twice just to be sure but I thought it was well written and executed.
Very well done.

This was pretty good, one of the better comedy entries.

Some long winded dialogue that can easily be shortened to make it easy on the eye.

Good entry

Yes, comedy is subjective, and this one worked for me.

I was thinking you could lose the entire scene outside with June before Weldon goes in, but I see that's part of the payoff, so just simplify it. They don't need their own story, just get her to prod him to go inside. I also think it would pay off better if you didn't have Weldon tell what he thinks is Seth to come on out, implying he's just going to keep on talking all manner of horrors to the petrified little girl and making her father rushing in that much funnier.

Trim this down and tighten it up and it works. The look on the girl's face is the big payoff, get to the final payoff with the dad as fast as you can.

Nice job, it made me laugh.

I liked this one, but the monologues are just too long. Good sting in the tail, too

Took until the very end to realize that Brandy was a dog, but I suppose that was in support of the reveal at the end.

Good effort!

Now that, my friends is how you do dialogue! A good actor would make those words purr like a kitten, and keep the audience hooked through the whole monologue.

This would get an excellent from me but I didn't realise until the end it was supposed to be a (dark) comedy and yet it read to me as pure drama.

Brilliant effort though.

Hi Writer

I ruined it for myself by guessing the punchline. Although Not sure why the Grandpa is taking so long to flee the bathroom lol

I probably would have broken some of that dialogue up a bit with action blocks, but could just be me.

Loved the Grandpas story you set their characters up in the beginning perfectly.

Nice work

Bit if a shaggy dog story this one and it was mildly amusing with some nice dialogue...

But the twist/punchline just felt a bit abrupt for me.

Decent effort

Writer,

Very good! I think where you lost this was the story itself. It got a little confusing and muddled inside those big blocks of dialogue, but in my limited way, I followed along. And as it turns out, wrong person. Classic. Still, this could have be much funnier if you care to rework this. Nice job.

Steve

It takes guts to write long passes of dialogue, so hats off for that. Strongly written. I like it more for the writing than the humor.

okay...admit first read I didn't get it. Read again and realized he went in the wrong bathroom.

Some good dialog. I thought he was gonna break down sobbing which might have added some more humor.

Nice entry.

I didn't get it at the end, expertly written nevertheless. Didn't care about the long dialogue, it felt authentic and easy to follow.

Was a bit confused, but may be I'm rushing too much to get through these at the last minute. With all that dialogue, some of it purposefully roundabout because it's a reminiscence, I had trouble sticking with it. I think this a story that you have to be in certain mindset for and I'm not your audience at the moment. Very well written though!

Thanks all for reading and the feedback.  I’m pleasantly surprised at the reception to this.  I struggled to find a way into this challenge and this was kind of a last ditch attempt that I nearly bailed on numerous times.  Humour is tricky to put across on the page and darker humour even more so, and I was geared up for a regular drubbing - particularly with the long passages of dialogue - but I’m encouraged enough to work this up into something more polished (with a dialogue trim/break-up).

Dave - cubicle/stall - the first draft was set in the UK and I can’t believe I missed that in the rewrite.

Thanks Rene for the suggestions.  I quite like the idea of getting out a little earlier.  I was torn on how to structure this as the payoff felt kind of obvious.  I had considered revealing the girl in the stall a little earlier and cross-cutting to her reaction as his story gets darker and darker. Not sure if that would be a better route or not though.

Thanks again.

Steve