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First Call by Harry Boesch - Short, Crime - A rookie police detective experiences his first crime scene investigation with a seasoned partner. Prompt: Dead person in a room. - pdf format
Yes - as far as I could tell it's one location, two characters (plus one additional with <3 lines). It fits within the crime genre and there is certainly a dead body in the room.
Did I like it?
For a one week effort, it does seem well-polished and looks great in terms of on the page style.
Osborne and Hanson certainly have fairly well-established dialogue with only occasional OTN bits. I found their reliance on bickering and swearing at one another a little off-putting. The nature of their relationship could have been established a bit more promptly.
I think an example of where this doesn't work too well is how they back and forth about substantially obvious "clues" - like how did the killer get in? When we (the viewer) have already seen the broken door. Unless you're trying to establish real incompetence from these two it doesn't feel needed.
Not sure what I was expecting but this really quite anticlimactic - it's hard with six pages, but you've only really thrown us in mildly entertaining/mysterious scene and then just kind of had the two cops talk about it, then leave. We know it's Hanson's frist call and he doesn't like the blood, and that the wife won't speak. Then it ends. But why?
A lot of unnatural exchanges between the two cops and in the end nothing comes out of it except one is a rookie and another is an experienced bitter cop.
This one didn't work for me. We see crime scene investigations all the time, you didn't really bring anything new to the table. The characters' banter just felt flat to me. I think this could've been more interesting if you kept it between the wife and the rookie cop, made the senior cop the third variable. Just my thoughts.
I think you're suffering from lack of story here. You have a short scene that seems to be from something bigger. There isn't a pay off. I kept waiting for something to happen but it just didn't. I think the dialog would become better if they had a more tense situation to deal with. As is it's flat. Have the old broad pull out a gun or something. Take us by surprise, add tension. Give that rookie something really big to tackle.
When I read this I thought maybe the prompt was 'you've just got an hour' as they're in such a rush to get initial findings sorted before the coroner arrives - why? Normally in this sort of scene we learn something interesting from the coroner.
The rest of it just felt a little forced for me, nothing inherently wrong with the scene but too formulaic and familiar to hold my attention.
And the end seems to be they leave the scene... needs work imho.
Unfortunately, this didn't work for me for a couple reasons. The big one is that the banter between Hanson and Osborn was clunky. Typical cop stuff but nothing really new or fresh. Second, off the bat, Hanson presents himself as kind of a clown and then he's constantly ridiculed by Osborn. I thought he would have a chance to really redeem himself, but there wasn't much of a payoff. It just...kind of was.
As a scene in something bigger it may be okay, but as a short I feel like it needed more.
This one dragged on for me which isn't great for a short. No story ,twist or impressive dialogue to keep me interested.
Sorry just a bully cop who practically every line was to put the rookie down which seems very unbelievable.
Dead body and the rookie getting ready to throw up at the sight is done over and over. Not sure what the point of the old woman, I actually thought it was a shot of redemption for the rookie and he was gonna make her talk. Kinda in your face to the older cop... but no
Neither Osborn nor Hanson sound like they know what they’re doing. The dialogue doesn’t develop character, or advance the story — it ends the same way as it begins, with a body in the room. And the Wife contributes nothing. All of which leads me to believe the writer intentionally wrote a bad police procedural…
There’s definitely potential for more here. Maybe have the ticking time bomb be getting the info out of the wife before something bad happens like a bomb exploding or something along those lines?
Not much else to say. It feels like it was cut short.
Gabe
Just Murdered by Sean Elwood (Zombie Sean) and Gabriel Moronta (Mr. Ripley) - (Dark Comedy, Horror) All is fair in love and war. A hopeless romantic gay man resorts to bloodshed to win the coveted position of Bridesmaid. 99 pages. https://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-comedy/m-1624410571/
Opening passage is so overwritten and then you end with an orphan. 4 lines that should be 2.
Same thing with the 2nd passage - wasted words, repetition, not well written at all.
Is a 3rd character OK here on the very 1st page? I didn't read the parameters recently, so not sure.
This doesn't seem very realistic at all - the setup, the dialogue, the actions and reactions - all very poorly done.
For me, so far, this doesn't seem to meet the parameters, with the 3 peeps.
Dialogue getting even worse...OTN, unrealistic, just very poor.
The end. Really? That's it? Oh man, not to be mean, but this almost feels like a joke...a bad joke that no one laughs at. There's absolutely no story here at all. Nothing...not even a thread. It's dull, unrealistic and serves absolutely no purpose.
I find the dialogue really awkward and not natural. Miss? She's 78. The detectives conversation right in front of the wife is like she's not in the room. And the 'rookie' didn't see the body on the floor in front of him? And they didn't talk about killing and murder in the academy?
And what was the conflict and resolution to this? The dead body made him feel sick but he left before he did? I'm lost on the whole story, sorry.
This felt more of a cliched skit rather than a crime drama. The dialogue was stiff and predictable at times. This scenario has been played out time and again in police procedurals ever since they became a staple of a television schedule. But in saying that, if you used your remaining four pages to flesh out out the characters a bit more and cut back on the ongoing derision of Hanson and made more of the back and forth to expand the story, you could have a great scene on your hands.
Well done.
If at first you don't succeed........bribe someone.