Charlie Counsellor by Mike Felix - Short, Drama - {no logline} 10 pages - pdf format

New writer interested in feedback on this work, please be nice

Ahoy Mike,

Don't want to leave you hangin' so I'll be the first. Drum roll...

Not a bad effort. I know, I know...not exactly words to live by, but it just...is; basically, it's kind of ho-hum. It feels like it could be shorter. Dialog a bit too OTN. Try for more subtext instead. Some of the questions Charlie was asking, such as... how long they’ve been married? How they met?  I dunno, I may be way too square, but... when I was Charlie’s age I knew the answers to those questions about my parents. I think most teenagers would. I could be wrong though. But more to my point... in laywoman’s terms the exchanges between Beatrice, Ben, and Charlie seems to be a conversation that reads as if it's only for the benefit of the audience. I'm reacting to a lot of what seems to be staged expository dialog that is too heavy for my tastes. Not to belabor the point, but...naturally there has to be expository dialog and so forth but you need to hide or at least camouflage some exposition. Take it, it's backstory exposition, not plot exposition. Another option is to show a flashback.

That aside, I starting to realize exposition looks worse on the page than on the screen. I remember watching Rain Man, how all that back story was relayed before the brothers get on the road - - it's all exposition. But it didn't feel like it. Of course, I should not end this without remarking a suggestion. Maybe make Charlie a few years older and leave the reveal that he’s their son towards the end would have been a great Ah-Ha moment.  Yup, different strokes. No biggie.

Second -- logline it for us.

Anywaz, I've exceeded the max characters for this post. I like the sweet concept... I just think it needs a few minor adjustments.  Just my opinion. Wishing you the best of Irish luck with it.