Survival Mentality by Anonymous - Short, Thriller - Constable Ross ends up in the fight for her life while attending a reported home invasion. 9 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

I'm increasingly of the opinion that you can tell a serious writer from their title alone.

This is a decent one. I'm expecting a good fight for survival.

It was well written, the opening felt real, the tension in the house was good...

...then it started to fall apart, to be brutally honest.

It seemed extremely fortuitous that this cop just happened to be the one that was sent here, and all without even a partner. It was a bit of a leap.

Overall the story felt a bit weak. It's just too simple, with not enough going on. Practically the whole story is just one fight.

Good writer, but not a good story to be perfectly blunt. Sorry, bud.

So, it's not terrible, if not a little overwrought at times. It's OK, to be honest. A simple woman scorned type of story with a brunette cop and a blonde wife crying at home.

I would have actually preferred Constable Ross going there to kill Gwen instead of coming to her rescue. Or them orchestrating a takedown of the husband or maybe having their own affair also. The motivations are so erratic.

Because, if they both knew....whoo...the only ass that would be grass is his.

So, maybe re-work this a little.

I think this one suffers from coincidence and Gwen's convenient planning.  It might work better if Gwen can angle Ross into shooting the hub.  Then, Gwen tells the other police that Ross executed hub, and Gwen had to protect herself?  Revenge is a dish best served cold?

Nicely contained and focused.

You arrive late - that's a compliment- and get down to business

However, the lack of backstory means we have no connection to the main episode.

Lots of positives but probably needed all the pages to,pull this off with meaning.

The coincidence of the constable should be an easy fix.

Was the right story told here? Shouldn't Gwen and Ross be pissed at Gwen's husband? Oh... got it.

Pythons are not generally thought of as ferocious. Relentless is more like it. The GWEN and ROSS would have been acceptable as character names rather than GWEN STANLEY  (WATTERS?) and CONSTABLE ROSS repeated over their dialogue umpteen times. And if Gwen cuts Ross's hand, why is her forearm cut?

A little avoidance of the female perspective?

Not bad. A few orphans, "breathe"/"breath," and I would have shortened the character names above dialogue.

My only big problem was the confusing subplot. How does anybody know of this affair? It's one thing to make your reader/audience guess, but to leave them out of the loop concerning an important subplot and turn everything into a confusing mess... is another thing. If you're gonna leave things to the audience, at least give them some clue as to what's going on.

Overall, a pretty good effort; not too shabby.

Overall, the premise is a good one - but I think the coincidence needs to be worked on (i.e., this Officer just happened to show up at this house at this time).

The descriptions were over done and tedious in some places:

Quoted Text The shrill scream of a woman from inside the house pierces through the air like sharp nails scraping down a chalkboard.

Quoted Text Constable Ross shuffles through the hallway with cat like precision, her firearm always at the ready.

Quoted Text Fading, Ross reaches behind her head, flailing her hands at her attacker like a fish out of water fighting for its last breath.

Nails on a chalkboard, cat like, fish out of water - these are pretty tired metaphors - do more harm then good and are not really needed.

I liked the intro to this but then some things started to jar a little... police person on their own, a  brit cop with a firearm etc...

Some of the description needs a little work, e.g.  shuffles through the hallway with cat like precision - ignoring the fact that it's a little prosey... cats don't really shuffle, I'd go so far as to say that no one shuffles with precision.

But the script moves well and the action is well described too... decent effort,

It seems okay.  It's unusual the police officer was on her own.  In Britain a female cop isn't allowed to go on her own without a male officer to accompany her if it's a call out.  Not sure if America is similar.  If this is set in the U.S. do police officers attend crime scenes on their own?  Do they work on their own?

I wonder how Gwen knows that Ross is working locally, is working on that particular day/night, can show up at her place the quickest, and this person she doesn't like, somehow works in her area.  It does require a leap of Hollywood faith.

With that being said, I do like some films that make no sense that are entertaining, and this story was fair.  I'd say this entry is somewhere in the middle.

