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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    One Week Challenge    April, 2009 One Week Challenge  ›  OWC - Rat Trap
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  Author    OWC - Rat Trap  (currently 3798 views)
Don
Posted: April 12th, 2009, 5:18pm Report to Moderator
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So, what are you writing?

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Rat Trap by Orville Kay - Short, Drama - Brian has a secret he is about to share with his family, it turns out that there are others interested in learning his secret too. Will Brian tell his secret? Will his family still love him? Who are those strange men on the boat? What is going on with that elevator?  All these will be revealed, and much more, on tonight's thrilling installment of....Rat Trap. - pdf, format


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Grandma Bear
Posted: April 12th, 2009, 7:55pm Report to Moderator
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I liked it.

Well written and well plotted. You did good.

I had no idea why the woman was in the elevator. At first I thought you had missed the change in theme for the OWC and was writing a comedy/stuck in elevator.

My only gripe with this one was that I wanted to know what was revealed at the family picnic. I was annoyed that I never found out. I realize that wasn't really necessary to the story, but I really wanted to know. Maybe reveal what it was in the end by the wife or something to fix that issue.

Nice job!  


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Sham
Posted: April 12th, 2009, 8:58pm Report to Moderator
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Quoted from Grandma Bear
I liked it.

Well written and well plotted. You did good.

I had no idea why the woman was in the elevator. At first I thought you had missed the change in theme for the OWC and was writing a comedy/stuck in elevator.

My only gripe with this one was that I wanted to know what was revealed at the family picnic. I was annoyed that I never found out. I realize that wasn't really necessary to the story, but I really wanted to know. Maybe reveal what it was in the end by the wife or something to fix that issue.

Nice job!  

Yeah, I really wanted to know Brian's secret, too. I suppose it's not terribly important, and I guess it would miss the point of the script if you actually gave it away.

A very solid script. It's a good story, and your writing is fine, but you have quite a few typos that could have been avoided by a quick read-through. Also, the line "cold pizza" doesn't need to be in a script. It can't be filmed.

Overall, though, a welcome addition to the OWC. Meets all criteria.



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steven8
Posted: April 12th, 2009, 9:23pm Report to Moderator
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Cool little story, and well told.  While it would have been neat to hear what Brian's secret really was, it wasn't relevant.  For 13 pages, you packed a lot of stuff in there!

Oh, be careful, you called Brian Sean on page 4.


...in no particular order
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cloroxmartini
Posted: April 12th, 2009, 10:40pm Report to Moderator
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ouch. tres unfortunate for father. if they missed that actual confession, should they still have pulled the trigger? i'm partial to happy endings. maybe Rudy should terminate Yellow and Blue (for incompetence) in the next installment. that would be a happy ending.
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The boy who could fly
Posted: April 13th, 2009, 9:44am Report to Moderator
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This was pretty good i thought...I liked how it started with Ruby stuck in an elevator....lol, I though that was pretty funny.  I liked the idea of this script the most......some of the dialogue with the family felt kinda weird...i dunno why it just did, but oh well,  I really liked the ending too,  the story itself was good and you followed the challenge so you get high marks for that.  Good job.


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seamus19382
Posted: April 13th, 2009, 10:12am Report to Moderator
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I liked it.  Nice twist.  I like that we don't find out the seceret.  Something to ponder on.  The dialogue did seem a bit stilted, but easily fixed.  I liked Ruby also.

Ps - Great title.
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Dreamscale
Posted: April 13th, 2009, 5:37pm Report to Moderator
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This is a well constructed story.  It keeps our interest as well throughout.

Lots of typos though. You're also missing some slugs when you go back and forth between the boat and the beach, which made things get confusing.

Biggest issue is the dialogue.  Everyone seems to speak like they're robots reading out of an English 101 book.  Doesn't come off as real based on this.

Good effort overall, though.
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theMADhatter
Posted: April 13th, 2009, 6:27pm Report to Moderator
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This was very well written. I was excited to read a conclusion. I also wondered about the girl in the elevator, but it worked out very well. Maybe a line at the picnic asking where someone is... would've masked who Ruby is even more. My only problem was the reaction of the family. Kinda strange that no one seemed to be reacting.

Very cool, nice twist, other than typos, written very well. Good descriptions.

-kjb.



Why is a Raven like a writing desk?
onus - Three men, three guns, no escape. (WIP)
the Deal - What would you do for a million dollars?
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mcornetto
Posted: April 14th, 2009, 3:27am Report to Moderator
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Nicely written.  I liked how you decided to cover all bases with the elevator and all.  You even brought the storyline with the elevator in at the end for a nice little twist.   I was expecting that you would do that and I'm glad you did because I would have been disappointed otherwise.

