Oh, man. I'm just explaining the concept really poorly. Declan gets involved in the story because of the gold but to me, I feel as if the ending doesn't have anything to do with the gold (when it should since we spend so long on it), it felt as if the writer needed a way for him to be injected into the story. But why stay on it for so long? Why not have him just discover the time machine straight up and just use that from the get go? The whole point is to get him to the sundial but I can't see any good reason why Declan doesn't discover that first and use it to his advantage. It would surely cut down on the page length. I think this is just one of those things coming across the wrong way, different strokes and all... Safe to just ignore this aspect for now.

Quoted from James McClung What would make the opening dramatic then?

Conflict and/or tension will make it dramatic. You have no conflict in the opening scenes. That's the issue. Any you can put conflict there, you just have to find a way to do it.

Listen to what Hitchcock says here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0Ckf3YMfZE

"In other words, you are telling the audience, giving them some information, but at the time you give it, it must appear to be something else."

Vertigo, for example, start with a bang. It literally starts with conflict. That's drama. That's how Stewart's character gets acrophobia. You have to present exposition in a way that isn't simply showing things, but showing things in conflict or tension. Is there any specific movie you'd like to talk about?

Quoted from James McClung I guess you could say a dude cleaning his house isn't dramatic, which I can understand, but in this case

You just admitted what the problem is. Don't rationalize. You know the problem. Now fix it. I know its hard to make exposition interesting. Trust me, I get it. Imo, it's the hardest part of storytelling.

Quoted from James McClung Other than that, I don't see how the first ten pages aren't dramatic. You have a mysterious stranger, threats, intimidation, violence, etc. and everything after follows through on that, not to mention a full blown time travel sequence.

There's conflict, as I mentioned, it begins on page 6. It was just padded with too much. And once that scene ends on page 9 I just don't really see the point of it. "He grabs the instrument
and smashes it over Grimble’s head." What instrument are you referring to here?

What's your main character's goal? It might be in there, I just don't see it. It wasn't clear to me. What's your character's goal before Declan arrives? And who tries to prevent him from achieving it?

Quoted from James McClung If you had to wait 15-20 pages to get all this, maybe I could understand where you're coming from. But in this case, you didn't even have to wait 10. So what gives? Explain to me what would make this work better.

Again, let's talk about a specific movie here and look at just the first five pages of it and it'll make more sense where the conflict/tension is present and helps build the story.

-J.S.

I'd like to hop in for just a minute...

First, Bert's review pretty much sums up what I think of this one -- kinda.

Second, I see where J.S. is coming from with some of his comments, and I agree with him.  As far as what you can do with the opening of "a dude cleaning his house" and making it more dramatic, either change it to something else that is dramatic or give us a reason as to why he's cleaning his house -- is he expecting a hot date and his place is a mess?  LOL NOT the perfect example for your short, but you get the idea you know.  Maybe if there's some kind of urgency behind it, it would work a bit better as an opening.

Also, James, you mention intimidation and violence and threats in the first 10... I decided to re-open this and skim through it and, ultimately, I came to the conclusion that a lot of it didn't come across as strong enough.  It wasn't done in a compelling way, imo.  I'm starting to think that if it was, despite my feelings of reading stories that take place in time period's like this, that I would have been engaged enough anyway to read the rest of this short when you first e-mailed it to me.

Anyway, I've been finding the reviews and the back and forth to be quite interesting and informative, so I'll stick around to see what others have to say.


--Steve

Quoted from Guest As far as what you can do with the opening of "a dude cleaning his house" and making it more dramatic, either change it to something else that is dramatic or give us a reason as to why he's cleaning his house -- is he expecting a hot date and his place is a mess?  LOL NOT the perfect example for your short, but you get the idea you know.  Maybe if there's some kind of urgency behind it, it would work a bit better as an opening.

Exactly. I'm also reminded of Hitchcock's Family Plot, a movie I actually like despite what many others think of it, the movie literally does what he describes. It starts off with something completely immaterial to the plot. But it wasn't immaterial when he first presented to us at the beginning of the movie, because that's what we thought the movie was actually about. But it's not. That's the trick he's describing in the video.

