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The Sheriff saying that if they don't find the spy in 24 hours the whole town is going to be destroyed is just too much to swallow.
And if they are convinced Mr Tenbaum is the spy, why do they go looking through the rest of the town for the spy?
I had to come up with something that would whip the people into a frenzy. Knowing that the town would be destroyed in a day I thought would be enough to do the trick.
As for the second point, the mob split up in case that Mr. Tenbaum really wasn't the spy after all. I figured that would be typical mob behavior.
Quoted from Fais85
You could have told us right in the intro that he is from the CIA.
Since you wouldn't know if you were watching the finished product (until he introduces himself in the dialog) that he's a CIA man, I wanted to have the reader/viewer wonder who the man is in the beginning.
Quoted from ABennettWriter
I thought it was too obvious what was going to happen. No sense of suspense or surprise. I wish it wasn't so The Andy Griffith Show. The setting really distracts from the storytelling.
You've got a good premise but you fail on the execution. There's a ton of "them" that you could've used, and you used "spy" and the CIA.
I struggled a little with the decision of whether to place it in the present or in TZ's era. I ultimately decided to place it in the 50s since the red scare, McCarthyism, lack of the internet etc. was very prominent during that time and may very well have led to something like what happens in the story.
Also, how did you know I was trying to channel The Andy Griffith Show, if only through the jail and the sheriff and deputy?
Quoted from Matthew Taylor
I'm pretty sure his partner would already know this information. Which means it's purely for the audience, which isn't great.
I was trying to land a gut-punch reveal like you'd find in many dramas of the era. I just don't know to execute a gut-punch reveal like that without having it be for the benefit of the audience.
Quoted from Lightfoot
You should give citizen 3 a name since he plays a role in this story.
I didn't give him a name since his name doesn't come up in the dialog.
Quoted from Grandma Bear
Unfortunately, you basically rewrote the same episode when the challenge was to take the idea and turn it into something new and different.
What I did was I took the witch-hunting and suspicions-of-each-other aspect from the episode and put a different spin on it. I thought that fulfilled the challenge.
Thanks once again for the feedback everyone and hope to see you all in the next OWC.