American Girl by D.W. Liu - Short, Drama - A sincere black lady turns the bigotry of a Chinese restaurant owner into the best weapon to save him and his 8-year-old daughter during an armed robbery.  19 pages - pdf, format

Interesting.  

There is a lot of fat to trim off of this, but overall it's not bad.

A few notes:

• A brief description of Tommy would help.
  
• Way too much description on everything.  
  
• Lose the "CONTINUED" at the bottom and top of the pages.
  
• Lose most of the parentheticals.
  
• There's no need to call Travis, "MAN" before introducing him.  Just call him Travis.
  
• Travis' quips about MSG sound silly.  I understand that he's trying to get Charline out of the place, but it just comes across as bad dialogue.
  
• Why would Travis pay for his food?  He was just robbing the place, and now he wants to pay for his food?  That seems out of character.
  
• You misspell "Gabby" at the end.
  
• "FADE OUT:" is traditionally on the right side.
  

There's story here but it's buried under a lot of unnecessary dialogue and description.

Jordan

Thanks for reading the script, and I really appreciate your excellent critique. The points are well taken. I'll definitely address the weakness you mentioned in the next rewrite.

D. W.

Most comments should be as tasty as carry out.  Read with a dash of soy sauce.

The general rule of scene writing is to arrive late and leave early. I. Other words, give the audience the meat.

Try trimming the beginning since Amy is going to go over the doll stuff with the black woman. Go right there. I think you draw out the confrontation far too long. And since Amy is the focus, have her give the hint to the black woman. And work out how she can get the hoodie guy to leave. Amy is our focus. Use her.

One more suggestion. Try to have Amy and the black woman trade gifts. Amy has daisy, mrs. Williams has gabby.  They're both happy and fulfilled

Keep us guessing with dialogue and push the envelop.

Best
Richard

Richard,

Thanks for the critique. I really appreciate it. The idea of trading gifts between Amy and Mrs. William is great, and the point is well taken about going to the point ("meat") quicker. It's one of the skills I need to hone in future writings.

David