Cocky by Michael K. Snyder - Short, Drama - The fall of a drug lord takes place on his own boat.Who is he fighting, and how did he get there? 6 pages - pdf, format

Good effort, As a short story it was all chugging along quite nicely until the end. I didn't get the end however, you said his clips were empty when he was shot in the head but the cop said he shot himself - how did he manage that? Also, I don't want to pick too much, but they would not have been able to do a ballistics match unless the bullet had exited his head and been found lodged somewhere on the boat, otherwise you would have to wait for the autopsy to dig it out of his skull. (not that I am an expert or anything but I have seen CSI ) If you are gonna go for the exited bullet theory you may want to show them finding it at the scene.

However, it was nicely formatted, written well and engaging enough for me to want to get to the end.

Thanks Murphy

Hey Michael,

I like the tone, mood and violence of the piece, they're always movies I'm interested in watching.

There were some technical formatting and grammatical errors, which take away from the reading of a story so short, but hopefully, a simple re-write can fix those mistakes.

Probably the main distractions of the script were the ones covered by Murph already.  About how Rico shot himself while never showing him reloading first when the clip is empty.  And about how while, even four hours later, with Rico's body still laying there dead on the boat, how they managed to do a ballistic's on the bullet.  I was kind of actually hoping that I would be the only one to think of that error, for sake of not repeating anybody else.

Another distraction I had found, though, was how you never managed to answer your own questions in your logline.

'Who is he fighting?'  -  You never told the reader.  Sure, at the end, we know it was the cops, but in the beginning, who did he kill?  Were they other cops, maybe narc's, and that's how the cops were outside ready for war already?  Or was it rival dealers?

'How did he get there?'  -  We know he was on his boat and one could assume he bought it with his drug money, but how did he get into that position in the first place?  If it was rival dealers, did they rip him off and everything went sour?  If it was narc's, how did Rico figure out who they were?

There were just too many questions left unanswered.  Questions that you had even brought up in selling the story.

A little bit of the dialogue seemed forced and unoriginal, but like I had said, I did like the tone and mood of the peace, and I wasn't at all ever really bored throughout the five or six pages, so good job on that.

- Mark

An interesting read though problems in it took away from the story.  The ballistics-thing, mentioned earlier, was one.  The fact that he went from sell coke in the school yard to being Scarface in five years is extremely unbelieveable.

You set the mood nicely for the piece, but that's all you pretty much have is mood.


Phil

Quoted Text Rico stands by the entrance to the lower deck of his boat

Since you're introducing Rico, he needs to be all caps.

Quoted Text RICO (vo)

The VO should be next to his name, not under it.

Quoted Text His eyes, shaded by his knock-off Oakley’s.

No comma needed here

Quoted Text Some are worst than others

Should be "worse"

Quoted Text Detective Rice

All characters need ALL CAPS on their name when introduced.

Quoted Text The ballistics in his head match those of his own weapon.l

How did that happen?  You should explain this.

Quoted Text It was Rico.

This line seemd a little cheesy to me.  I like the message, but not the dialogue.

You do a good job of telling the story.  I kept reading despite the constant typos and formatting errors, and if your story wasn't interesting to me I would have bailed.  You need to get a handle on some basic formatting stuff.  For example, the hyphen spacing on your scene headings is wrong, and there are no spaces after your periods.  

In my opinion, format is easy to fix.  Storytelling is hard to fix.  It looks like you can tell a story.  Keep posting.

Hey Mike;

Nice hard-boiled gangster piece...I'd like more though...I think Rico spends to much time talking to himself in voice overs...Takes the reader out of the story, which is mostly in flashback... Ending is a little cliche'...

Joe

You've got the feel of a gangster film right (though I have to admit it's not a genre I've watched a lot of), but I'm afraid that the whole thing left me feeling a bit... meh. There's potential there, but it needs developing.

I'd like to see the character of Rico fleshed out a bit - give him something to separate him from your average gangster-type. Maybe you could develop more of a relationship between him and Rice? Show the cop beginning to pick up his scent, have him know Rico but be unable to pin anything on him - something like that to draw the reader in.

A few minor formatting issues (no spaces between words, etc.). But the main thing is that you need to super the date and place in the flashbacks, as viewers won't be able to read the slugline.  

At best, it sounds like an old 2 minute Miami Vice episode.  Not too much here that I'd say really worked or was unique or interesting in any way.

I think your flow and style, for the most part, are OK, and it appears that you know how to set a scene, although the detail is almost nonexistant.

How come you don't use any spaces after "periods"?  It makes it more difficult for me to read without them for sure.

As others have already commented, the end doesn't work at all, and doesn't make sense.

Sorry to sound so negative, but it doesn't do it for me.  Keep at it!