World War Cup by Robert Finlayson - Short, Drama, War, Sports, History - The unofficial first World Cup final was played on Christmas Day 1914. 12 pages - pdf, format

Hi Robert,

The subject you picked is one that’s always fascinated me. Two sides at war decide to put their differences aside and have a football match on Christmas day. Soon after the war resumes and they are back trying to kill each other.

This could be a very emotional and powerful story, however it didn’t work that way for me. The basic descriptions of the setting were fine and I could picture the soldiers freezing in the trenches but that’s about it.

You need some basic character descriptions to help the reader identify them and identify with them. Just giving them a name or a generic IRISH SOLDIER isn’t enough.

For me the dialogue here is the biggest problem. It reads unnatural, forced ‘on the nose’ and quite bad. The attempts at accents didn’t work for me either.

I like the aspect of both sides kicking the ball into the opposing trenches to initiate the match but apart from that you don’t give us any insight into what happened that I don’t already know from my history lessons. The ending felt flat, although I could see what you was trying to do, again mainly because the dialogue seemed forced and too coincidental to be believed.

I didn’t care for these characters at all and I should have done, what they were going through was hell, what they accomplished on that day was a miracle that went down in history. I’m sorry to say I felt none of that from this script.

Suggestions - if you are going to write a story about a famous event, research the hell out of it and the people involved.

A flashback showing us the two sides fighting may help us feel more for the characters emotionally.

Say all dialogue out loud, if you can do so with a friend even better. You’ll soon ‘hear’ what dialogue sounds wrong and what works.

All the best.

Mark

Some thoughts... only my opinion, and all intend to help yo develop you're next draft.

1) Spiers walks up to the group of men with a kettle and offers them tea, technically he should have a tea pot or tea urn or similar for this
2) I dont think the soldiers would keep using each others names in the dialogue, I'd weed some out.
3) In character names you call out Voller as CORPORAL VOLLER when introduced but don;t do the same for TULL - i'd try and be consistent.
4) Not sure wht rank Spiers is but if Tull out rans him would there not be more respect in the conversation?
5) Even in Subtitled dialogue would anyone use the word beverage?
6) Similar to 4) but if Voller is a superior rank would he really pour for his men?
7) I think some of the dialogue needs changing to be less formal, words such as proficient, resume your promising career etc don't ring entirely true (not that I'm old enought to know of course).
A line apart you use footie and footy, I'd settle on one.
9) I think the match ended 3 - 2 to the Germans
10) Many consider the first world cup to have been played before WWI and there were German teams playing in it.

On the positives...

Love the football into the trenches to start things, maybe make more of the mistrust with the white flags.
Perhaps have highlights of the match detailed, maybe how both sides play revealling a little of their character?

It's a fascinating event, i'd polish some more and try get the dialogue to be less formal.

I believe there's also a feature film on the subject - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424205/?ref_=nv_sr_3 - might be worth a look.

Anthony