I think James is onto something with the idea of the main action playing out between rookie and the victim's wife.

Perhaps your seasoned cop is stuck in traffic  - your third variable might come in terms of gems of dialogue when he finally turns up to the scene. Maybe he's chomping on a breakfast McMuffin, Rookie tells him off. Turn the tables on the stereotypes.

I wonder what this poor bastard was doing down here in the middle of the night.
Some logic issues and I didn't quite get this cause it's his house. He's either got up up cause he's heard an intruder, or just the usual - toilet, glass of water etc.

I told the officers earlier that I'm not in the mood to answer questions, now please leave me the hell alone!
Quite a mouth on that woman, let me tell you.
Not really... Her husband was just murdered in a pretty graphic way and the only profanity she uses is: hell.

I'd make this more colourful. Smart mouths usually go with younger women - in general. Or, you could intro some comedy with this elderly woman really having a foul mouth. That would add comedy to a grim crime scene, give it a surreal comical tone.

Certain things don't add story wise and I think that's a plot problem. You've got an old guy stabbed fifteen times which doesn't sound like a smash n grab. It sounds like a targeted personal attack.

In which case the wife could've made it look like a break-in when it was in fact a crime of passion perhaps? Make the characters younger maybe, if you choose this path?

We won't know until the guys at the station can make that woman squeal.
The guys at the station? Aren't these two guys the investigating team? Make her squeal? Squeal is usually an informant term.

Alternatively, maybe the rookie is eating on the job/contaminating the crime scene? Maybe when seasoned cop turns up late he realises rookie has made a mess of things, maybe he steps all over the crime scene, and the plot turns to how they can get things cleaned up to cover their arses - seasoned cop is ultimately responsible. Maybe in the middle of it all - if you still go with wife being the third variable, she confesses to killing her husband. You just need to surprise us more and work the dialogue from there.

The concept is a good one: an investigator at his first murder scene.

I like the line "Why did you send me such a dumbass partner?"

Some of the lines offered explanation when there was no need for it: example: "You're at a crime scene, act like it."

Some of this felt like fairly standard police talk.  

First off thanks for the feedback everyone. There's a lot of it to go through, so bear with me.

I felt I needed to redeem myself after the less-than-satisfactory police ending in the OWC version of Homa (the second draft of which is now available btw).

I wanted to establish that Osborn is a seasoned, no-nonsense police detective and Hanson is a rookie who's just getting his feet wet. With this in mind, they would have a very contentious relationship starting out, so that's what I was attempting to convey through the dialog.

There ended up being two possible third-factors. The first is Hanson's inexperience and trying to walk on eggshells around Osborn trying not to look stupid. The second, and the one I intended, is that they may not have enough information to put a report together and are going over the facts in an attempt to get it.

To be honest I was a little disappointed that so many people knocked the dialog. Personally coming out of it I thought it was the best dialog I had written in my still young screenwriting career. I've had a history of clunky dialog and I thought this challenge would remedy that. Clearly I still have some work to do in that department.

It's a little difficult (at least for me) to come up with a story that will fit within a few pages. I guess that's part of the challenge aspect.

The ending was the best one that I could put together in a short period of time.

Quoted Text And they didn't talk about killing and murder in the academy?

I meant to convey that they would have, but not about what it's like to witness the aftermath of such things. Thus why Osborn says "Look, kid, there's a ton of things the academy doesn't prepare you for. This happens to be one of 'em."

Quoted Text You've got an old guy stabbed fifteen times which doesn't sound like a smash n grab. It sounds like a targeted personal attack.

What that meant to convey was that, as Hanson says, the culprit broke the front door window with the intention of robbery, but when he saw the victim he panicked and killed him.

Finally, Harry Boesch is a character in a series of amazing crime-suspense novels by Michael Connolly. That's who I was trying to channel with Osborn.

Thanks everyone once again for commenting. I'll get Writer's Choice someday. Someday...

Just want to chime in and say sorry you were disappointed, Mark.

At risk of sounding patronising you have a terrific never say die attitude which is half the battle.  Yes, just keep at it!

I actually pulled one of my OWC entries once mid challenge. Couldn't bear to hear more of the feedback.

Anyway, here's a link to a screenplay - based on Connelly's seventh novel, Blood Work, scripted by Brian Helgeland.

It might be up your alley.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=.....W_lKWOyV1YEeQOwmO217

Quoted from LC Just want to chime in and say sorry you were disappointed, Mark. At risk of sounding patronising you have a terrific never say die attitude which is half the battle.  Yes, just keep at it! I actually pulled one of my OWC entries once mid challenge. Couldn't bear to hear more of the feedback. Anyway, here's a link to a screenplay - based on Connelly's seventh novel, Blood Work, scripted by Brian Helgeland. It might be up your alley. https://www.google.com/url?sa=.....W_lKWOyV1YEeQOwmO217

Thank you so much for the encouragement! To you knowledge, is there anything I can do to try and improve while I wait for the next OWC?

Pretty cool that one of Michael Connelly's books got made into a movie. Pretty much any of them are movie material. Fun fact: Brian Helgeland also wrote the movie "42" which Chadwick Boseman was in.

Mark, my advice is to first read again the scripts that did well this OWC. Examine why they were crowd pleasers.

Then read more - Pro scripts and amateur and compare the two.

There's an A-Z of movie scripts you can download here:
https://www.simplyscripts.com/movie-scripts.html

Oscar winning scripts here:
https://www.simplyscripts.com/oscar_winners.html

If you have a favourite and it's not in that bunch, write the title+screenplay+pdf into any search engine and you might get lucky.

Search 'how to write good screenplay dialogue' in any search engine and likewise tons of links will come up:
Search greatest dialogue film examples too and watch the video scenes.

http://www.screenwritingspark.com/the-ultimate-screenwriting-dialogue-guide/
https://scriptmag.com/features/the-7-deadly-dialogue-sins

See how dialogue is used to create a natural rhythm for specific characters, notice contrasting dialogue with different characters etc. Look up the differences between vernacular, jargon, slang and colloquialisms.

If you're going to write a character in a specialist field i.e., medical, legal, police, etc., research first to see what jargon they use.

Listen to the way people speak.
Read out loud your own dialogue and/or get someone you know to read it so you can listen to see if it works, sounds natural etc.

After all that, remember this was a OWC dialogue exercise. A lot of scripts will not be as dialogue heavy.

With film and screenwriting as you know, the emphasis is primarily on the visual so you don't want to veer into novelistic writing but what dialogue you do write needs to pop, sound colourful (not boring, expositional, or predictable) and add another layer to your visual narrative.

Oh, and, I can't remember who said it in feedback in the challenge but someone made an excellent point along the lines of: none of us speak in complete paragraphs.

Just keep writing.
Next OWC will be October.  

P.S. Poor Chadwick Boseman, he was a real talent, seemed like an all round nice guy and was sadly taken too early.

P.P.S. An old article about Connelly scripts in development hell. Of course the Bosch series came out after this.
https://deadline.com/2010/12/a.....elopment-hell-91548/