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Those Damned Engineers by Lee Field - Action, Adventure - Outnumbered ten to one a group of untrained, combat engineers manages to defeat the spearhead of the German offensive during the height of the Battle of The Bulge in the winter of 1944. 108 pages - pdf, format
Not the best with log-lines, but to me this feels like you’re giving the game away. You’re essentially setting the premise and then telling us the outcome i.e. good guys (underdogs) defeat the bad guys (Nazis). Much as we could probably guess at the outcome, I’d think it best to leave it out. Give us a reason to want to open this up.
Read up to p.25 -- familiar premise -- puts me in mind of Miracle at St. Anna, Saints and Soldiers, Fury etc. (I'd check out their log-lines for an idea of how to approach your own) -- the small band of brothers forced to fight against overwhelming odds. Not to say it’s a bad thing -- it seems to work and WW2 underdog stories continue to get made so… I guess the idea here is to pitch a group of non-combat soldiers into that scenario and have them rely on their engineering skills to win the day… I can get with that. Is it based on a real life event?
To be honest the writing here needs attention, something you need to address before you can really get into the story beneath -- often you’re ‘telling’ us what’s going on in the action rather than presenting the scene visually. The read feels fractured, more of an outline in places.
Anyway, not trying to bash your efforts, I’ll post more if I know you're around and looking to get involved here.
All the best,
Steve
My short scripts can be found here on my new & improved budget website:
It says Inspired By Actual Events on the title page and I should think also by the 1965 film THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE. The writer takes a huge liberty with the massacre which was very much a real life event: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malmedy_massacre> The name of the SS man responsible is spelled wrongly about half the time in the script, and other errors made it hard to take seriously.
Lee, if you are around, there are things you can improve. The writing, as Steve says, needs attention.
For example, because it's an important part of motivation for the eventual act of retribution, make it clear about the relationship of the lover buddies when we first meet them. That came unexpectedly for me when one witnesses the other's death.
Descriptions are overlong in an effort to explain:
Quoted from THOSEDAMNEDENGINEERS.pdf
EXT. CAMP - DAY
The last of the line for the American expeditionary force in Europe, far from the front this is where men go to recuperate from battle. Mainly support personal hardly any infantry or battle ready troops.
Men and material are scattered around in organized chaos. There seems to be no discernible order to anything. Man walk around lazily smoking like there is not a care in the world. The only people that seem real busy are the cooks.
Instead of pumping all this dry information at the reader, have characters relate the important parts. You could have a new arrival shown around, an officer on inspection or perhaps David can sneak Marie into camp and tell her.
DAVID These men are here to recuperate. Mainly support personnel, combat engineers and the like.
NEW GUY Nobody looks busy.
DAVID Just the cooks.
That's to show the men are, as you say, growing fat and complacent. When you want to tell us about blowing bridges, this also goes on screen:
DAVID My guys are engineers, kind of a do-it-all, fix-all group.
MARIE What kind of thing do you fix?
DAVID [...]
This is not a proper solution, you see how clunky and unnatural too much of this would become. Better to leave out all exposition and trust the reader to grasp the story you are trying to tell; these are men at war and we know what they are facing without showing Hitler ranting at his desk. (HITLER should be in capitals when he is introduced.)
when Peiper opens fire, this is the beginning of "The largest land battle in History." Your story has minor characters on some pointless task suddenly surprised and immediately helpless. Ted says "We gotta get out here and warn them" and they become rabbits in a jeep. The sound of gunfire will have warned everybody anyway. Have your characters take an active part: the pair have been sent to scout for lumber, so perhaps they find a tree that has been smashed to the ground. As you build suspense you can also give story information:
TED What the heck kind of vehicle could have done this?
BAILY Hey, look at these tracks, you think some fool's been trying to manouever a tank up here?
TED That's crazy. Our guys haven't got a tank in twenty miles.
You have a story to tell, I can see it stems from the mystery surrounding the real Peiper's death. Perhaps instead of Inspired By, make it wholly fictional.