The Slow Clap by Isaac Kiener (ReadsHarshly) - Short, Comedy - A man defies all the odds by entering an arm wrestling competition against men twice his size. 5 pages - pdf, format

Thanks for getting this up. It's short and sweet, but mostly short.

Enjoy

I'm not quite sure what you were trying to achieve with this. It felt like this was the end to some. It might have had a little more impact if you maybe showed the whole arm wrestling competition. If it were longer I may have cared that Jerry didn't win.

The formatting looked good. I wasn't looking at the words like a hawk, but no spelling errors popped up. At the end though you spose to have like a FADE OUT and then THE END. I think.

Anyway, a well written short, but the story need more attention.

Thanks Coop,

I guess that's all I was going for. Do you think it's actually worth it to add to this?

Ike

Hey Ike

First off, you probably know this but your title page isn't complete, no major thing though.

You put 'he is skinny but strong', not sure how we would know this on screen.  James' dialogue after lets us know he is athletic.

'but it might just be shaved'.  I think you should decide if its shaved or if he's naturally bald.  It's not something we should decide.

Top of page 2. 'when both competitors are sitting....'.  I'd change this description because it dosen't read well.  You've told us the size difference so I don't think it's really needed.

Top of page 3.  'he forces Brock hand back', should be 'Brock's'.

'they have nothing but respect for this man'. Again not sure how this can be shown.

Like Alex said, I'm not sure if this stnads by itself.  I understand the concept of the story, a guy competes against the odds, loses but wins respect, but it feels unfinished.  I think you need more.

Alffy

As always, Isaac, your title page is seriously under-written.

Lol, all jokes aside, get that fixed!

As for the story.... Um... I dunno, Isaac. This is your worst short on here yet no doubt. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I like your writing (still can't get over of how good that Plato short was) and your style but this was just too short and badly written. Good grammar though, as always, that's a good thing.

Looking forward to your next one!

Soirry guys. I'll try and work on my title pages. untill then, thanks for the review.

IkE

Quoted from Ike Do you think it's actually worth it to add to this?

I'd read it if you did. This is the kind of idea you could spawn into a feature, but where's the motivation? Although it was well written, I just don't get anything from this short. This doesn't compare to you're previous shorts.

I think I understand what you were trying to achieve with this.  A bit of a sweet twist.  Problem is there was no drama before hand, no reason to appreciate the twist, no real characters to hang onto so we can feel with them.

If you were going to make this longer then concentrate on your characters.  There is just the barest begining of characters in your script and they are aching to be completed.  

For example, why did toothpick enter the contest in the first place. I want to know.  There must be a reason.  Why should I feel happy for him when everyone applauds him at the end?

The other issue I found is that your actions are a bit dry. Try varying the words you use. Vary the way you form your sentences. Vary the length.  Don't just tell us what is happening - force us to become involved. Put some rythm, put some action into your actions.  

I didn't mind this script. The formatting was good, there were no errors that immediately jumped out, so well done on the technical front. Although, your title page was blank, which I don't understand, but that's a minor detail. As for the story and stuff, I don't think I can say anything that hasn't already been said by better critics than I. There's nothing really to get, I mean it's there and there's nothing wrong with that but there's no context. The final applause could be a powerful moment if it were the climax of a 90 page screenplay. It could be like a Rocky-type movie, except arm-wrestling instead of boxing.

If you choose not to extend this then it's just a fine little short, nothing wrong with it, but it does have the potential to be longer at least, if not a feature. Congrats.


Cheers, Chismeister.

Tanks for the replies. I'll have to consider coming back to this one day. I don't know if I could get myself to write a feature about arm wrestling but, more character never hurt nobody. Thanks again.

IkE

I thought this was funny. Was it supposed to be?

When they start to do the slow clap, which is a classic cliché in sports movies (Cool Runnings, anyone?) I was chuckling to myself. It's like it really set the stage for a brutal match and at the end everybody's best friends and Brock apologizes for calling him Toothpick! I really thought that was funny.

I don't know if that was what you were going for?

I was going for funny. Cool Runnings is one of the many silly sport movies that comes to mind with the slow clap. I pretty much just wanted to see what I could do with it. But yes, funny it was suposed to be,

Thanks for the review

Ike