When It's Over by George Willson - Short, Drama - Bob celebrates his birthday with family.     A July, 2006 One Week Writing Challenge Entry - pdf, format

Interesting, and you were definitely attempting the full on tearjerker here.

A couple things:

These medals that he's showcasing, you should describe them.  The medal that got him discharged especially.  I'm assuming it's a purple heart, but it should be there.

SPOILER

There was nothing at all in here indicating that he was going to die.  No sense of it at all, and when it happened, it was just kind of, meh, because of it.  I think by making him a little more frail and/or sick it would increase the dramatic element of it.

END SPOILER

Anyway, a nice job overall.

Definitely an emotional piece you got here and wonderfully written.

*As Shelton said, there's no indication that Bob was going to die, it just kind of happens.
*I was going to comment on how Bob rambles toward the end with the "love" speech, but then I thought, well maybe he knows his time is coming?  Is that what you were going for?
*Maybe the medals are a brief foreshadowing.  He survived that bloody battle but dies peacefully moments later.

Overall I enjoyed this piece very much.  A shocking ending, really, since there wasn't any physical indication that Bob was going to pass away.  Solid effort!

This was well written and it sure has some drama in it. My only beef has already been mentioned by other readers...

*SPOILERS*

...Bob's death seems to come out of nowhere.

Till the final scene I pictured him as a healthy man. Maybe you should have him coughing or something during the indroduction scene.

Despite that, good job.

I have to agree with the others here, too...
I think it all happened too quickly with Bob being happy at his party, then dying in the house. Even though he mentions that his heart cannot take it, and that the doctor has told him to slow down.
I think you could show this before he opens his presents. Maybe have him in the kitchen taking a nitro tablet, while his wife is outside telling the family that the doctor told him he is doing much better.  ??? Something like that. Have him hide his heart problems from the family on that day.  
Anyway, I liked the bittersweet ending. I think it could have been a lot sadder if I had cared more about Bob. I mean you have him tell everyone how much they mean to him, and you show him looking forward to a fishing trip. Those were really good. Really good... but I think if he knew he was in trouble, and didn't tell the family it would be so much more dramatic.

Just my two cents,
Cindy

I thought that this short was well written for the most part.

I felt that you did a good job at developing Bob's character enough for us to care about him. That is the most difficult thing to do in a short in my opinion.

Not that much else to say that hasn't already been said. Tighten it up a little, forshadow the death earlier and you have a very well written, emotional screenplay here. It would probably play out pretty well if it was filmed.

Good job (but thanks a lot for making me cry!)

-Kotton

This was a very well written short.


I felt a little sad reading linda's line:"And we'll have fifty more, right?"

The conversation between carl and his wife was a little out of place. Maybe have her shake her head or shoot him a cold stare when asked by his mom to visit next time.
It didn't seem like an appropiate time for the two to speak about it, in a crowded room. Plus the dialogue in that exchange felt a tad ackward.

Like posts above I think you could have put more foreshadow into the ending.

Make it a suprise, but not something completely out of the blue.

It reminds me of a short I saw at a film festival called the last farm (not too much though). I didn't realize the short was nominated for an oscar last year, i belive they sell it to download load on itunes if you want to check it out.

I loved the way of you wrote the dialogues, they touched me (Hey, I have a heart too!) so much, but I missed some dramatic situations in it maybe for increase the  value of end.  

BTW, about to know Bob is dead I think it worked for me and it was touching and great. Look if one day I'll die, I said if , so I would like to die like Bob!

God job

this is another well written short.  I think it fit the theme well and there were some really nice moments.

I like Carl's gift to Bob, that was cute

*********SPOILERS**********


I thought the end worked for me, I kinda had the feeling Bob was going to die when he asks his wife to sing Amazing grace.

I thought it had a nice emotional impact, sad, but not depressing.

Good work

It was a very emotional piece. The only problem that I saw which many reviews pointed out was the sudden death at the end. But nevertheless it was a good story, very depressing, but quite good.  

Wow, a tearjerker that I actually liked. I'm not much for this sort of thing but when it's written well and paced just right then I don't care, I really liked it.

SPOILERS!!

The sudden death is a nice touch for me. He mentioned something about ignoring his doctors orders or something like that, which made the sudden death fine. It was a very emotional piece for sure and a very well written one at that too.

Good job.

GBM

Thanks for all the comments I received on this one. I'd gone to a funeral the week of the competition and the story of how this guy died was told there, and I thought it was just beautiful. While the original intent was to make him just die peacefully, I can see the added impact if we knew how close to the end he really was. But I'm still waffling on that account, since he is old already. I'm not sure how many people realize this, but the body will simply give out when you reach a certain age, and it can happen without warning. Geriatrics is 100% fatal.

Hey George. You mentioned something about polar opposites so I figured I'd read both your scripts back to back. I thought I'd read this one first as there's been some buzz surrounding A Woman Scorned which probably makes it better to save for last. Anyway, here goes...

This was a very strong piece. The first half is full of uplifting emotions that help prepare the reader/viewer for the second half, in which Bob dies. It's a sad ending but happy at the same time. It's a nice to know the last few hours of his life were spent surrounded by family and friends followed by in the arms of his wife. I thought it was very touching but subtle.

All in all, I got no beefs with this one. I liked it a lot. However something tells me I should have read this last instead. Anyway, good job, George.

I'm not very touched by it, I guess I'm cold hearted in that way.

1) The formatting seems off. Looks like the lines are too close.
2) The dialogue is not too melodramatic and seems natural, except the final scene. It seems to be straight out of '7th Heaven' in the final scene and didn't work for me. May be you're intentionally going for that effect and preparing your audience for the finale.

Overall, it's quite a page turner. It never bored me.

EDIT: I see that you've written plenty of scripts. I might be totally off on that formatting comment then.

Thanks for the read. If the format's off on this one, I blame Final Draft, since that's what I used in this instance. I usually do it manually in Word, but since I submitted two scripts for the exercise and used Word for the other one, I thought I'd mix it up.

I probably did go overboard at the end, dialogue wise. Wouldn't surprise me.

Thanks again.