All the best,

Javier

Bit of a mixed bag this one.

It's short and sweet, straight down to it with no messing around. I had kinda guessed early doors what was going on, but that didn't really detract from the overall piece.

The pacing seemed to work, and there was certainly a lot of tension which was well constructed, but it just felt like it was lacking something. Maybe it need a couple of more steps before Gwen revealed herself, not sure.

Anyway, decent enough effort.

Cam

Last read for me...I think.

Well, "Constable" and "en-suite bathroom" let us know we're in Europe or we're dealing with a non American writer.

Out of 4 passages over 1 line on Page 1, 2 are left in orphans.

Most of Page 1 is a waste, really, and at only 8 pages, this has me worried. Way to many wrylies and they continue onto Page 2 - you're just eating up lines for no reason,

The cliche descriptors don't come off well...and really, never will.  Avoid these in the future.

2 more orphans on Page 2.

"FRONT DOOR" is a common mistake, used as a Slug.  he's not "in" the front door.  She's in the entry or whatever other name that means the same thing, but not "front door".  And this becomes more clear, as you have her climbing the stairs in this same Slug heading.

Page 3 - 1st passage ends in "the room", which is basically yet another orphan.

"drawers" and "its" do not go hand and hand.

And yet another orphan!  Dude...seriously, you're wasting so much space, which means there really isn't much here.

As so many peeps get wrong, in dialogue, you must set off all names or anything used as a name with a comma(s).

"cat-like precision" huh?  Oh boy...lose these descriptors!!!

Oh man...now like a python squeezing its food?  C'mon...I can't even take this seriously with these.

"like a fish out of water fighting for its last  breath." - Classic...Classic example of an absolutely terrible description and because of it, another orphan.

Notice on Page 5 how you called your Protag "Ross" for the 1st time.  Up till now, you've been calling her "Constable Ross" over and over.  You need to keep it the same throughout and "Ross" is the way to go here.

A knife just slashed her hand, yet it leaves a cut on her forearm?  How does that work?

Another orphan!!!  I feel so bad for these little tykes!!!

OK, no more detailed notes.

So, all of a sudden Ross understands who Gwen is?  How?  Why didn't she know at first?  How did Gwen set this up so Ross wold be the sole responder?  Doesn't make any sense and is so far from being remotely believable.

Such a simple genre to work with.  Seems to me you didn't give this much thought.  Some will probably say it's well written, but it's not, which is too bad, as it appears you can write quite well, but your use of so many old cliches, overwriting, orphans just shoot down the talent you do possess.

Sorry to be harsh, but this is my last read and I was hoping for so much more.    

I liked the set-up but got really confused whether the Constable knew Gwen when they first met or had the epiphany once Gwen started beating on her. She all of a sudden knew who she was up against at that point. A lot of loose threads on this story and unrealistic situations. Perhaps a small town Mayberry, UK?

Good pace and tension, just too many distractions.

No names in loglines.  At that point no one cares about the character’s name.

Page 5, since nothing is really gripping me so far, I’m making a pointless prediction.  

“Mrs. Watters” was actually the criminal here pretending to be the homeowner.

Yeah, ok.  Good.

This is like the 5th or 6th script with the word “cunt” in it.  I’m no prude, but it seems like men really think women constantly call each other “cunts.”

Overall, this was pretty straight forward.  Not the worst.  Wife got the cop she wanted, and almost took care of her husband’s side piece.  I liked the fact you had the antagonist pretend to be innocent.  To me, that’s a really good technique that I think about be utilized more often in stories.  I once wrote a cornball story about a guy who pretends to be a thief when another thief breaks into his house, and they ends up “splitting” the goods.  It sucked, but I always liked that approach.  That small scene reminded me of that for some reason.  No one cares though.

This wasn’t terrible.  Not a big fan of the title.

Quoted Text This is like the 5th or 6th script with the word “cunt” in it.  I’m no prude, but it seems like men really think women constantly call each other “cunts.”

Why are you one of the few who understands this???????