I had a couple of problems with this one small, one big.  The small one first.  Why did you name them Yellow and Blue?  I could understand that if you had made some association with their characteristics but you didn't.  You might as well have called them agent one and agent two because that's what the naming amounted to.  

The big problem I had was a logic problem.  If Yellow and Blue were after the wrong guy, how on earth would that know there was going to be a family secret told on that day?  And even if they were after the right guy, how would they know?  Especially if the guy was so hard to track down.  It would be much more realistic if they didn't know that secret was coming and lucked onto it. Then you could proceed with the dropping of the mic and maybe have it picked up again when the daughter was talking about all the FBI agents.  That should give them all the info they needed to do the hit.

Anyway, I though this was really good but the logic issue really took me out of the story.    
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Astrid
Posted: April 15th, 2009, 6:37pm Report to Moderator
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I really liked this one. It's suspenseful which makes for a  fun read. The action was well written. The dialogue tho, as others have said, is stiff. I noticed that you don't contract words much, making everything sounds a little too formal. Anyway, NICE!
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michel
Posted: April 16th, 2009, 5:10pm Report to Moderator
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Not that bad, a puzzle-like script. What annoyed me was you jump from the boat to the picnic without any change of location. Or do you stay on the boat, listening to the beach by some kind of radio?

It would be cool if Blue, Yellow and Ruby were with the FBI, or CIA, killing the wrong person. Ruby would flash her badge to get the phone from the nurse. I understand you get the gun to show Ruby used it before.

Plus, you call one of the characters GRACE in the dialogues, but Mom in the action lines.

Michel


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bobtheballa
Posted: April 16th, 2009, 6:49pm Report to Moderator
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Structurally this was a great story and pretty good for only one week. Though some of the others were disappointed, I really enjoyed the ambiguity of the dad's secret.

The main problem for me was the dialogue. The family members' dialogue was a little plain but it didn't distract me nearly as much as Red & Yellow's dialogue, which felt cringe-inducingly unrealistic.

Still, the set-up and execution for the story was well done and I enjoyed the read. Nice job.
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Brian M
Posted: April 17th, 2009, 2:35pm Report to Moderator
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Probably the best title in this OWC. A nice story with a really good twist with the elevator. I loved how you wrapped all this up. I too, didn't mind not finding out about the secret, it's not important to the story. If you tell the secret at the picnic, the elevator twist doesn't work so I think you done the right thing.

A re-read or two would have done this a world of good. Lots of typos, even one on the first page that nearly had he believing Ruby was a guy. Dialogue was also an issue that I can relate to, the time restrictions for the OWC might have played a part in that.

How did they know a family secret was going to be revealed on that day? That part confused me.

Overall, very well thought out story. Could be much better with a re-write. I will say again that the title of the script is pure genius. A job well done!
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Murphy
Posted: April 18th, 2009, 5:50pm Report to Moderator
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Thanks for the read folks, much appreciated. Will clear a couple of things up...

This was written with a few hours to go, strangely though it was not a rushed, last minute thing and I am not blaming that on my mistakes. I had decided to spend the week plotting my script in my head and by the time Saturday morning came I had a script all read to write. Once I finished it though I saw one tiny element in it that gave me inspiration for something else and thus re-wrote the whole thing in less than an hour.

Problems, Ruby started out life as a man and I missed out one of the "he's". Schoolboy error.

There was originally three kids but I kicked one out due to too many characters, but yet again left a couple of references to a larger family - another schoolboy error.

I had time to fix, for whatever reason that morning I was not thinking very clearly. I think I probably had a hangover.

I kicked myself when I read Cornetto's comment about how they knew that a secret was to be revealed, for some reason I had it in my head that they should have known. It only occurred to me when Michael said it that they actually did not need to know! I know other mentioned this too, you are right. Again, not thinking clearly.

I called them Yellow and Blue because I did not want to give them names, I did not want it revealed up front that they were mafia. If they had names it would be Vinny and Mikey or something, where I was hoping people might think they were FBI at first. I picked colours because of Ruby, i figured that they could all have colours, bit of Res Dogs there I guess.

It did originally write a scene at the end that was a few minutes flashback to before the gun was fired, sort of a Rashomon thing, the same scene from a different angle. In it Brian explained he was actually a retired CIA spy and was sure he was being followed and thought the Russians have come to kill him. Hence the reveal. But I decided it was too talky and too much for a short and like the idea of not actually finding out what his secret was. I am pleased that some people agreed.

My biggest problem, and Dreamscale mentioned this as me forgetting a slug, which was not the case but I understand where he got that from. Is that some of the beach scenes were actually being watched from the boat, so the dialogue was actually coming via the headphones. I did want to highlight this in Parentheticals but could not remember the phrase (I was using canned but was sure this was wrong) and again that got left out.

Was a bit disappointed the next day when I realised I could and should of done a better job with it. But thanks for reading anyway.
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