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Secrets and Dirty Little Lies (was What's On The Inside) by Cindy L. Keller - Short - A woman spends her last day with her online love interest to reveal her secret to him. 7 pages - pdf, format
Great to see new material from one of our veterans here. I'm not familiar with the story this is based on. I like the punchline and how it changes the meaning of Clarence's words on the show. However, him being a soft spoken type kinda gave it all away for me. He came off as some Gacy type from the get go to me.
Had Clarence been a little more charming and romantic, the reveal should be better. Then he;s prepared a "special" dinner for her and BLAM-O, guts galore. Yay.
Well written, crisp dialogue and evenly paced, good work. This might resonate with me more, had I known about the facts.
Regards, E.D.
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I liked this.
A few comments.
The ending was telegraphed by Clarence “It all depends on what’s inside.” Maybe if Terri Spaniel (great name) had said it?
Well mannored > well mannered
The slug INSIDE THE REFRIGERATOR seemed unnecessary. The story read the same with or without.
Terri could have had some more provocative reaction to Clarence’s mild reaction to Madelaine instead of “I suppose so.” Like “aren’t you mad at lies she told you?” as she tries to get a reaction for the ratings.
Hey Cindy...not bad. Not bad at all. For what it is, I think it works.
It's pretty much all set up for what's to come at the very end, but being only 5 pages, it doesn't drag too much, cause there's not much here to allow it to drag.
Only mistake I found was your opening description of Terri, in that you didn't use a comma to offset her description. You did it properly with Clarence's intro, so this must just have been an oversight...and an easy fix.
I guess the moral of the story is that we all have a secret.
I liked this one for the most part. What I mean by that is I liked the ending and I liked the rest up till then. They just don't match each other in tone. I like horror and dark stuff, you know that. I just think until the very end I really enjoyed it and it had a light tone. I had no idea what Clarence secret was going to be so good job on that. I thought though that the reveal would be something lighter in tone with the rest of the script. So in that way the ending was disappointing to me. If you could somehow just set a slightly darker tone earlier on I think that ending would work better. I was almost ready for something funny to happen so I wasn't prepared.
Kevin, Thanks for reading. I saw a young man get tricked like this on TV and he didn't seem to care. So it made me wonder why. Then my imagination took over.
Lyston L, Thank you for giving this one a read. I wanted an ending that wasn't expected. Glad you liked it.
Brett, Thank you for giving this a read. Yep. The guy I pictured in my head was like Gacy. He still creeps me out. I think that could be why I don't like clowns. I thought about dinner and guts, too, but decided to go this way with it.
Gary, Thank you for the read. Glad you liked this. Thanks for catching the typo. Glad you liked the name, too. I wanted it to be a cheap imitation of another popular show. Good idea about Terri and her dialogue. I'll definately change it up some.
Jeff, Thanks for giving this a read. It was just something to write until I can start digging into a new feature horror. Yep, the moral is correct.
Pia, Thank you for giving this a read. I know exactly what you mean. I was wondering about that myself and had been brainstorming about a different ending because I wanted it to be something that wasn't expected. I do have a different ending that I've been thinking about, but it would make this short a little longer. I tried to keep it under 5 pages for this draft to see if I could do it. I think I will go ahead and do the rewrite. I think you'll like the alternate ending I've got planned.
Thank you everyone for giving this a read. I hope it made you smile.
Cindy
Award winning screenwriter Available screenplays TINA DARLING - 114 page Comedy ONLY OSCAR KNOWS - 99 page Horror A SONG IN MY HEART - 94 page Drama HALLOWEEN GAMES - 105 page Drama
first and foremost, im a closeted maury fan and i'm pretty sure i've seen a similar story on his show. i honestly dont know why i enjoy watching the show, but i always seem to turn it on while im eating lunch. lunch and maury go together like pb and j.
regardless, the terri segment of the show was spot on. it flowed nicely and was reflective of a standard episode of maury/jerry. the only thing that stood out as odd was the one man who laughed by himself. i get what you're saying but it might distract a bit from the overall story.
i also enjoyed the scene where terri reflects on what she's doing. personally, id like the scene to play out where terri has a moment of guilt and then forgets about it almost instantaneously when she thinks about the money and fame. perhaps this scene should tie in with the ending a bit more closely.
which brings me to the ending. i'm 50/50 on this one. on the one hand, i like that it's so out there. it comes out of no where. but on the other hand, i feel like its disjointed from the rest of the story. i, for one, had no idea what was going to happen. and i would try to base my revisions on your audience's reactions. if everyone feels like the ending was too baffling, then i would give more hints throughout the rest of the story. i liked the line "its on the inside that counts" but i feel like even that should be a little more indicative of the ending. perhaps you could lengthen the talk show scene a bit to include more "hints" of the big reveal.
regardless, an enjoyable read for sure. and very well written.
Pia has a perfect location to shoot the interior for CLARENCE's house.
I wonder if she opened the fridge there?
LMAO
I wonder...
Award winning screenwriter Available screenplays TINA DARLING - 114 page Comedy ONLY OSCAR KNOWS - 99 page Horror A SONG IN MY HEART - 94 page Drama HALLOWEEN GAMES - 105 page Drama
Thank you for giving this one a read. The laughing man wasn't supposed to be the only one in the audience that was laughing, just the only one going overboard with it. I'll have to make that clearer in the next draft...
and I'll elaborate on Clarence's character.
I think readers who were unsure of this ending will like the new ending I have planned.
vancety, I know of Ricky Lake and American Psycho, but haven't seen the Crying Game.
Award winning screenwriter Available screenplays TINA DARLING - 114 page Comedy ONLY OSCAR KNOWS - 99 page Horror A SONG IN MY HEART - 94 page Drama HALLOWEEN GAMES - 105 page Drama
Not sure what to make of this one. When I first read it, it seemed like the story had three major and perhaps unprecedented tonal shifts, which left me feeling it was severely disjointed. However over time, the shifts in the story itself seemed to make sense and you sort of did follow through with what was set up earlier on.
The ending seems to be what gets everyone's goat so far. I'm not sure it would've been as strange if you hadn't preceded it by humanizing Terri. There's a moment where I thought this might take a drama route as apparently, Terri isn't as much a sleaze as she appears. As a result, I wasn't sure if the ending was supposed to be cute or dark.
Not really nitpicking here. The more I think about it, the more it seems like the script works. Nevertheless, these were a few things I thought I should bring to your attention. I expect this might still confound a few more readers.