The System by Christopher Stack - Short, Action - A mob associate realizes he has made a crucial mistake and races to fix it before it's too late. 4 pages - pdf, format

Christopher,

Good job, very stylish and descriptive. You might not have revealed the winner, but I defiantly know who the loser is!

John

***SPOILERS BELOW***


Christopher,

I enjoyed this-- reminded me a bit of Stanley Kubrick's The Killing. But I may have missed the point of this story... writer messes up and gives boss wrong info, realizes his mistake but it's too late. Don't get me wrong, it was interesting and had some nice visuals...but other than that there wasn't much to it.

There is a good idea here-- this writer spends so much time with his work, he doesn't pay attention to things around him (the weather outside) which turns out to be a crucial mistake.

Anyway, the writing here kind of passive at times. "Hooves trotting" "pen writing," but otherwise it's solidly written.

Get rid of CONTINUED at the top and bottom of the pages.

No one here has a name-- just generic WRITER and LARGE MAN. So, I'd consider giving them names.

And what's with the character named "V.O." at the end? The way it's written makes it hard to tell whether we're hearing a narrator or an announcer. I'm going with announcer, but it always helps to be specific.

Anyway, this was interesting, but as stated above, it has some issues. Looking forward to draft 2.

Not much of a story.
A guy gives out horses names for the mob, the weather changes the running and now he is trying to make amends before it's too late.

I agree with crookedowl, there's no reason why you shouldn't name your characters, they're obviously central to your story and would make it more believable.

Overall the writing was pretty good

Mark

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your comments. This is only my second short that I've written so I know I have some work to do. The way I visualized it in my head was that faces would not be shown at all throughout the short and the characters would remain nameless. I was more visualizing it as being close-ups of what was going on but I didn't want to litter the script with "CU:" all over the place. I'm always told to let the director direct and figured the way I wrote it was the way to do just that.

I thought of this late one night when I was trying to sleep and just decided to get up and write it up before I forgot. Being new to this, I wasn't sure of the best way to format it to show what I was visualizing. If there is a better way of doing it, I'm all ears. I have considered making this into a longer short that would involve more descriptions of the characters as well as a more in-depth story. I suppose I just didn't want to get too deep into it before finding out the formatting or basic structure was wrong.

Thanks again for the critiques and keep them coming as that's the only way I'll learn. Incidentally, I use Celtx and the "CONTINUED" seems to go there automatically. I'll start deleting them.

Thanks,

Chris

Hey chris

Had a quick read.

Not bad, but to me, this needs fleshing out to make use of the idea. Just a few too many blanks for us to be connected. Why should I feel for the writer! If he is that good, why didn't he play close attention to the weather conditions - something on his mind? What has he to loose?

The opening I found a little confusing with the pen writing , hoodies trotting etc

Everyone has ther own style but I do prefer, as reader, a general bias towards writing like . A pen writes across a sheet. Hoovies  trot across the race track. I read once that the "ing" words are often best when they re  the second verb, eg a man walks into a bar, smoking a cigarette.. The ing words are then Good for showing something stopping or changes.

Flesh it out and I think  it will have more impact.

All the best.

The first impression I got was that the writer was going to outsmart his boss. I agree that the story fell short, but thanks for posting it.

I'm pretty new to this as well, I've learned a lot from the feedback I get from the talented members here. Good luck with your story, what is the name of your other short? Is it posted on the site?

John

This reminded me of The Killing too. I didn't really have a problem with the "faceless" figures. For a short, it worked. I just imagined a real-life Fat Tony and Gil from The Simpsons.

However, I do think maybe you should come out and address what's on the line for Writer. It's second nature that Heavy will whack him--just like a cat WILL chase a mouse--but you should build on that. Maybe Heavy needs the money to save both their daughters from a rival mobster? Or maybe Heavy got in a mess that will expose land several families in the slammer unless he's able to win the races and fix things?

Chris,
You did pretty good with this considering you are new to this and this just came to you before you went to sleep one night.  I agree with some of the comments above, needs a little more to really get a feel for what is going on.

Here are a few things I found:
Pg 2:
In dialogue, I think you should spell out the numbers.  Doesn't really bother me bad, some might think it is lazy writing.

When the Heavy Man chuckles, I think it is obviously to himself.  Just put chuckles.  Also, make sure you don't have too many parentheticals.

Might think about breaking up the paragraph where he realizes that the winners are going to be wrong.  Partly, because it is too long.  Mostly, because you can emphasize this, as it is important to your (short) story - that "Oh SH!T" moment.  Make it yours, but maybe break out the line(s) that reveal that it will be wrong!  I'm not even sure I would actually say they are wrong, but let the reader feel it.  Maybe I'm overdoing it here.  Just think about it.

Pg 3:
"The writer has abandonded his car..."  I would go with the next line and just say something like, "... toward the distant horse track, his abandoned car engine still running."  Just a thought.

Good luck!  Keep writing!!!

Strange script, somehow enjoyable. Agree with Mark that it doesn't really have a story. This feels like a writing exercise where you were experimenting.

For 3 pages, you've done a good job with the story but it's still lacking for me.

A good effort for a second script though.

Thanks all for your critiques and words of encouragement. I'll give it a rewrite with all of your advice in mind and I think I'll lengthen it a few more pages to beef the story up. Incidentally, some of the interesting ways that you guys saw it heading hadn't even occurred to me so thanks for getting my wheels spinning.

John, my first script is posted on this site but you'd have to do a search for it and make sure it's set for 30 days or older, not newer. It's called "Double Down" and not only was it my first but it is a comedy which, I'm told, tends to be the most difficult to write. Oh and on "Double Down", I'm in the process of making it a feature. I'll post it here when it's ready.

Thanks again, everyone!

Liked the writing, didn't quite get the story. Also, kept thinking the writer was a writer, and that the names of the horses were something to do with how he picked them. But that could well just be me confusing myself .

Chris this may be a bit pointless but I agree with most here.  The story is a little thin and leaves a lot to the imagination...sometimes a good thing.  I was left asking myself why does the writer have to pick winners, is his life at stake?  

Despite this I really enjoyed this little script.  I found it rather enjoyable for such a short piece.

Nice work, Chris.