Family Dough by Ima Masterbaker - Western: Padlock, Financial Advisor, Bakery

First review.  Some interesting variables here mixed into a Western. A lot of detail of the town and the different shops and chars. You need to have the location and date in a seperate SUPER and not in the slug.

Wasn’t really that much of a story but the dialogue was quite good. The padlock was shoehorned in - that will happen a lot in this tourney lol - but the others were fine. The theme was so-so.  I think peeps will overlook any skimping on the theme as long as the other variables are used inventively...I know I will!  Good job

I rarely write Westerns cos I'm a Brit but I do enjoy reading them!

Really liked this one, a great slice of life tone to it and really evocative of the setting and period.

I think there's a little too much exposition in some of the dialogue but that's forgivable given the constraints we're working under (Sean!) but smooth read other than that.

SPOILER

I did not see the twist coming, very effective! Great tie in to the theme throughout too!

Western: Padlock, Financial Advisor, Bakery


I did wonder how the financial diver would appear

all the criteria suitably met IMO. a few shooting cowboys thrown in to make sure  

theme - yup, thats fine for me. family business and all that

storywise, a fair effort and given time and more space could breath a little more.

for example, Patrick is more of a mystery and the financial advisor has no background - which of course they don't with five pages. selling without signatures, not sure of, but not an issue for now

a warm ending

Hi,

An emotional tug on the old heart-strings and a decent story too.
Good dialogue, easily visualised and heartwarming.
I liked the nice touch where Patrick thought he had broke his mothers heart only for his mother to pull the iron out the fire.
Mother's know best.
I really liked this script.

Well done.

Nice little tale and some fine world-building here.

For some odd reason, I really struggled with this one, though. Little things kept throwing me... like, Mary waves as Patrick passes by, then Sarah walks out of the shop and he tips his cap to her. Did he pass by, or not? It's just a small detail -- not important at all, but it threw me. And, it kept happening in different ways. I just couldn't get my bearings in the read.

Still, good script overall.

A nice little story set in the west. A few formatting issues and spelling but nothing to get my shorts in a bunch. Writing was a bit busy, even overwritten in places with 'so what' information and detail. Hank, the financial advisor, is a stretch. Who is he to give that advice? We're never told who he is. I had to go back and read it again to see where the financial advisor requirement was addressed.

Overall, a nice story. Nice work, writer.

I'm impressed with the Westerns so far.

A very clean read with no hiccups.

Good dialogue - easy on the ear, you hit the theme and the elements, and it was a complete story. It just all seemed to resolve a bit too smoothly for me. I felt it needed another element of drama or surprise or suspense. That's not easy to do in five pages though... I get it.

I'm glad to see another entry that's not about killing in the pile. Shows range to the theme.

And this one is definitely on the theme.

I could visualize them talk and live like that. I mean it has a very western feel to it indeed.

A bit easy on conflict but some stories should be.

Nice moral at the end with the wise mother who knows it all. Seems as if the theme is satisfied.

This one felt, I'm not sure what the word is - thick? Lots of words and explanations.  The conversation Mary has with her helper at the beginning is all exposition. I get it, you've got 5 pages to tell a story. But I think there were places to save to help that develop organically.

This one suffers from a logic problem for me; The financial advisor, who's a criteria item, tells Patrick that because Earp will clean up the town, it's time to sell, because his property will double in value, almost literally as bullets are whizzing by him. He sells the next day. Did he get double for his property? And he sells because he wants his mom out of Dodge (literally - cool use there). So the reason he sells is not the reason he was given by the advisor.

A minor point because, absent the parameters, you don't need the advisor. So do you have a marketable script apart from the challenge? I think this sentiment is sweet, if not entirely original. It could probably exist anywhere, and probably makes more sense existing outside of the genre, so for me it didn't have too much of Western feel but then again, Dodge City can't really jump off the page like it would on screen.

AJR

The western world building here is excellent. You really setup this town and the people in it.

The dialogue needs work. The opening conversation is a lot of exposition. Mary and Sarah mention that Mary's husband has gone (in varying ways) at least five times in their chat.

It was well written, I just felt myself drifting. A western about selling property and setting up a baking business wasn't compelling enough to keep my interest perked. A nice variation on the theme with a twist I didn't see coming - it just needs more obstacles to overcome and threat other than guns going off in the distance. With 5 pages to write, this is tough, and something you could do with another couple of pages.

Week 2 ticked off, well done writer!

-Mark

Nice characterizations of the people and town of Dodge. Patrick’s reason for selling the bakery was to get the money to send his mother away to a safer place, not realizing that the bakery was Mary’s life. In the end, he repudiates everything his father stood for, by staying to work at his mother’s bakery. A nice take on the theme.

If locations and dates are are important to the story they would be better served in a SUPER.

A bit of exposition and the long blocks of dialogue can feel like a chore.

It was okay, again I'm not your audience.