-J.S.

If I'm being honest, I suppose Grimble doesn't have a goal, per se. He has things he devotes his time and energy to, which he's passionate about, but obviously those aren't the kinds of goals we're talking about here. Declan comes in, kidnaps him, and takes him away from all that. At this point, Grimble's goal is to subdue his captor, escape, and return to his normal life.

Honestly, I thought the setup was fine. By page four, a stranger is trying to enter the house and Grimble has to decide whether or not to let him in. Maybe it's not ominous enough? That'd be a fair point. Indeed, there's supposed to be a question of whether this man is dangerous or not. But that seems to be a different issue than what we're talking about.

I didn't think three pages of setup was that big a deal. Maybe it is. That said, up until Declan's appearance, I have fuck all idea how to make it more "interesting" other than cut it all out and introduce Declan immediately after, like, one page or something. Grimble's not trying to save the world or write the world's most important manuscript or anything like that so short of going that route, I'm at something of a loss.

Will have to sleep on it, I suppose.

Quoted from James McClung Would you be able to tell me the first moment where you started to feel confused? I could certainly take a look.

Hey James,

The confusion stems primarily from two areas of the script.

The first is the opening, in which:  Grimble shoots back to his cottage, and there are two of them; then we are quickly back to the field, then the cottage, then the field again; then we begin the story proper.  The significance of these short, intervening passages remains lost on me, even after visiting this story a second time. They confused me on first read, and they confuse me now.

The second occurs as we reach the climax of the story, after the past Declan has been dispatched.  They begin to sneeze, then cry like babies, and I am once more feeling that I have lost the thread of this story.  All of this occurs on page 24 of the current draft, along with the abrupt ending that does nothing to alleviate my confusion.

Like I said earlier, I get this story in a very general sense, and have no issues with the writing, the pace, or the characters themselves.  You might consider having Grimble use a bucket of boiling water during his elaborate escape to help things along.

But the specific instances noted above continue to elude me.  You are either being too clever, or not clever enough, which leaves two options.  Either clarify what is going on or consider dropping them from the narrative.  I think the story would be strengthened either way.

Thanks, Bert.

Quoted from bert The confusion stems primarily from two areas of the script. The first is the opening, in which:  Grimble shoots back to his cottage, and there are two of them; then we are quickly back to the field, then the cottage, then the field again; then we begin the story proper.  The significance of these short, intervening passages remains lost on me, even after visiting this story a second time. They confused me on first read, and they confuse me now.

The idea is that when we see the field the second time, it's a repeat of the opening scene. Grimble remains at the cottage while his past self uses the time machine, as his present self did the first time around. This time, however, Past Grimble presumably watches his step on his way to the field, given the advice of his future self who presumably fell somewhere along the way the first time around. Hence Grimble's bruise is gone when his past self time travels.

I used sneezing here and at the end to indicate a change in time.

The greater idea was to show that Grimble uses regularly the time machine to do twice as much work in the same amount of time.

I think the confusion here comes from the fact that simply none of this is clear enough. I think a handful of tweaks might do the trick.

Quoted from bert The second occurs as we reach the climax of the story, after the past Declan has been dispatched.  They begin to sneeze, then cry like babies, and I am once more feeling that I have lost the thread of this story.  All of this occurs on page 24 of the current draft, along with the abrupt ending that does nothing to alleviate my confusion.

This is about the fifth time the ending has been brought up in this way. I always figured it'd be somewhat contentious but as it turns out, nobody's really had anything positive to say about it. So, I'd wager it's not contentious at all; it just sucks.

I'll try to come up with a new ending. Unfortunately, I think some of my fallback ideas might be just as zany. There's a few more obvious ways I can go, such as future Grimble and Declan disappearing, blowing up, etc. but I think they're way too obvious. Maybe that'd be good for everyone else but I have sort of an aversion to playing off conventional ideas as inventive or exciting. It just seems false to me.

In any case, sorry for the confusion. There's definitely a lot of kinks here that need to be worked out.