Cut-and-shoot, Texas by Richard Longhorn (Abeoldieboy) - Short, Revisionist Western/Thriller - Joe King scours west and south Texas for Rick Rojas in this thrilling revisionist western.  19 pages - pdf, format

Richard,

Second slug: should be "fabrics" not "fabric's." You did this a few more times.

Your second scene needs some action/description before dialogue.

Greg's constant use of "fuck" got annoying after a while. Not that I have a problem with language, and I get that he's a thug-- but it gets tiring when characters use it every sentence.

Not sure the hospital scene serves the story in any way. Kinda interrupted the flow, and like I said, it doesn't seem very significant.

Greg's escape seemed too simple. He just walks out? Why didn't Joe tie him up or anything?

And Joe seemed to react quickly. One minute he was in the bathroom, but as soon as Greg gets out, Joe catches up to him with a baseball bat.

Joe's dialogue is long on page 8... a huge block of text.

This whole thing had a comedic vibe to it, IMO, even though it's listed as drama.

I liked it overall, but the story didn't really go anywhere. Just Joe catching a criminal, a few random scenes, a lecture on plantations and the end. Even though I like the ending you have, I think this could use more of a resolution, because right now it doesn't seem like a complete story, IMO.

But I enjoyed this nevertheless, so good job.

Will

I completely agree. This was posted in a frenzy after I found out that the site was back up. I have addded much more to the short. The re-write will be posted within the next few days.

Hey there Richard,

As you requested, I gave this a read. Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I got a bit distracted yesterday which was when I intended to have a look.

Let's get right into it, shall we?

First up, that logline could use a little bit of work, don't you think. Personally, I didn't find it that engaging at all. Truth be told, I picked this up because you asked me to, not because the logline sells it. Answer a few questions in the logline. Who is Joe King? Who is Rick Rojas? Why are they chasing each other? You've got to let people know what the story is about. You can't just leave it at "There's a guy who chases another guy".

Despite the logline issues and some writing mistakes (more on that below) I actually liked this. It strikes me as something that would do quite well out in the competition market, as long as it was filmed by someone who knows what they're doing. I didn't find many issues with the flow and the dialogue seemed realistic to me. Good job on punching something decent out, It's not bad at all, my friend.

Page 1: "A bright and sunny day outside the Joann's fabric's on Westheimer in Houston, Texas." - I'd avoid re-stating the location in the action paragraph. It's something that the reader has already learned from the slug.

I don't get why Joe shuts the lights off. It's in the middle of a "bright, sunny day"... surely shutting the lights won't have any affect anyway??

Page 3: "Joe turns around and blasts a full of round of AA12 ammo towards the direction in which the sound came from." - This reads incredibly awkwardly. "A full of round of..." ?? Doesn't make sense.

Page 4: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT should be INT. CAR - NIGHT -- You describe things that can only be seen from INSIDE the car.

Hang on... this guy kidnaps another guy and THEN he asks what's in it for him?! That's a bit weird. Maybe I missed something in the read.

Page 6: "The Doctor goes into the bathroom to wash his hands." - WHY the doctor goes into the bathroom is not important. All that can be seen on film is that he has gone to the bathroom. You don't need to explain what he's about to do, as he won't be onscreen for it anyway.

From then on, it was smooth reading.

Not bad. As I said I quite liked it. Just a few nit-picky things that didn't really make sense to me.

Take care.

Dan

Thanks for the read