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Very nice tale, if a little ... dare I say, sedate? Starts with commotion but becomes a bit 'telling' imho. Moral narratives can tend to be a bit pedestrian after the fact unless there's action in flashback.
With five pages you didn't really have much space to give full thrust to the emotional and viseral content of King's death, but the concrete slab came close.
...well, the rich folk, the celebrities. They stopped coming. I do think that should be one sentence, not two, but hey, nit-picking.
A trademark 'tell' too on the writer, but I won't spoil it.
Interesting little story. The theme, in this case, is Jacqueline trying to win at her cost. Very steadfast and firm on her beliefs. All the other requisites were met, no qualms.
I read LC's mention of a 'tell', which I caught but can't remember who uses that phrase often.
I love reading these historical entries. What a very cool story you chose to tell. I think it's worth expanding so you can show it rather than tell most of it through dialogue.
All variables present and awesome story. Just needs more room to do Jaqueline justice. Nice work, writer.
I've heard of MLK of course (one of my friends was born on the exact day he was murdered) but I didn't know of any of this backstory.
Elaborately researched and written but it is a heavy subject and this takes some of the flow away. But great use of the variables which are actually on a par with the shit list I received lol!
Would have liked to have learned more about Jacqueline. There were lots of characters in this, kind of like a feature put into a five-page script. Done well, nonetheless.
A longer version would be interesting to tell parallel stories: Jacqueline and President Carter.
A nice piece of history you've got here. Historical slowly becoming my favorite genre and it never was before. Some of the best scripts in the challenge turn out to be historical.
Yours is very good too. In the rewrite watch that dialog I'd say. The sentences that could be together and separated by a period. And it's throughout.
Carter an Jacqueline sound a bit alike. I would like her to have a bit of something. Somethng more. Other than that, a captivating read.
A great tale to tell, though as pointed out right now just about all of it’s in dialog.
Jacqueline and Carter are both Southerners, so it’s not immediately obvious how to make them sound different. There’s a difference in education, and there are enough things that Carter said and write that it shouldn’t be too hard to find a phrase or two that he repeats a lot. (I’m reminded of the time Jimmy Carter guest-starred on King of the Hill.)
All elements met. A little overwritten at the beginning but for me, this is all one long conversation and drawn out. The chat with the couple is irrelevant, for example, and actually confused matters for me , I had to go back and re-read that part.
There is an opportunity here to go beyond the historical facts and explore more about Jacqueline in a story which reflects what she was trying to achieve rather than her telling us.
Historically, it is fascinating though and well written.
-Mark
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Can't believe I didn't know of this woman before reading this. Thanks for teaching me something.
Her story is amazing.
That said, I didn't feel the power of this story in the way that I probably should have. I think it's because so much of this short is dialogue-driven. There's just a heaviness to the large dialogue blocks.
If you rewrite, and I'd really suggest you do (the story is definitely worth it), I'd suggest dropping all of the airplane stuff (probably only in there for the challenge anyway) and using the pages to highlight her challenges through action -- similar to how you use the truck driver to illustrate opposition.
As a larger project, it could be interesting to tell the story from 3 sides: King, Smith and Carter.
Cool short. Thanks for sharing.
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I'm not up to date on modern American history so I'll assume that this story is based somewhat in fact not fiction. An interesting story nonetheless, enjoyed most of the dialogue but thought the start was a bit too 'fawning' but I did like it.
Well done.
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